VMD-L Mailing List

From: MJR (redmond_at_engr.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 21:14:35 CST

On the "low end", NVidia Quadro 550, 700 and 750 XGL all have quad buffer
stereo that can be made to work with stereo in a window applications. There
are glitches and limitations, especially on Linux. Please look at the list
archive for specific information regarding VMD/Linux issues. The 900XGL is
more high-end and has compatibility issues with low-end wired shutter
glasses. There are lots of other workstation level cards that can also do
shutter glass stereo with OpenGL (there are some lists at the VMD and
Stereographics sites).

We have started testing eDimensional glasses that are similar (or possibly
the same) as some others (i-glasses for example). These are "in-line"
shutter glasses (for wired type) that use a dongle between the VGA port and
the monitor. There is also a wireless version that is actually compatible
with the Crystaleyes style DIN connector of the 700 and 750XGL cards (and
the 900XGL card).

You want to find a monitor with high horizontal (and therefore vertical)
scan rate. For example, we put together a DELL system with their high-end
P1130 monitor, horizontal scan rate of 130Khz. We are able to operate this
monitor at 144Hz vertical refresh at 1024 X 768 with the low-end shutter
glasses. You should be able to get to 1024 X 768 at 120Hz with a lower-end
monitor like their P992 specified with a 107Khz max horizontal scan rate.

We built our low-end stereo computer on a small-form-factor Dell GX260.
Only the 550XGL card fits in this box, but when it is configured, it ends
up be relatively easy to transport. These and other boxes can now be
configured with P4 3Ghz processors and 2G memory (if you want to pay the
price). Our compromise is 2.66Ghz P4 with 1G memory.

GeForce cards are not really compatible with stereo in a window for legacy
apps. There are utilities that try to fool existing apps to use Geforce
cards, but the ones I have tried haven't worked very well (don't have the
names on this computer).

Good luck...
Thanks
Mike Redmond

(ps in searching for the GL utilities I happened to notice this page:

http://ross.ch.ic.ac.uk/stereo/howto1_PatchedDrivers.html

It tells how to get patched NVidia drivers for the Geforce cards so they do
Quad Buffer stereo...but under Windows. Interesting but I haven't tested it) 

---
At 08:18 PM 1/26/2003 +0530, Y. U. Sasidhar wrote:
>Could you pl suggest monitor, graphics card and crytal eyes/eye3d for 
>windows and linux platform on intel p4/xeons. I am interested in hardware 
>stereo in a window.
>For example samtron/viewsonic 17/19''; geforce are compatible with 
>hardware stereo ?
>
>--
>Sasidhar
>
>