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Last update: March 11, 2003
A stereo driver may have 4 different purposes:
(1) Standard VGA driver functionality (so no additional VGA-driver is
required)
(2) Creating 3D-Content by analyzing the depth-information (z-buffer)
from the Direct3D or OpenGL interface
(3) Tweaking the VGA board to put it into page-flipping, interlace
or dual-output mode.
(4) Trigger the 3D-shutterglasses (or 3D-display) by sending a trigger
signal or a color code
| (1)
VGA driver |
(2)
Creating 3D-Content |
(3)
Tweak VGA-board |
(4)
Trigger 3D-Glasses |
|
| nVidia Detonator plus nVidia Stereo | yes | yes | yes | yes (DCC) |
| Asus VGA driver with VR | yes | yes | yes | yes (timing) |
| Revelator Generic (outdated) | yes | yes | yes | yes (DCC) |
| VRCaddy | no | yes | no | no |
| WINx3D | no | no | yes | yes (all) |
| Wicked3D (outdated) | no | yes | no | yes (colorcode) |
| H3D/E-D/Eye3D Activator/Controller | no | no | no | yes (colorcode) |
| 3Dplus/X3D movie/TV converter | no | yes (artificial) | no | yes (colorcode) |
| VFX3D driver | no | yes | no | no |
| more3D | no | yes | yes (dual-out) | no |
| LCDBios (outdated, MS-DOS) | no | no | yes | yes (ser/par port) |
A "3D-Flipping-Driver",
like WINx3D just tries to force your VGA-card into interlace or page-flipping
mode.
It usually doesn't produce any stereo-information
by itself. The application or game has to provide this. Exceptions are
the drivers by ELSA, Wicked3D and ASUS which calculate the stereo perspectives
from raw data delivered by popular 3D-API's such as MS Direct3D.
BTW
Ghazali's
very useful H3D/eyeSCREAM-Activator-Utility is NOT a driver, it's just
a switch!
|
If you're looking for a stereo application driver take WINx3D, it's the best! For a stereo game driver check this chart. |
| Driver | 3D-BIOS
for dos & windows
|
3DS-BIOS
for dos & windows
|
3D Win
for windows
|
ASUS
VR100 drivers |
ELSA
Revelator drivers |
LCD-BIOS &
derivatives: nuvfrag, mpm3db, q-lcd, simuleyes-sdk for dos
|
SG-TOGGLE
for windows |
SSDI
(standard stereoscopic device interface) for dos & windows |
VR-Viewer (VR97)
for windows
|
VESA 3.0
for dos & windows |
VR-BIOS
for dos & windows |
VRCaddy
for windows |
Wicked3D eyeSCREAM/
i-Art Eye3D game driver |
WINx3D
stereoscopic library, including 'Interlace Control for Windows' |
WinSPEX
for windows 95 only
|
| Purpose | flipping only | flipping only | flipping only | flipping & stereo calculation from Direct3D data | flipping & stereo calculation from Direct3D data | flipping only | flipping only | flipping only | flipping only | flipping only | flipping only | stereo calculation only (from Direct3D data) | stereo calculation only (from D3D, GL & Glide-data) | flipping only | flipping only |
| Developer | Kasan Electronics | Russian Shield | i-Art,
also distr. by
VR Standard Corp. |
ASUS | ELSA | Donald Sawdai | AfterByte Software on behalf of Stereographics | Vrex and Donald Sawdai | Meta Media Inc. on behalf of APEC, TW | VESA Organization | Vrex | alt.software
Inc. for
VRStandard Corp. |
Wicked3D | The Win3D company | NuVision |
| Download Site | Kasan
SE,
VMS , Kasan, stereo3d |
Russian Shield | i-Art (update only, original driver CD required) | ASUS | ELSA | stereo3d
since
the official site is down |
Stereographics | not yet;
development ceased !?! |
APEC, TW | SciTech (SDD 6.0) | VRex (update only, original driver CD required) | VRStandard Corp. | Wicked3D
i-Art (update only, original driver CD required) |
Win3D (30 day evaluation) | Nuvision |
| Screen modes | Interlace | Interlace | Interlace | Interlace &
Page-Flipping |
Software- Page-Flipping | Software- Page-Flipping | Interlace
(plus White Line Code) |
Page-Flipping
& Interlace |
Interlace | Hardware- Page-Flipping | Interlace (the low-res basic modes use page flipping) | standard | standard | software page flipping, hardware page flipping, interlace, line-sequential, over/under, anaglyph, | Hardware- (and Software-???) Page-Flipping |
| Supported Controller Types | proprietary ISA 8-bit slot
card (old type I requires feature connector)
or Kasan VGA-card with on-board controller |
proprietary ISA 8-bit slot card ??? | VGA-pass-through,
WLC-VGA-pass through, (3D-Max ISA) |
VGA-pass through | VGA-pass through, proprietary signaling for Revelator | serial-, parallel-, I/O-port,
on board, some VGA-pass through
(there are drawbacks on VGA-pt controllers) For reversing stereo in LCD-BIOS swap the LL and RR numbers in LCDCtrl:/AALLRROO |
WLC-VGA-pass through, VGA-pass through | ALL (almost), including par., ser., VGA, on-board, free view, anaglyph, polarization, exotic stuff (in the future) | VGA-pass-through | VESA miniDIN-3 connector on graphics board, VGA-pass through | VGA-pass through | VGA-pass through | sync-doubler | ALL (almost), including VGA pass through, Simuleyes WLC, H3D color code, parallel, serial, anaglyph | Parallel port (3D-SPEX addressing), some VGA-pass through |
| Typical Refresh Rates | 80 to 150 Hz (S3) | usually anything your hardware can handle | 100 to 160 Hz | 50 to 150 Hz | 60 to 160 Hz or even higher when used with the right hardware and refresh-utility | 80 to 120 Hz (S3) | anything your hardware can handle | up to 120 Hz | up to 150 Hz ? | can be fine tuned with integrated utility, hardware dependent (typical: 100 to 130Hz) | 100 to 160 Hz | ||||
| Current Version | v2.53 (1995) & v3.0 beta
(1996), hellooo Kasan, 96 is over, hellooo (you know that Jay Lenno-style
"hellooo")
3DS: |
v2.0 new (1997) | (1999) | (1999) | (1999) | v1.31 (1996) | v1.0.0.3 (1997) | 1.0 (1997) | 1.0 (1996) | 1997 | v1.3 (1997) | 1999 | 1998 | V 2.0 (1999). | v 2.1 (1997) |
| Compatible Products | Kasan 3D-Max | Russian Shield Stereo Set | Virtual Eyes and other VGA-pass-through devices, including SimulEyes (i.e. WLC) and 3D-Max (3D-BIOS still requ.) | ASUS VR-100, VR-Joy, VR-Surfer, EyeFX, Virtual Eyes, Eye3D, VGA-pt, VR97, Cyber3DVisor, Another I's | VR-Joy, EyeFX, i-Art, VGA-pt, VR97, Cyber3DVisor, Another I's | full support: Cyberboy, 3DSpex,
Cybershades, Virtual Visor,
limited support: VR97, Cyber3DVisor, Total3D, VGA-pt, VR-Joy and more |
Stereographics SimulEyes and other VGA-pass-through products (the SimulEyes work with LCD-BIOS too, as long as there is a White Line Code) | Almost all (in the future | VR97 and other VGA-pass-through products (the VR97 uses LCD-BIOS under DOS) | Hercules Stingray (new model), Thriller, Diamond Fire GL 1000 and more | VRex VRSurfer , some other VGA-pass-through devices | VR-Joy, EyeFX, Eye3D, AnotherI's, CyberMaxx | eyeSCREAM, H3D, StereoGraphics EPC2, NuVision 60GX-NSR, homebrew SD, (certain models by Neotek/3DTV) | ALL (almost) | NuVision
3DSpex
and compatibles
(does not run on Cyrix/IBM 6x86 processors) |
| Emulations (backward compatibility) | HMD's;
(LCD-BIOS - can be difficult, but works sometimes) |
HMD's;
(LCD-BIOS - can be difficult, but works sometimes)
|
3D-BIOS (partial) | VR-BIOS and more | not yet (please write some <g) | LCD-BIOS (partial)
3D-BIOS (partial) HMD's |
|||||||||
| Image Formats | Line sequential | Line sequential | Line sequential | Line sequential | Field sequential | Line sequential,
Field sequential |
Line sequential | Line sequential, Field sequential, above-below, side-by-side, anaglyph | Line sequential | Line sequential (?),
Field sequential |
Line sequential,
(Field sequential) |
Line sequential | above-below split-screen | Stereo Pairs are converted into any format required for the actual hardware used | (Line sequential?), Field sequential |
| Specific Software Titles (just a selection) | Hi-Octane, Magic Carpet, Nascar Racing | Windows titles | almost all Direct3D | almost all Direct3D | Whiplash, Slipstream 5000, In Pursuit of Greed | Windows titles | Windows titles | Windows titles | Windows titles, almost no native DOS software written for VR-BIOS, but most titles for 3D/LCD-BIOS work. | almost all Direct3D, miniOpenGL & Glide | those enabled by the Win3D stereoscopic library | Special Windows titles | |||
| Windows desktop compatible | YES | YES | YES | YES | NO | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES (?) | YES | NO | YES | limited | |
| VGA-chipset-specific | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | NO | YES | YES | YES | YES | (YES) | YES | YES | YES | |
| VGA-Chipset compatibility | common chipsets from S3, Tseng,
ATI, ARK, CL and some more, new: Matrox announced
(don't count on it), must support VESA
check VMS for a complete list |
ATI,
Cirrus Logic, Trident (up to 9750/9850 AGP 3D), Tseng (up to ET6000), S3 (up to VirgeGX2), NEW: Matrox, intel, SiS, NVidia |
TNT, TNT2 (ASUS only) | TNT, TNT2, Savage4Pro, Banshee (ELSA only) | compatible to almost all chipsets, uses standard VGA and VESA modes | common chipsets, Windows desktop only, 8 bit (256 colors) only in most cases | In the future each chipset
will get what it needs,
current version 1.00 for VRSurfer supports most common chipsets, which support interlace, including S3, Tseng, ATI, Matrox (!) |
common chipsets, Windows desktop modes only, all resolutions and color depth. | chipsets with VESA 3.0 driver support | Basic modes: compatible to
almost all chipsets,
Advanced modes: chipset must be specifically supported (most common chipsets which support interlace), (Advaned modes are very much recommended) |
Version 2.5:
3dfx_Voodoo_2/3/Banshee, ATI Rage_128/128GL, intel_i749/752, Matrox_G200,
|
Matrox, S3, ATI, 3DLabs, 3Dfs, nVidia, and others | common chipsets, Windows full-screen mode only |
Download LCD-BIOS and read the documentation. It's long and complicated, but you'll learn a lot about 3D and Shutterglasses in general. 3D-BIOS is also discussed in-depth. LCD-BIOS is the de-facto driver industry standard for LC-Shutterglasses. The new VESA 3.0 standard is promising however. There's a special version of LCD-BIOS for NuVisions 3D-SPEX called NuvFrag. Initially designed to run DOS-QUAKE, it can be used to force other programs into stereo mode too!!! I successfully tested it on Shattered Steel (i-glasses mode) and Terminal Velocity (CyberMaxx patch). (Syntax: nufrag lock run:"name of program"). It can also be used to watch any "alternate line" stereo image with any normal DOS-Image-Viewer. NUVFRAG adds Quake, HMD and hi-res 3D-Max compatibility to LCD-BIOS!!! NuvFrag was designed for Nuvisions own 3D-SPEX glasses. It doesn't seem to work on serial port devices. Technically it contains the LCD-BIOS code and some inspiration by Marius who did the first Quake-LCD-BIOS hack.
Since most drivers doesn't complain if no controller is present it's
possible to do some drydock testing on your video hardware before
buying glasses. There is a 3D-BIOS emulation in LCD-BIOS, but this doesn't
work in hi-res (640 and up), it doesn't work with windows and it doesn't
work with "w3d.exe" or "cyberon.com". The original 3D-BIOS only runs if
a Kasan 3D-Max ISA slot or a special Kasan VGA card is installed. "w3d.exe"
and "cyberon.com" are only switches which call functions of 3D-BIOS. Without
3D-BIOS they're useoess.