NVIDIA 3D VISION SURROUND Experience @ [H]

Chameleoki said:
Kyle- do you know if it has the same problem with different brand monitors that ATI has? IE no bezel management if you have different model monitors?
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I do not know, but I will ask.

parityOCP said:
That's a good point: how is 3D handled? Doesn't it effectively have to generate two sets of images for each frame? Or something like that?
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Simple answer, yes.

bizzmeister said:
BUT, I feel like this technology requires graphics power not avaliable on the market today to make the latest games playable at the highest settings.
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Sounds like you would be better off console gaming. Nothing new here to see in how the PC product cycle ebbs and flows.
 
torimish said:
Yep, it is. I think it should be OK for most of the games I play. It's highly overclocked and under H2O. I usually run 8xAA on things like BFBC2; and apparently with the pixel density of the u2711, AA isn't so necessary. I will probably be limited to 2xAA.

Keep in mind I'm not going to be using 3D, just the 2D Nvidia Surround.

I guess if things dont perform properly, I'll just have to upgrade the GPU also ... thing is, I scored an amazing quote from a Dell rep on the u2711's, it would be hard to ignore.
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I have seen a 5850 push 3x1 30" displays, but the games had to be toned down pretty much. My personal thoughts on going with a set of displays like that is having that much real estate then having to turn the eye candy off sucks. I run 3x1 Dell U2410 and a single GPU just does not cut it in terms of IQ for me personally. Waiting for my second 5870 2GB to show up so I can replace my 5970 config.
 
You should probably be thankful for console gaming. It became trivially easy to play almost any game at 19x12 so engineers decided to change things up by bringing the experience to three monitors.

If we were still on the Crysis-like treadmill, requiring a new GPU every 6 months to get playable frames on the latest games on a single monitor, Eyefinity would have probably never been invented. But since so many PC games are based on console-ported DX9 engines, we can pretty comfortably play many games on not only one screen but three.
 
Matrices said:
You should probably be thankful for console gaming. It became trivially easy to play almost any game at 19x12 so engineers decided to change things up by bringing the experience to three monitors.

If we were still on the Crysis-like treadmill, requiring a new GPU every 6 months to get playable frames on the latest games on a single monitor, Eyefinity would have probably never been invented. But since so many PC games are based on console-ported DX9 engines, we can pretty comfortably play many games on not only one screen but three.
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Yup, thats true but lets not go off topic and start a whole war about console vs pc now lol, not that we are trying to but some clown is bound to read this text and get started lol.


ANYWAYS, Kyle is there is a way to switch from 3 screens to 1 with a press of a button or clicking on something on you're desktop ? I ask because lets say I want to play a game that doesnt support nvsurround and I just want to switch quickly to my middle monitor only for this one game, can it be done ?
 
thanks Kyle,

sadly i screwed up on my PC build, as i got a two-slot crossfire board which prevents my first VaporX 5870 from breathing properly when the second is installed, but i'll get to three screen gaming eventually.
 
bizzmeister said:
ANYWAYS, Kyle is there is a way to switch from 3 screens to 1 with a press of a button or clicking on something on you're desktop ? I ask because lets say I want to play a game that doesnt support nvsurround and I just want to switch quickly to my middle monitor only for this one game, can it be done ?
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I did not test it, but I would ASSUME there are hot key profiles in there for that. I did see places to store you profiles in the drive control panel. I have already fully broken the system down to repair the chassis and to send the panels to Brent for performance testing. Sorry I can't look quickly.

That said, like when discussing falling back and forth between NV Surround modes while testing Splinter Cell: Conviction I did not use the NV control panel. I simply adjusted the screen resolution to single display default in the Windows Resolution Settings panel. And just set it back to NV Surround resolution from there. I was surprised it worked like that, because ATI's will not. NV's implementation is a bit more elegant and easy to work with.
 
Does Nvidia require 3 identical display to do bezel compensation or will you just have to match the resolution?

ATi eyefinity right now will NOT do bezel compensation without matching EID from all the monitors which is a huge minus.
 
parityOCP said:
So if producing a 3D image results in one or more images per frame, is anti-aliasing applied to each image in each frame?
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Yep. So you are seeing now where AA and 3D can start sucking up a ton of memory bandwidth.

I would highly suggest checking out EVGA's Precision tool. It has some things in it that I have personally been asking NVIDIA for, for over 7 years now. NV PerfHUD is a developer app that gives you all kinds of tools to see what is going on under the hood with the GPU. NV will not release it reviewers. But the things that we have really wanted have been an on-game-screen display that shows us GPU usages and Memory usages. EVGA Precision will do this and it is not locked to EVGA cards. GREAT TOOL! Asus has one for AMD GPUs as well. You can see real quick if you are GPU limited or Memory limited.
 
Igg said:
Does Nvidia require 3 identical display to do bezel compensation or will you just have to match the resolution?

ATi eyefinity right now will NOT do bezel compensation without matching EID from all the monitors which is a huge minus.
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Already asked in this thread. I asked NVIDIA, but did not get a solid answer yet. Here is what NV had to say about that off hand.

I am not aware of that limitation off hand. Our dev team hasn’t raised that as an issue. I will ask our dev team ASAP.
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SO information forthcoming. I don't even have mix and match monitors to test that.
 
Thanks for asking Kyle. You are always very thorough in your reviews and then the follow up questions. It's why I keep coming back to [H].
 
heatlesssun said:
I'm not a big fan of vendor lock in but at the same time vendors do need a way to distinguish themselves to give people a reason to buy their products beyond performance.
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CUDA, PhysX, and 3D are not the features that will give them that distinguished edge though. I think 3D will stay proprietary because it really does not matter, right? One might be better than the other, but it is still seen as a gimmicky add-on by most and is totally done on the driver side of the equation, so who cares? CUDA could live on the app side, but proprietary physics is dead as far as gaming is concerned. We have watched it die a slow and painful death over the last 5 years. Open source physics is better for all involved, Red and Green included.
 
I agree about CUDA and Physx, but not necessarily 3D. 3D is enjoying a heyday (whether it's a passing fad, as it was ten years ago, remains to be seen) with Sony pushing it on the PS3 and its TVs, the movie industry, and probably other 3D TV manufacturers - along with Nintendo and its new handheld.

In fact, PC gaming might be a very good candidate for 3D gaming, and eventually getting rid of the glasses, since there is just one user sitting directly in front of the screen.

3D+triple monitor is another issue, though.
 
Matrices said:
I agree about CUDA and Physx, but not necessarily 3D. 3D is enjoying a heyday (whether it's a passing fad, as it was ten years ago, remains to be seen) with Sony pushing it on the PS3 and its TVs, the movie industry, and probably other 3D TV manufacturers - along with Nintendo and its new handheld.

In fact, PC gaming might be a very good candidate for 3D gaming, and eventually getting rid of the glasses, since there is just one user sitting directly in front of the screen.

3D+triple monitor is another issue, though.
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It looked like 3D + surround wasn't even at playable framerates with 480SLI, I don't see it catching on considering the cost of entry and lack of playable frames.
 
Rizen said:
MSI Afterburner can be used to display GPU usage via the on-screen overlay, which can be bound to hot keys and turned on/off at will. It's also usable on both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. It's my favorite overclocking + GPU tool at the moment, and seems to have a fairly low system footprint. It does not have the memory usage yet to my knowledge, but that would be a good suggestion for enhancement. It's written by the programmer of RivaTuner so I assume he could do it!
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I have used MSI Afterburner, but I did not see the on-screen option in it before. I will check next time.

Tamlin_WSGF said:
3D relies on stereo vision by using both eyes, while surround is more for the peripherial vision, did you actually see any 3D with the side screens, or did you have to turn your head?

And, will there be any benchmarks between Eyefinity and Nvidia surround anytime soon? Brent perhaps?
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Oh yes, I got 3D perception in all three screens looking ahead. Yes, looking directly at the side screen gave me more defined distances between objects, but at no time did I get the feeling I had 3D in front of me and 2D on the sides.

And yes, Brent will have some comparisons.
 
Now they need to remove Sli limitations from chipsets considering how many potential buyers with amd cpus will be locked out of using this and selling pair of gtx 460 should be better than hoping someone buys nf chipset based mobo.
 
Rizen said:
Yep, it's definitely nice. Go into the settings and there is a tab for the On Screen Display, I believe. I'm not at my home PC so I can't tell you the step by step instructions but you'll see it. You have to set each of the monitored functions (GPU, memory, FPS, etc) to show in the OSD individually, and then bind a hot key to enable/disable the OSD in-game. Works great once it's setup.
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You can also show this stuff in the G15 LCD, I think. Do note however that there is a performance penalty with this. There are some monitoring features that will actually cause stuttering in games.
 
I dunno. 3d still seems gimmicky to me until the implementation gets a lot better. I've never been too impressed by the old blue/red glasses 3d experience. Yes there was some increase in depth perception, but there is still the problem that just a few certain elements stand out as 3d while the background still looks flat. This causes the image to have an artificial, unrealistic feel. Kind of like those pop out books, if you know what I mean.

There would have to be some kind of breakthrough that would hopefully free us from having to wear glasses/shutters that would make the WHOLE image appear 3d to make me buy into it as seriously revolutionary tech.
 
Michaelius said:
Now they need to remove Sli limitations from chipsets considering how many potential buyers with amd cpus will be locked out of using this and selling pair of gtx 460 should be better than hoping someone buys nf chipset based mobo.
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Never thought about the SLI requirement limiting your other computing parts choices.

Eyefinity works on just about all systems right since it doesn't require crossfire? We truly do need one open standard for multi-monitor gaming but I bet it will be at least 10 years if ever before it ever comes to fruition.
 
Will wait for official drivers and a full review. I'd love to see how well they do with a 3x1 portrait setup, as some games really suck hind tit when it comes to 3x1 landscape. And some benchmarks comparing SLI'ed 480's and 460's against Crossfired 5870's and single 5870's, all doing tripple head would be great. I could care less about the 3D part.


IMO, a 5870 is just barely enough power for tripplehead. And crossfire performance scales like shit with eyefinity. If nvidia does a solid job here, I might switch back over.
 
So, for a person in my position who would like to get into multi-monitor gaming, which is the better option?

The only thing that bugs me is that I would essentially have to buy 3 new monitors and either another GTX 285 or 2 new other cards. Whereas with Eyefinity I only need two more monitors, 1 new card, and a display port adapter/cables.

The cost to go the NV Surround path seems quite prohibitive so I am not sure how plausible it is as an option for people on the fence comparing ATI to NV.

Eliminating the desire to run 3D, are there any benefits to going the NV Surround route over ATI (outside of not needing Display port adapters/cables)?

Thanks for your time!
 
BoogerBomb said:
Never thought about the SLI requirement limiting your other computing parts choices.

Eyefinity works on just about all systems right since it doesn't require crossfire? We truly do need one open standard for multi-monitor gaming but I bet it will be at least 10 years if ever before it ever comes to fruition.
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Not only that but 3D multi-monitor gaming is already possible on AMD graphics cards.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1529404

Sapphire showed this off a few days ago. Surprised there was no mention of this here since people kept talking about Nvidia's 3D solution. Looks like competition is going to heat up.
 
Rock&Roll said:
Will wait for official drivers and a full review. I'd love to see how well they do with a 3x1 portrait setup, as some games really suck hind tit when it comes to 3x1 landscape. And some benchmarks comparing SLI'ed 480's and 460's against Crossfired 5870's and single 5870's, all doing tripple head would be great. I could care less about the 3D part.


IMO, a 5870 is just barely enough power for tripplehead. And crossfire performance scales like shit with eyefinity. If nvidia does a solid job here, I might switch back over.
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I too can't wait to see what the performance does in portrait. I have a 5970 and it usually is going to waste as 3x1 portrait mode as it is my preferred gaming mode and eyefinity does not function properly in 3x1 portrait mode with DX9 games (I.E. Borderlands) :(

Guess I need to play more DX10 games. :)
 
Arklight said:
So, for a person in my position who would like to get into multi-monitor gaming, which is the better option?

The only thing that bugs me is that I would essentially have to buy 3 new monitors and either another GTX 285 or 2 new other cards. Whereas with Eyefinity I only need two more monitors, 1 new card, and a display port adapter/cables.

The cost to go the NV Surround path seems quite prohibitive so I am not sure how plausible it is as an option for people on the fence comparing ATI to NV.

Eliminating the desire to run 3D, are there any benefits to going the NV Surround route over ATI (outside of not needing Display port adapters/cables)?

Thanks for your time!
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Why would you need three new monitors? You only need three new monitors if you are going with 3D Surround, not regular Surround.

With Eyefinity, you need one card and one monitor with Display port or a DP adapter; with Surround, you need two cards and Windows 7. Those are the requirement differences.
 
I would really love to see a single display with the aspect ratio and resolution of 3 24 inch wide-screen monitors. I totally would not mind paying $1500-$2000 for such a display. i am sure we may see such a solution in the next year or two. The CRVD is too expensive at $6500 but that display is geared more toward hospitals and businesses rather than gamers.
 
Glad to see nVidia did not lock them to the new Fermi cards only, which they could have done if they wanted. Now if I could find another 2 spare 24" monitor for my GTX 295 :p

For me, the requirement of 2 GPU isn't really an issue. Personally, if I'm going to display that amount of pixels, I'd want to have 2 GPU too. Then again I'm just a graphics whore who must have all quality settings turned up.
 
well i am glad nvidia finally made one of their release date. and the tech does seem promising. looking forward to the comparison between the two system.

Now in the article kyle said that it cards couldn't handle past 2xAA when have the card resolution is being pushed so high. So is it purely memory problem with lack of vram buffer or is it a memory bandwidth constraint ? or do the gpus don't have enough process power to draw image quickly enough? does adding a third or forth 480 resolve these problems and allow you to hit higher AA levels ? lot of question left to be answered.
 
coldstorm said:
well i am glad nvidia finally made one of their release date. and the tech does seem promising. looking forward to the comparison between the two system.

Now in the article kyle said that it cards couldn't handle past 2xAA when have the card resolution is being pushed so high. So is it purely memory problem with lack of vram buffer or is it a memory bandwidth constraint ? or do the gpus don't have enough process power to draw image quickly enough? does adding a third or forth 480 resolve these problems and allow you to hit higher AA levels ? lot of question left to be answered.
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Do you really need AA with that high of a resolution?
 
adonn78 said:
I would really love to see a single display with the aspect ratio and resolution of 3 24 inch wide-screen monitors. I totally would not mind paying $1500-$2000 for such a display. i am sure we may see such a solution in the next year or two.
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Those resolutions at those prices in that time frame...rofl.
 
pedsaktix said:
coldstorm said:
well i am glad nvidia finally made one of their release date. and the tech does seem promising. looking forward to the comparison between the two system.

Now in the article kyle said that it cards couldn't handle past 2xAA when have the card resolution is being pushed so high. So is it purely memory problem with lack of vram buffer or is it a memory bandwidth constraint ? or do the gpus don't have enough process power to draw image quickly enough? does adding a third or forth 480 resolve these problems and allow you to hit higher AA levels ? lot of question left to be answered.
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Do you really need AA with that high of a resolution?
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More is always better at [H] :D
 
pedsaktix said:
Do you really need AA with that high of a resolution?
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The resolution isn't any "higher" than it was before compared with the physical space. It's the same effective resolution that's just been tripled because you now have triple the real estate.
 
kuyaglen said:
Those resolutions at those prices in that time frame...rofl.
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My Kuya is also named Glen.

Anyway.. I think you'd me waiting alot more time than that. Don't get me wrong I'd love to pick up 5970x1200 display for $1K next month... I paid $1700 for my 4960x1600 setup.
 
Matrices said:
The resolution isn't any "higher" than it was before compared with the physical space. It's the same effective resolution that's just been tripled because you now have triple the real estate.
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I get what you mean but please explain..
 
If you get what I mean, what is there to explain?

Even though the resolution has increased, so has the corresponding screen space; therefore, the actual pixel density has remained constant.
 
Nice to see nVidia is finally living up to their promises. More than three months later. On top of the ~8-9 month Fermi delay already.

Seriously, it is a good thing that nVidia got this done. Next time around with a purchase they might be the team I go with. I have had *just enough* trouble with ATI's drivers...

But this round I'm glad I upgraded from my GTX 275 SLI to an ATI 5870. Got to do multi-monitor gaming during a majority of the summer break and I get to do it all with a single card. (Yes, I say upgraded mostly because my power consumption and heat has declined)

Now all we need is a next-gen Fermi that supports three DVI outputs. :p
 
pedsaktix said:
I get what you mean but please explain..
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I believe he means that if you are running a single monitor at 1920 x 1200 and AA makes a difference (which it does to me), just because you run 3 monitors at 5760 x 1200 doesn't make AA any less of a difference. You are still looking at the middle monitor which is 1920 x1200, so AA will still make a noticeable difference. Now you are just looking at 3 screens each at 1920 x 1200.
 
pedsaktix said:
I get what you mean but please explain..
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If you have a 1920x1200 screen and play a game, you have a resolution of 1920x1200 on that screen. If you have 3 screens with 1920x1200 resolution in a surround/Eyefinity setup, you still have 1920x1200 resolution on each screen. The differense is that you have now 3 times more content.

http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/products/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-experience.aspx

Going 1920x1200 to 2560x1600 as example gives you a higher resolution image of the same game content. This is the big difference. Eyefinity/Nvidia surround gives you more game content, not a higher resolution image of the same game content. :)
 
Matrox Parhelia (2002!)

Triple monitor surround gaming - check
Only a single card needed - check
Bezel management - check
Triple DVI from a single card - check
Performance - not so much...

So close, and yet so far.
 
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