Nvidia's Drew Henry models the working prototype of 3D glasses.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)
Thanks to a new software driver Nvidia is cooking up, any PC game can be played in 3D, with no extra work on the part of game developers.
Beginning later this year, any PC with an Nvidia graphics processor will have the ability to run a game in normal mode, or in 3D, with the aid of 3D glasses.
The software driver will enable the ability to have two views — left eye and right eye — which, at the push of a button, appear blurry and pixelated to the naked eye. When viewed through 3D lenses though, the game pops into three-dimensional mode.
The important part is that game developers won't have to do anything differently. They just continue to make their games the way they want, and Nvidia will take care of the rest. It's just an option for gamers though — it doesn't mean all games have to be three-dimensional.
The challenge for Nvidia is making the glasses widely available at retail, as well as turning the silly-looking lenses into something actually cool and "not as geeky-looking," said Drew Henry, general manager of the company's Media Communications Processor (MCP) group.
And yes, they promise the final product will be much cooler than the glasses pictured above.
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jamesnorman93
30/04/2008 07:16 PM
sweet!!!!! :D i'm ready with my NVIDIA 8600GT (will probley have a better graphics card by then tho...) Thanks NVIDIA!!! I hope the glasses won't be too much tho...
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Stragen
30/04/2008 07:47 PM
Yea not expensive at all... celotape anyone? ^.^
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Rodney
07/05/2008 12:11 PM
This story lacks a lot of information. Nvidia have been making stereo drivers for 3D shutter glasses (such as edimensional) for years. Only in recent times did they drop support; With no stereo drivers for shutter glasses for 8xxx and 9xxx cards. They have how recently reintroduced stereo drivers for Zalman passive polarized stereo displays. So question is are they going to reintroduce support for shutter glasses again, or just their own shutter glasses and what about the soon to be released Samsung plasma polarised displays? A lot of unanswered questions.
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nitin
13/05/2008 11:37 PM
wow
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Lloyd
14/05/2008 08:09 PM
by the sounds of it, they're gonna be special 3D glasses, not the cheap blue-red ones, like the ones like at the Adelaide museum thingo, they were apparently very advanced and $100 each.. idk.
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jamesnorman93
17/05/2008 12:46 AM
What it sounds like is a double (or more) image on your screen and those glasses convert it into 3D but in colour instead of red and blue... anyway... Can't wait!!! :D
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jaryd
25/05/2008 04:52 PM
Some 3d is done with polarised images at the angles of 45 and 135 degrees. and you wear glasses with matching lenses.
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