Stereo
Stereo on TFT monitors
Question: is someone using Nvidia 3D vision + a compatible 1920x1080 23.5" Desktop Display e.g. ACER GD245HQ 120 Hz LCD display OR Alienware OptX AW2310 120 Hz LCD display? Is it running nicely with Linux + Nvidia's Linux driver? How is the stereo quality compared to Zalman's 3D-LCDs or the old CrystalEyes shutter glasses + CRT monitor?
Answers:
- I am using the combination you are asking for with alienware monitor. The driver I am using is 195.30 beta. It works very well. Quality is much much better than Zalman and somewhat better than CRTs.
- I have Nvidia 3D vision running on the Samsung SyncMaster 2233. One note of caution, for the Quadra FX3800 if you are using dual monitors I haven't found a way to get TwinView to work with the Nvidia 195.30 beta linux driver. You can configure for 2 X-screens to drive the two screens as a work around. This is most likely a 3800 problem since the 3800 has 1 DVI and 2 HDMI outputs instead of 2 DVI outputs. If you are looking for a new graphics card as well and like dual monitors I would stay away from the Quadro FX1800 and FX3800. The Nvidia 3D vision quality is better than Zalman but the Zalman glasses are much lighter if you do a lot of stereo.
Follow up question: Is your Nvidia 3D vision emitter connected via the 3-pin DIN or USB? The Nvidia 3D vision emitter I have only connects via USB and I could not get this working under linux.
Stereo on conventional CRT monitors
Some of the NVidia Quadro cards support stereo. The cards that have an output called "stereo" under "Display Connectors" listed at Nvidia's Quadro overview page have a 3-pin DIN outlet that fits with NuVision or CrystalEyes stereo glasses.
The cheapest of these used to be the FX1400 (difficult to find these days, around 450 €), but now appears to be the FX3450 (around 750 €). These cards are by far fast enough for protein crystallography or modelling.
For stereo, the xorg.conf might need the following lines
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
if the X log file (e.g. at /var/log/Xorg.0.log) says that stereo is not supported by composite.
Another option that will be required in xorg.conf by programs running stereo is
Section "Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "Stereo" "3"
Sometimes it is handy to configure two Desktops: one on a CRT monitor that can do stereo-graphics, and one on an LCD monitor for the more regular work, eg your refinement jobs with CCP4. For Nvidia cards you need to modify the xorg.conf file to have a section more or less like that:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Iiyama"
ModelName "Vision Master Pro 512"
DisplaySize 450 330
HorizSync 31.5 - 120.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 150.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Philips"
ModelName "150B"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "NVIDIA Quadro FX (generic)"
BusId "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "NVIDIA Quadro FX (generic)"
Option "Stereo" "3"
BusId "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1280" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
Note that one can think this is rather silly to define two card, two monitors, two cards, and two screens. However, that the only way I know that one monitor can be stereo-enabled and the other one not.
Ono
You also need to set the environment variable STEREO for the stereo to work properly in ono: setenv STEREO on (tcsh) STEREO = on; export STEREO (bash) [1]
Mac OS X
The following command needs to be run for Macs to be able to support stereo in X11 programs, such as Coot [2] :
defaults write com.apple.x11 enable_stereo -bool true
See also
Stereo on TFT: see Coot zalman