3D Monitor with optical output

Nanostronghold · 15 Apr 2011 at 12:31

Hi guys,

I'm looking at some of the 3D enabled monitors and am amazingly impressed by the prices. I was wondering a couple of things though, is this nVidia 3D vision kit PC exclusive? Like for example, if I were to buy one of the monitors would it not come with appropriate glasses and setup for 3D? Is it just 3D ready? Because i was curious to know if i could play black ops on my xbox in 3D mode using the nVidia 3D kit, or does it only work with stuff you run through your PC?

Also, as the title says, I need an optical out on the back for my gaming headset. I've already looked and can see from the pictures that the Asus VG236HE 23" Doesn't have an optical out; at least not on the main back panel, so that's out. Not all of them mention an optical out but there are no pics of the back panel either so i cant check.

Any help would be appreciated, as i'm looking to use this more as a 3D tv for both my xbox and my PC.

Thanks

Edit: I noticed that the nvidia 3D kit requires a graphics card of GeForce 8800 GTX or above. I am a bit rusty with GFX cards

, I have a 9600GT. Is that higher cuz of the number, or lower cuz there's no X? sorry, thanks.
Bob

cmndr_andi · 15 Apr 2011 at 13:26

Hi there,

Due to the way the 3D system works - the nvidia 3D vision kit will only work with a PC with an nvidia graphics card and can't work with an Xbox 360. The kit consists of a an IR transmitter that plugs into the PC's USB port and this sends the signal to the glasses which allows synchronisation with the graphics card and thus producing the 3D effect. In contrast, 3DTVs have the IR transmitted and synchronisation built-in and use their own glasses (different manufacturers use different glasses that are not compatible with other brand 3DTVs). Also, with 3DTVs due to the limitation of the HDMI 1.4 standard 3D is only possible in 1080p @24Hz or 720p@60Hz - for playing games the 720p@60Hz should be the best option. In contrast, due to the higher bandwidth of dual-link DVI used in the PC 3D setup - 3D can be displayed at 1080p@60Hz.

As for "3D ready" PC monitors, as they just display the image and don't do the signaling/synchronisation (which is something 3DTVs do to allow 3D on consoles/blu ray players). Usually the Nvidia 3D Vision kit is sold seperately and not included with the monitor (unless it explicitly states that it is). However, there do seem to be some upcoming monitors that work with Nvidia 3D but also work like 3DTVs where they do the signalling and synchronization, this acer is one monitor that can do this and is eagerly awaited.

As for optical audio out - not many monitors offer this. I reckon you are better off connecting the optical connection directly to the PC or 360 (using the adapter). Also, with the PC, you need to use the dual link DVI connection to get full 1080p@60Hz 3D video and this cable doesn't carry any audio signal.

As for the 9600GT, this card is compatible with 3D Vision - but it is at the very bottom of the list. Since 3D greatly reduces framerates compared to standard 2D viewing then I would only recommend using very old games in 3D with a 9600GT. If you want to play modern games in 3D (like crysis 2 for example) then I strongly recommend you upgrade to a mor epowerful card (the £250 Gigabyte GTX 480 SOC for example).

Nanostronghold · 15 Apr 2011 at 13:53

Right, thanks very much for your help! The only thing im curious about is that, black ops is the only 360 game that i know of that has a proper 3D setting, but I run my xbox HDMI cable through a usb3.0 capture card connected to my PC. I suppose it is beyond the realms of possibility that, due to the fact that I have to have the recording program open on my PC in order to get my TV to display the xbox screen that that would perhaps allow the 3D kit to work with that xbox video signal? That's a slim shot i know

. But it does mean that i have my xbox set to 720p anyway for recording purposes; I don't have the SSD or RAID config needed for uncompressed 1080p recording.

With regards to the optical out i could just fix that with an optical splitter and a dedi sound card for my pc then couldn't I?

I'm looking at the Acer GN245HQ now. It's not on overclockers, atm at least, but according to nvidia support it does also support HDMI 1.4 3D, but i can't find out any info on a release date. May go for the Acer GN245HQ instead if i can't find anything out. As a side note, I know that the HDMI 1.4 3D support is needed for 3D blu-rays and PS3 3D, but does that also include blu-ray 3D for my blu-ray drive i have in my PC? Surely that's covered by the nVidia 3D vision kit isn't it?

Thanks for your reply by the way

Bob

cmndr_andi · 15 Apr 2011 at 14:20

I'm almost certain that running a 3D Xbox game through a capture card will not work in 3D, unless the software is explicitly compatible with Nvida's 3D vision software and HDMI 1.4.

As for optical, most motherboards come with an optical audio out. If yours doesn't then a cheap sound card that does use one (like this) would be a good buy.

That Acer you mention will be fine for your uses (just hook your 3D console up to the HDMI 1.4 port) and use Nvidia 3D glasses. As for availability - I have no idea, from the press release I read it should have already come out, but it may well have been delayed.

Blu Ray 3D for your PC is really to do with your graphics card and software, your existing blu-ray drive is fine as blu-ray 3d disks don't require any new tech on that side of things. Unfortunately your 9600GT card is not capable of playing blu-ray 3D , so you would need to upgrade your GPU to something newer to play them (the table on this page shows which cards can play them). As for software, something like Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 ultra play 3D blu-rays well and integrates with WMC.

Nanostronghold · 15 Apr 2011 at 16:16

Ahh okay. Well there's nothing that states that the blackmagic recording software is compatible so maybe not. It sounds like I should just wait for the Acer GN245HQ to come out, although i can still only find release dates of March, and then i can use HDMI 1.4 3D for my xbox.

I'll have to double check actually then, I have a fairly new motherboard that I got as part of an i7 overclocked bundle but dont remember what model, and i dont remember seeing optical outs, but maybe i'm wrong.

Yeah i was aware that my GFX card was on the low end of the 3D compatible scale. I've been meaning to upgrade for a while so that'll happen eventually.

Thanks again for your help!