We recently had issues setting up a 3D projector and have tried lots of combinations of monitors, drivers, cards, glasses, etc. The answer seems to be that interchangeability is very complicated and you won't know unless you try it.
For example, with the last version of the Nvidia driver I tested, the driver refused to put out an Nvidia 3D Vision sync signal (stereo 10 in xorg.conf) unless there was a 3D capable LCD attached. I don't know of any technical reason the Nvidia 3D Vision couldn't be used with a CRT but Nvidia has apparently chosen to disable it (or at least make it hard to enable) in the Linux driver.
Going the other direction, using RealD with and LCD system, it might be possible but you probably have to match your RealD emitter with RealD glasses. Older CrystalEyes glasses (CE3 and earlier) generally do not work with LCD monitors because of the polarization in the glasses. We recently got some CE4 glasses and they don't seem to have that problem although in practice we are using them with a projector, not LCD monitors. But I don't really like the CE4's, there is too much of my field of vision under the glasses that they don't cover.
We've observed some really weird configurations that appear to mostly work, such as plugging in a RealD emitter and glasses when the driver is configured to output a signal for Nvidia 3D Vision (stereo 10 option under Linux). You don't say whether you are using Windows or Linux and there may be variations in the drivers, variations by card, etc. Regarding card to card variations, we've observed 3D setups in conference rooms with multiple emitters where some Nvidia cards happily drive multiple emitters with particular splitters & boosters, but other Nvidia cards don't.
The bottom line is if you mix hardware you might have problems and vendors are unlikely to help you. If you have CE4 glasses already, you can try it with an LCD and it may work. Otherwise, if you have to buy new glasses (ie, you have CE3 or older), you might as well get the Nvidia package with the emitter included. 3D Vision Pro uses the 2.4 GHz band instead of IR to transmit the sync signal so if you were setting up a conference room in theory the Pro version might be less likely to leave dead zones in the conference room. For a single user workstation it's very unlikely that you would get any benefit.
Just to muddy the waters a bit, I have not seen a working 120 Hz stereo setup working on the Acer GD235 monitor. We have a bunch of them set up, and we put a 120 Hz mode line in xorg.conf. If you ask X11 it says it's running at 120. But if you ask the Nvidia driver or the monitor, it reports 100 Hz instead, and visually there is enough flickering that the monitor and the driver seem to have the correct number. I'm curious if anyone else here has looked in detail to make sure their Acer-based system is running at 120 and found that it is actually doing what people claim it can do. I find the 100 Hz LCD flicker annoying over long periods so I am still a neanderthal CRT user. My coworkers were convinced their LCD systems were running at 120, when they were actually only running at 100. I'm not sure if this is a driver problem or a monitor problem.
-Eric
On May 6, 2011, at 11:27 AM, zhang yu wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Sorry to present the stereo issue to the board again.
>
> Since my old SGI CRT monitor only has 75 HZ refresh rate, the flickering in stereo mode bothered me a lot. Recently, I want to update my old CRT to 120 HZ LCD. I have a "Nvidia Quadro FX3800" in my workstation. I would like to make sure some issues before I make the upgrade.
>
> 1. Can I apply the previous stereo emitter (Purchased from Real D, Model #E-2) to 120HZ LCD? Although the company told me this emitter is not compatible with LCD, could some one tell me why? Is it true that the "Nvidia 3D vision" is the only solution for the stereo in LCD?
>
> 2. Nvidia supply two kinds of 3D emitters. One of them is "3D vision", while the other one is "3D vision pro". Which one is sufficient for crystallographier user? ("3D vision pro" is much more expensive than "3D vision")
> It seems that "3D vision" is for home user and powered by the "Nvidia GeForce series graphic cards". While "3D vision pro" is for professional user and powered by "Nvidia Quardro series graphic card ".
>
> 3. It looks that the Nvidia 3D glasses are very compact. Is it comfortable for someone like me already with eyeglasses?
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Yu
> --
> Yu Zhang
> HHMI associate
> Waksman Institute, Rutgers University
> 190 Frelinghuysen Rd.
> Piscataway, NJ, 08904
>
>
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