Enabling NVidia Page Flip 3D in FirstLight

[David H. Wilson]

I have a relatively new Acer GD235HZ 3D monitor running from a NVidia GeForce GTX 465. The set up is working well - NVidia 3D test and other forms of 3D playback work well.

I am having trouble, however, enabling the 3D Page Flip within FirstLight both in the Internal Window and the Primary Monitor Fullscreen. (I am able to see neither the Internal Window nor the Primary Fullscreen Monitor in 3D.) I have a feeling I'm just missing a setting somewhere but cannot for the life of me figure out what.

(OpenGL Player options are set to NVidia Page Flip 3D and the 3D Display type is set to OpenGL 3D.)

Has anyone else encountered this?

Many thanks,

[David H. Wilson]

Jake in support pointed out that only quadbuffered cards are capable of OpenGL 3D Page Filp.

So I bit the bullet and ordered a Quadro 4000. I'll report back...

[Rob Read]

How co-incidental. Just got my VG236 kit two days ago. I have managed to get it working in Full Screen mode using Open GL (I have PNY Quadro FX 4800). However, it does not seem to consistently work.

I cannot get it to work in internal window as Windows 7 x64 drops to Basic mode if I use FirstLight on the VG236.

My second monitor is a HP LP3065 (which I learned requires a special DisplayPort to DualLink DVI adapter) or it won't work as a second monitor as the VG236 has to be the primary monitor.

Anyways, I use First Light on the LP3065 and Full Screen OpenGL mode on the VG236. As I said though, it does not consistently work in Full Screen mode either. Sometimes shows in 3D mode and sometimes not.

For comparison, Stereo Photo Maker works fine on the VG236 in window mode using OpenGL, but not Nvidia 3D Vision Mode.

[David H. Wilson]

Rob - I'm due to receive the Quadro 4000 on Tuesday. I'll write again after I get it up and running with a progress (or not) report.

[Ron Niebrugge]

I had trouble getting it to work - evidently installing the full 3D vision drive set adds problems with getting them to work for 3D editing. Once I found this set of instructions and followed them step by step, everything worked perfectly: General DAV's TechTable

[Robert Kennedy]

I fought my way through this when I first started and have since gotten a more precise explanation of how to do it properly from tech support. Once you've installed everything, the quick answer is you have to do about four basic things to get page-flipping going in First Light:
1. Go to Nvidia control panel > 3D settings > 3D App - Default Global Settings > and set "Stereo - Enable" to "On" and set the "Stereo Display Mode" appropriately (for my Quadro FX580 it is "Generic nVidia IR emitter" but for most quadros I believe you want to use the "3-pin DIN" for most accurate syncing if that's how you have connected it.)
2. In the nVidia control panel, under "Stereoscopic 3D" and "Set up Stereoscopic 3D," uncheck the box labelled "Enable Stereoscopic 3D".
3. Set your refresh rate to 120hz for all applicable monitors.
4. Open First Light and go to "View" then "OpenGL player preferences" and choose page-flipping (for full screen monitor, internal window or both) for any 120hz monitor that is connected.

Then do me a favor and tell me if you crash the program if you run page-flipping in Premiere and open First Light in any capacity. My experience with the Quadro FX580 is that I can't leave it running as FLPlayer.exe crashes.

Also, please share if you run into any issues like "Black video on export" when you have the "Render 3D intermediate" box or the "Highest Render Quality" setting checked as I have encountered this several times.

Glad to have some more people exploring this awesome feature as well as I have high hopes for it!

-Robert

[David H. Wilson]

Wonderful input - thanks to all. I suspect I'm dead in the water (with the GeForce GTX 465) until the Quadro arrives. I'll certainly share the results of my labors after I get it installed.

I agree with Robert that it's good to have others working through these things as well - astonishing to me that this is possible at all.

Thanks again for the input.

[Robert Kennedy]

If I were you I would try the following deflect setup if you want while waiting for your quadro to arrive:
Install everything as destined above except make sure you are using two monitors and that the second monitor is set to 120 hz. Then, make sure page flipping is only set up opengl page flipping for the secondary monitor full screen.
The reason this MAY work is that heckuva cards can do full screen stereoscopic display, but not windowed. If it does work, I would expect software issues as Cineform develops for quadro drivers (which have quad-buffered stereo unlike geforce)
And please report back :)
-Robert

[David H. Wilson]

An initial report back would be something like:

The Quadro 4000 arrived yesterday. I spent until 1 in the morning battling it out but finally had Page Flip working when I turned in. I was having problems with 120Hz on the Acer monitor until I realized I wasn't using a dual-link DVI cable which fixed most of the problems I was seeing.

As of now I have FirstLight working very nicely with page flip as well as other players such as Stereoscopic Player.

Premiere, however, breaks immediately on attempting to put Sequence Settings/CineForm Playback Setting into OpenGL 3D -nVidia Page Flip.

I'll write Jake for his thoughts and keeping beating my head against it as well.

[Robert Kennedy]

Are you running premiere all alone and experiencing the crashing? I experience FirstLight crashing whenever running Premiere and First Light simultaneously, even when page-flipping is not activated in either.

This means the central method of editing in Photoshop and switching to First Light to make adjustments doesn't work (for me at least) when "stereoscopic enable" is set to "On"

-Robert

[David Newman]

I run FirstLight with Premiere all the time. Did you mean Premiere or Photoshop? Where is this ""stereoscopic enable" is set to "On""?

[Robert Kennedy]

Sorry for the thread hijack, but it is page-flipping related...

The "Stereoscopic Enable set to On" is in Nvidia control panel > 3D settings > 3D App - Default Global Settings > and set "Stereo - Enable" to "On"

If I load Premiere and make sure nVidia page-flipping is not activated, then I can load first light and switch between the two without issue. BUT -- if I load nVidia page-flipping, then First Light will crash (FLPlayer.exe).

This is true even if I load Premiere, then load page-flipping, then turn off page-flipping. The bright green light on my IR emitter remains lit and the system remains in a stereoscopic mode even though there is no stereo signal. If I load First Light, it will crash immediately.

The net result is that I cannot preview any 3D video in Premiere and then make adjustments with First Light without completely exiting Premiere Pro every time I want to use First Light. My video card is the "unsupported" Quadro FX 580 though it does quad-buffered stereo quite well imho. I wrote customer support about it to see if I could get a more informative answer than "Unsupported card is probably the problem" which is what I got last time I asked about this.

I'm not against investing in a better video card, but I am not sold on the value yet. The sync accuracy of the USB connection to the IR emitter is sufficient for me at this stage and it appears this card meets all of my display needs except for FLPlayer.exe crashing. Can the engineers take a quick look at the lower end quadros to see if this problem is fixable?

Thank you