The New Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 GPUs Just Got Official

Today Nvidia has officially announced their new flagship GPU, the first form the 700 series – GeForce GTX 780 based on the GK110 Kepler architecture and manufactured using 28nm process. You can say that the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 is a more affordable lite version of the GTX TITAN announced not long ago, based on the same GK110 GPU, but with a little less video memory and a bit less CUDA cores. Other than that the things are looking very similar to what the GTX TITAN offers. You should have in mind though that the new GTX 680 is not here to replace the GTX TITAN, but to succeed the older GTX 680 (GK104) and looking at the specs it does that quite nicely… Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Specifications: Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 780 3GB Graphics Processing Clusters: 4 or 5 Streaming Multiprocessors: 12 -4 CUDA Cores: 2304 +768 Texture Units: 192 +64 ROP Units: 48 +16 Graphics Clock: 863 MHz -134 GPU Boost Clock: 1058 MHz -158 Memory Clock (Data rate): 6008 MHz L2 Cache Size: 1534KB +1024 Total Video Memory: 3072MB GDDR5 +1024 Memory Interface: 384-bit +128 Total Memory Bandwidth: 288.4 GB/s +96.14 Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear): 165.7 GigaTexels/sec +36.9 Fabrication Process: 28 nm Transistor Count: 7.1 Billion +3.56 Connectors: Dual-Link DVI-I, Dual-Link DVI-D, HDMI 1.4 High Speed, DisplayPort 1.2 Form Factor: Dual Slot Power Connectors: 1x 8-pin, 1x 6-pin Thermal Design Power (TDP): 250 Watts +55 Thermal Threshold: 95 degrees C -3 Bus Interface: PCI Express 3.0 * The superscript numbers in green and red show the change as compared to the specs of GTX 680.

The First SD&A Stereoscopic Games Competition to be Held in 2014

The Stereoscopic Displays and Applications Conference has just announced that they will be holding the first SD&A Stereoscopic Game Competition at the February 2014 conference in downtown San Francisco. No, this is not a stereoscopic 3D game playing competition, instead the aim of the competition is to encourage the creative use of stereoscopic depth in exciting new game designs. A panel of expert judges will review the game designs and the winner will receive a cash prize of $1000.

TriDef 3D Special Version for The iRacing Online Racing Simulator

Usually when you want to play games in stereo 3D mode you get all the required hardware and software in order to be able to play as many games as available and working well in stereo 3D mode, however there are exceptions. One such exception is if you only play an online racing simulator such as iRacing and you need to make it more realistic by playing in stereoscopic 3D mode. DDD has released a special limited version of their TriDef 3D package that is especially meant only for players racing in the iRacing online racing simulator. The TriDef 3D for iRacing will only support tht game and is available for $4.99 USD, it will work with Line Interlaced (FPR) displays, HDMI 1.4 3D TVs/monitors (if your graphics card supports AMD HD3D) and Anaglyph glasses. Of course if you already have a full TriDef 3D license you can also play the game in stereoscopic 3D mode, furthermore the online racing game iRacing is also supported by 3D Vision with an Excellent rating for the stereoscopic 3D compatibility it offers

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost vs Radeon HD 7790 in Stereo 3D Mode

Time for a comparison as promised in the post about the new GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost GPU that looks very promising as an affordable solution for people willing to play in stereo 3D mode at a resolution of 720p. The direct competitor for the GTX 650 Ti Boost is the Radeon HD 7790, so I took one of these cards and compared the results it provides in 720p stereo 3D mode using the latest TriDef 3D driver to the results of the GTX 650 Ti Boost using 3D Vision. I’ve also compared both cards in 1080p 2D mode with the same games, because the Radeon HD 7790 is also a good option for people with tighter budgets that want to be able to get high detail levels at 1080p resolution in non-stereoscopic 3D mode, just like the GTX 650 Ti Boost is. Starting with 720p stereoscopic 3D results, you ca clearly see that apart from Far Cry 3 where the average framerate is very close for both cards and the game Tomb Raider where the Radeon is slightly faster in the other games the GTX 650 Ti Boost performs significantly better.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Does Well With 720p S3D

Last year when Nvidia released the GeForce GTX 650 Ti it has turned out to be a decent budget card for 720p stereo 3D gaming that could also perform well in 1080p 2D mode, though with some compromises in details and no AA filtering for the higher resolution. Recently Nvidia has released an updated version of the GTX 650 Ti, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, a new GPU that promises a bit better performance and some extra features. If you remember the GTX 650 Ti did not support Boost Clock and SLI and the new GTX 650 Ti Boost model adds support for these and though the number of CUDA cores remains the same, there are a few extra ROPs, and the GPU is running with a bit higher frequency along with a wider memory bus and faster memory

2D and 3D Video Playback on the Rift with the Stereoscopic Player

Even though the main focus of the Oculus Rift is virtual reality experiences, many users would also want to be able to use this HMD device for other simpler things like playback of 2D and 3D video as well. The good news is that the latest version 2.0.5 of the Stereoscopic Player released earlier this month brought support for 2D and 3D video playback on the Rift, of course there is no support for the head tracker, but you don’t need it for video playback anyway. To enable the right viewing mode just select Oculus Rift in the Settings under the Playback Options panel and the videos you open either in 2D (monoscopic) or in 3D mode (stereoscopic) will be rendered with the correct optical distortion required by the Rift. The playback of both 2D and stereo 3D videos with the Stereoscopic Player on the Rift works quite well with 3D videos obviously being more impressive than the flat 2D ones that just show the same image for each eye. A stereo 3D video with more depth can look quite impressive when viewed with the Oculus Rift.

My Oculus Rift Development Kit is Available for Demonstrations

If you are interested in the Oculus Rift, but have not yet ordered a development kit you are probably wiling to try it out before making a final decision, just have in mind that we are talking about a product intended for developers and VR enthusiasts and not for consumers (yet). As promised my Oculus Rift dev kit is available for everyone willing to try it out and who happens to be living in Bulgaria, or in a nearby country or passes by Sofia. I’ve setup a system with some of the available demos and below is the address where the Oculus Rift demo is located in Sofia, Bulgaria (Europe)

The Waiting is Finally Over, I Just Got my Oculus Rift Dev Kit

It seems that at the moment the shipping process of the first dev kits of the Oculus Rift is a bit of a mess. The team at Oculus started shipping the first units already, but it seemed that they were only shipping to US/Canada with the international orders expected to start shipping a bit later on. My order number was 142 and the online system still says my order is being processed for shipping and I just got back from the customs after clearing my Oculus Rift dev kit

CyberLink Has Released The New PowerDVD 13 Media Player

Today CyberLink has introduced their new version 13 of the PowerDVD media player, bringing some new and interesting features and improvements, some of which related to 3D, though not that much is actually targeted especially at stereoscopic 3D support. If you are going to be using the player for Blu-ray 3D movie and would use the player mostly for 3D video playback you’d need the Ultra version as the other two versions of the player – Pro and Deluxe do not come with stereo 3D video support at all. Among the more interesting features in the new PowerDVD 13 are things like official support for the new AVCHD 2.0 standard (including 3D video support), playback of lossless APE audio (OGG and FLAC are already supported), 4K video support (for bitrates up to 60 Mbps) and a new subtitle rendering engine allowing you to better customzie how the subtitles appear. CyberLink also promises faster startup time for Blu-ray movies, better speed and responsiveness of the playback for various types of media

New 27-inch BenQ XL2720T 144Hz and 3D Vision Ready Monitor

It seems that Asus is no longer the only company offering a 27-inch 144Hz-capable LCD monitor as BenQ has also introduced their 27-inch BenQ XL2720T supporting 144Hz refresh rate in 2D mode and up to 120Hz in stereo 3D mode using 3D Vision with 3D Lightboost technology. It is highly likely that both the Asus and the BenQ use the same LCD panel, but aside from that the monitors may differ significantly and offer different performance. The BenQ XL2720T is essentially a larger version of the smaller XL2420T model that the company offers that includes all of the extra features available in the 24-inch model, unlike the more stripped down BenQ XL2411T model. Have in mind that just like the case with the Asus VG278HE, the BenQ XL2720T also does not come with a built-in 3D Vision Ir emitter or 3D glasses bundled, these monitors are 3D Vision-ready, but you need to buy the full 3D Vision kit separately if you want to use them in stereo 3D mode. And since a lot of non-stereoscopic 3D gamers have already shown a lot of interest in such monitors because of their high refresh rate and the ability to use the 3D Lightboost technology in 2D mode in order to eliminate the motion blur the market for 3D-ready monitors has grown a lot

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