Upgrade to 3D?

[omens]

I've been nosing around a bit more and it turns out the 580M should support 3D. Now, I still think it's a bit of a gimmick, probably best on a large screen (eg cinema) and not worth going for.

But..........

If I later changed my mind, can the screen be swapped? Does anything else need to be done?


..........this is what happens when you make customers wait for so long. They start thinking of stupid questions! (where's a laughing smilie when you need one?).

 

[PCS]

To upgrade to 3D you will need:

1. 120Hz screen.
2. 3D glasses.
3. IR transmitter.
4. Dual Link DVI Port (if you yould like to connect an external monitor).

At present we don't have any stock of these screens, and we would need to investigate the cost/feasbility before we could offer this.

 

[omens]

At present we don't have any stock of these screens

I know - otherwise I might've been tempted to buy one!

Is the IR transmitter built in to the motherboard/graphics card or is it a dongle?

 

[PCS]

You can source the 3d Vision kits with an external IR transmitter from most good retailers. The laptops we had a few months back had the IR tramsmitter built in, and when we eventually receive new stock (September ish) these will also have the IR transmitter built in.

 

[omens]

So in theory, I can buy an external IR transmitter, the glasses and a screen swap and be 3D-enabled?

Approximate estimate of cost?

 

[Dealmaster13]

This isn't really relevant, but 3D is getting surprisingly cheap these days:
3D Acer (please remove if not appropriate)

Finding 1080p is another thing altogether...

 

[PCS]

So in theory, I can buy an external IR transmitter, the glasses and a screen swap and be 3D-enabled?

Approximate estimate of cost?

In theory yes, but I cannot guarantee this because we have not tested it in-house.

3D kits are £109 from us. No idea on the screen price unfortunately.

 

[omens]

This is all theoretical but nice to know it's possible. I think I'd have tempted to have gone for a 3D setup with the 580M but don't want to wait - i'm having to resort to either my netbook or my iPhone for work related purposes and it's a PITA.

Thanks for the responses PCS.

 

[omens]

Repped.

 

[Retron]

I'd be very interested in purchasing a 120Hz screen in the future too - having got one on my desktop PC it's incredibly smooth and, of course, in games it means that you get more benefit from having framerates above 60fps.

Looking on other forums it seems that the screen is relatively easy to replace on the P170HM (a case of removing a dozen or so screws only) - certainly far less hassle than swapping the screens on the HP notebooks I deal with at work!

Hopefully this is something PCS will be able to offer.

 

[Retron]

Right, my new laptop is here (thanks PC Specialist - it's awesome!) and I've played around with 3D vision. Here's the story...

My desktop PC has an Acer 120Hz display, the 3D vision kit with emitter and glasses and a GeForce GTX 460. It's stunning in 3D and everything I've thrown at it works well.

The laptop is a Vortex II with a GeForce GTX 560M and a regular 60Hz display (a Hannstar panel - which I've read elsewhere is a very new panel).

I wiped the demo install of Windows 7 and put my own install of Windows 7 Pro on there. Getting drivers for the GTX 560m was a hassle and for a minute I regretted not ripping the drivers from the original Windows 7 Home install. The 270 and 275 drivers wouldn't install (no hardware found), nor would the 266 drivers from the supplied Clevo CD. With nothing else for it, I installed the beta 280 drivers which work like a charm. Although they installed 3D vision drivers, clicking on the "enable 3D vision" link did nothing and, unlike the desktop PC, there was no stereoscopic 3D option in the control panel.

I plugged in my 120Hz monitor, set Windows to display only to the external display and selected 120Hz as the refresh rate... there was a half-second pause and then, yes, a beautiful 120Hz output! The port on the back of the laptop is dual-link compatibile.

The GeForce control panel magically sprouted a stereoscopic 3D option:

And going through the wizard worked just as it did on my desktop PC. You have to confirm that everything's plugged in, select which images you see through your left and right eye and confirm a pattern is correct. After that you're treated to a slideshow of screen shots in 3D and bam, everything worked perfectly.

Some more experimenting revealed that you can have the internal panel working at 60Hz and the external one at 120Hz if you extend your desktop. For the purposes of 3D vision though it works just fine if you set the display to the external output only.

With that in mind, and bearing in mind I'd be interested in watching 3D blu-rays and doing some 3D video editing on the move (I have a 3D camera) I'm more interested than ever in purchasing a 120Hz panel for the laptop now!

 

[PCS]

Thanks for the write-up!

So just to confirm - you have been able to get 3D vision working on your external monitor and 3D vision kit via the DVI port or HDMI port?

 

[Retron]

Thanks for the write-up!

So just to confirm - you have been able to get 3D vision working on your external monitor and 3D vision kit via the DVI port or HDMI port?

That was via the DVI port - I don't have any HDMI cables.

On the laptop itself it looked like a dual-link port (as in the dual-link connector here) so I thought it was worth a go.