(trying to) build an all-in-one 3D machine (htpc)

I'll offer you the same advice I give myself every day - be patient. You're lucky you don't expect to do anything until the fall. This summer, most of your questions should be answered.

Apparently, many of the existing nVidia cards will support 3D. Probably, many of the existing ATI cards will, too. If you have a PC Blu-ray drive, it isn't likely it'll need a firmware update.

PowerDVD 10 will support 3D Blu-ray playback some time this summer, when Cyberlink will offer a free update for current owners. Both ATI and nVidia said at CES that they'll support 3D Blu-ray. I have 4xxx and 5xxx series ATI cards, and I suspect they'll support 3D. I'll prefer it if that happens, because of their support for the HD audio codecs.

The short story is that patience will answer all your questions. Don't make the mistake of jumping into new purchases too soon. The next three or four months should open up all sorts of possibilities for 3D on the PC.

In addition I suggest that you get a 3D TV and instead of using Nividia 3D player get the Nvidia 3DTV player when it is released, see:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_TV_play.html

You don't need a special 3d blu ray drive - a regular blu ray drive should be able to read the 3d BD disks. The software will do the decoding and playback.

The GPU question depends on whether you want to play PC games in 3D. With your 4870, you can still play PC games in 3D, but the newest and most demanding games will require you to drop resolution, and play with lower framerates, etc, etc. You might be able to crossfire two 4870's and be able to play a few of the more demanding games, but if you really want to be able to play all the games in 3D, you're probably going to need a much more powerful GPU. It just depends on which games you want to play. If you want to play Crysis 2, with everything maxed out in 3D, then you're going to need a 5970 or something along those lines.

AFAIK, none of the current 720p 3D projectors are compatible with 3D Blu-ray. Ultimately, I won't be satisfied with anything but a 3D projector, but that's much further into the future than the 3D plasma and LCD options. Right now, I'm leaning toward getting as big a plasma display as I can until a Full HD 3D projector becomes available.

Without question projector. Once you become a projector owner, you basically become a projector owner for life. You wonder how you lived for so many years not having a projector. There are some relatively inexpensive 3D projectors out there, sure they are only 720p, but what are you gonna do? Both the Optoma and the Acer can be had for under $650 if you find the right deal. Now, as to how many devices you'd be able to use in 3D on those two projectors, that's the unknown part of the equation.




By convential means... yes. But, with Cyberlink's PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D, and a standard BD drive on your PC, you should be able to watch 3D Blu Ray movies no problem. Obviously, you would be able to play PC games in 3D no problem (unfortunately at a max resolution of 720p). The big concerns are with Direct TV and PS3. Both could possibly be dealt with via a Avermedia HDMI capture card. You connect it with the Direct TV receiver via HDMI, and use the "Live Video" function of Stereoscopic Player. Still, until all these things are available, and we can get the people who already have the equipment to test it out for us, we really don't know if PS3 and Direct TV 3D can happen with the current projectors.

my advise- ditch the ati and go nvidia. they are years ahead in the 3d department. get the 470 or 480. nvidia and a 120hrz is the only setup that supports full hd gaming and it will support HD 3d Blue Ray.

the new hdmi 1.4 3d HDTV's support HD blue ray- but limits the gaming to 720p. The 3d tv will never game at 1080p in 3d. Some tv's might have a half rez 1080p but that's not any better than legacy checkerboard DLP HD Tv's. I dont want you to find this out after you have purchased a super expensive new tv. you are really only getting HD blue ray and possibly a nicer image (plasma vs DLP)

you could go nvidia card or a ATI card and use the iz3d driver with whatever display you want- hd tv or projector- but be aware the iz3d drivers are very immature and lack features- only dx9 games, no SLI or crossfire support, very beta shutter glass support- things will not just work and you will be much more frustrated- unless you are a computer science major. These drivers do have the advantage of being open standards- so you could use whatever shutter glasses you want (that the driver might support)

Nvidia locks you into supported hardware- which right now is only 120 monitors, and DLP TV's or projectors (i have DLP and enjoy it very much). They will update the drivers to work on the new 1.4 3d tv's but latest report this wont happen until august. And you will only game in 720p or maybe half rez 1080p (this is unconfirmed thus far but possible to the best of my understanding).

I think the cheapest way would be upgrade to the fastest single gpu you can afford and go iz3d or nvidia 3d. then do a 720p projector on a huge screen, or a 120hrz monitor (full HD BR and Gaming). I personally would go nvidia because there system is feature rich right now with something like 400 games supported right now, SLI, DX11 and PhysX are fully supported in 3d- plus they will be the first to support 3d Blue Ray on the PC through power DVD 10. You could also consider the Mitsubishi DLP 3d tv- they work great on nvidia are affordable and only lack true 3d 1080p gaming and 3d blue ray (support checkerboad half rez). I found a 65" for 1k$ shipped to my house.

So you have to ask yourself what are you going to use this HTPC for the most? How many 3d Blue rays are out there? how many PC games can you play in 3d? to me the choice is simple- build the pc for a gaming focus (which would mean your better off in 3d vision) go with the affordable projector or monitor, until a real gaming 1080p HDTV or Projector appears. but really its up to you whats best for your needs.

The reason that the Japanese invented HD was so that they could have bigger screens in their small homes with only short viewing distances in order not to have the grainy images caused by displaying SD content on a big screen. If you are going to have a big screen using a PJ then I strongly suggest you get at 1080p projector since images from a 720p projector may be too grainy.
All new 3D HDTVs have HDMI 1. receiver chips and refresh rates of 120Hz higher
The new 3D LCD HDTVs have 240Hz native frame rates and the 3D Plasmas have a 120Hz mode. However that does not mean that any display that has refresh rate of 120Hz or higher can properly display 3D content at 60fps per eye like the 3D TVs can.

I still think projector is the way to go if you're mostly interested in 3D. The bigger the screen, the more impactful the 3D experience will be. I've seen the 3D Panasonic plasma a number of times, and while the picture quality and 3D is amazing, those plasmas are extremely pricey, and you're limited to a relatively small screen. With a projector, you're not going to get 1080p (at least not an affordable 3D one yet), but you can get a very large image that I think ultimately will have more impact on the audience. I have a 126 inch screen in my projector room, and it's a 720p projector. I will choose the 126 inch screen over a 50 or 60 inch screen with 1080p, every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Bigger is better. Now, would I like to have a 126 inch 1080p screen with full 3D support? Absolutely, but unfortunately, none are available, and any that are, are closer to 10 grand than 2 grand.

In my living room, I would like to get one of these 3D Panasonic plasmas, but I just can't justify spending $2500 to $3500 on something like that, when I should be saving my pennies for a 1080p 3D projector. Therefore, I'm avoiding the temptation of the Panasonic plasmas. I continue to save my $$$ towards the idea of a legit 1080p 3D projector.

Having said all of that, I still might use about $650 of my money to buy either a Optoma HD66 or Acer H5360 as a temporary stop-gap solution, to hold me over until 1080p 3D projectors are more commonplace and affordable.




You know, I think you might be overrating Nvidia's drivers a bit. Alot of the most hardcore 3D gamers, will choose between 3 different drivers, depending on the individual game. There are the iz3D drivers, Nvidia's drivers and TriDef DDD drivers. In order to be able to choose from all 3, you need to have an Nvidia GPU. The problem with this... (at the moment anyways), is that Nvidia's cards are overpriced, relative to their power. You have to spend $300 or $400 to get one of the better Nvidia cards, and I just think they are way overpriced right now. If you want to spend closer to $150 on a GPU, you can get a HD 4970, which is a very powerful card. Sure, it's not DX11, but DX11 support in games is WAY overrated right now. I've seen the comparisons between what added visual effects you get with DX11, and without, and the differences are super minor. Eventually, DX11 will be huge, but if you're going to PC game, you're going to be upgrading your GPU every 10 to 12 months anyways, so on your next upgrade you can go DX11.

Now, the thing that does really suck though, is that if you go ATI, you can only use iz3D and TriDef. I wish there was some kind of hack that would open up Nvidia's driver to ATI cards, lol. I might have to begrudgingly go with Nvidia, just so I can choose between all 3 drivers, but I really don't like the fact that I'm going to have to spend an extra $200 on the GPU, just to get something that is strong enough.

For option #2 you need Nvidia 3DTV player also.
I don't know why you can play 3D games only at 720p with option #2 since 3DTVs still have all the functionality availabe with 2DTVss
For both option you need 3D BR player software such as PowerDVD10 Ultra.

Apparently, current HDMI chips lack the bandwidth necessary for full hd 1080p at 60fps per eye. The thinking is they might be able to support up to 45fps, but not 60. Not until new hdmi chips are available that have a higher bandwidth capacity. At least, I heard something along those lines.

You are correct I misuderstood Ikran in that a disadvantage of option 2 was that he could only play 3D games in 720p wheras he could play 3D games in 1080p with option 1 which I now see he said was also a restriction of option 1.

Then it appears you should get a 3D TV and the Nvidia 3DTV player software which is a superset of their 3D player and PowerDVD10 Ultra (with 3D update) and a Blu-Ray disk drive. You can play 720p 3D games or watch 1080p 3D Blu-Ray disks.
You might find some helpfull information in the following link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...d-tv,2632.html

As long as you understand that the "optimal" viewing distance for a 1080p TV is the distance that someone with 20/20 vision in each eye will see the most detail. They will see more detail at longer viewing distances then they will see with a 720p TV at the "optimal" distance for a 720p TV.

The optimum distances are based on the minimum angle that a person with 20/20 vision will start to be unable to resolve the difference between. When you take an eye test you know that at some point(distance) you can no longer sees all of the letters clearly. The distance where you can no longer identify any of them is a lot more.
Since for the same size screen 720p pixels are twice the size of 1080p pixels the "optimum" distance is much longer.
I don't have a link to a site that states at what distance a person with 20/20 vision would see the amount of detail on a 1080p screen then they would see on a 720p screen.
I have a 55" 1080p and sit 11' from it and I definitly see more detail from 1080i TV program than I do from 720p TV programs.
Distances less the the "optimum" distance are fine unless you are so close that the image becomes "grainy" and this could occur if you are close enough to low resoluition content to be fully "immersed" in it.

The C750 is a 1080p LCD and uses CCFL backlighting and not LED backlighting like the other 2010 Samsung 3D LCD TVs do.

There is no reason that the latest version Nvidia 3Dplay or the upcoming Nvidia 3DTV play won't suipport playing of 1080p PC games on the C750.
Digital techology TVs such as all of the LCD models only have one native resolution and the native resolution of the C750 is 1080p.
I have a 2D 120Hz CCFL backlit 2009 model HDTV and I am very satsified with it.