What are the official 3D frame and resolution Formats?

They are all "official", including full stereo-1080p 60Hz.
What you are hitting is the minimum requirement specification which does not include the target stereo 1080p 60Hz you want.

The minimum requirements for hdmi 1.4 which are mandatory are :
Frame packing 1080p 24Hz
Frame packing 720p 50Hz or 60Hz (depending on region)
Side by side half resolution 1080i 50Hz or 60Hz (depending on region)

version 1.4a added
Top and bottom half resolution 1080p 24Hz and 720p 50Hz or 60Hz (depending on region)

+1, here is the Official HDMI. org link for this list:

http://www.hdmi.org/press/press_release.aspx?prid=120

There are many ways to send two 1080p60 streams to two individual projectors, but the only one that is actually available in real world products is two separate cables with one 1080p60 stream in each cable, and a PC as source.

The most promising system which is not available yet would be DisplayPort 1.2 thanks to it's huge flexibility : DP has support for full-resolution stereo way higher than 1080p60.
You can also make two independent 1080p60 streams (not part of the 3D mode) transit through a single cable and then split the stream with a display-hub or by daisy-chaining the displays (if the displays support DP1.2 daisy-chaining). So you can have a single cable going from your source all the way to the projectors and then connect the 2nd projector with just a small 2 feet extension.

I believe checkerboard will give pseudo 1080p at 60Hz. I don't know the quality hit you take, but the people on the nvidia boards swear by it, or more accurately swear at nvidia for removing it from the current drivers meaning they have to use 720p frame packing.

Checkerboard is half resolution.
But it's the way of doing half resolution that offers the best down/upscaling quality.

nVidia 3D vision does this with games - 1080P@60 per eye.

3D vision doesn't provide the bandwidth (it's just the IR emitter and glasses)
The bandwidth on stereo1080p60 3D vision systems is provided by DVI dual-link.

It does it with any content (you can play 3D videos at full 1080p60 with it), not only games.
However the main problem is that it isn't a solution for rdjam's problem : 3Dvision is strictily proprietary and locked down completely. You can't use it for anything else than 3D vision approved displays, and dual projectors aren't part of it.

There are no 3D frame formats.
All 2D video frame formats and refresh rates are listed in Nvidia control panel. You can also create your own frame format and refresh rate using advanced nVidia feature.

HDMI has video transmission protocols which include stereoscopic content transfer for various frame resolution and stereoscopic layouts.

Blu-ray 3D specifies UDF structure of BD and 3D BD content.
It includes video file formats, compression and encoding for both 2D and 3D content. It also includes audio, text and graphic file support as well as java code of BD embedded applications.

If you are looking for something and need help you need to be specific.

Mathew Orman

You forgot about the analog D-sub winch can output at Giga-Hertz pixel rates and handles 4K displays since 1990.

Mathew Orman

The traditional way of doing this is to use windows usual dual screen features (extending the desktop) and the use specialised software like stereoscopic player (for video), iZ3D or DDD-tridef drivers (for games) that output directly one view to screen#1 and the other view to screen#2.
This approach works well for still pictures but it usually falls apart when stuff gets in motion because windows does not maintain the two displays in perfect sync : you are entirely dependant on the qualities of your GPU driver.

Most consumer gpu drivers don't maintain the sync between displays, some people report success, other report problems with the same hardware. So it is impossible to predict reliably if one particular type of graphics card will work or not. Tha tis unless you go with professional GPUs (Nvidia quadro or AMD Firepro), but I don't even know these products well enough, I can't say which one will guarantee the sync.

At the moment the only reliable way I have found to maintain perfect sync is to use a recent AMD graphics card with the Eyefinity feature, create a 2-displays side by side group (a video wall) which creates a single span 3840x1080 desktop and maintains the sync perfectly between the two displays.
But the issue with this system is software support : the usual dual projector software no longer works since the GPU driver makes windows believe there is only one display : I have to use software that can output Side-by-side content at full resolution instead of the usual squashed half resolution. See the thread in my signature.

AFAIK all of today's graphic cards can output 1080p/60 so using one for each projetor does not require any high end cards.
I beleive what you need is two 3D-XL units in order to send 1080p/60 left to one projector and 1080p right to the other projector.

No, it's not doable...
I mean not even one of your propositions.

You should plug both projectors to the same graphics card, all high-end modern graphics card support it. My ATi card can even run a 3rd display on the DisplayPort output. I use a VGA adapter to plug my monitor on it so I don't have to plug/unplug my cable all the time.
I even tested doing 3D video editing with Sony vegas using the monitor to edit and the dual projectors to preview on the big screen. It worked surprising very well, even though I've got an old version of Vegas that does not officially support 3D (I manually put the streams side by side) and which can't output projects with resolutions higher than 2K (I have to edit downscaled and then do the rendering individually for each view) and with which I had terrible preview framerate because I used uncompressed video and my hard drives can't keep up, and that the ergonomy of my setup was clearly not adapted for this setup (the computer monitor faces backwards, I've got the projection screen behind me when editing).... it was still fun and totally awesome.
I'll have move some furniture around the next time I want to edit a 3D project.

At the moment, 3D gaming with multi-GPU is only supported by Nvidia 3D vision and it does not support dual-projectors. (it would maybe be supported by games with native 3D but I haven't read about it)
With iZ3D or DDD you won't get any framerate improvements at all, but they officially say they're working on it. (with no ETA)
If you already have two cards, then keep them, you'll be able to test it every new release, but if you don't have them already, don't waste your money : just buy one card.

The iZ3D driver will output dual 1080p60 but there is a catch : the iZ3D driver does not take care of V-sync : the GPU driver does it. This can cause sync problems.
With ATI, all user reports confirm the phenomenon I have : with the traditional dual projector mode, sync is not maintained and it is horrible.
You can put the outputs in perfect sync by using the Eyefinity feature, it works great for movies and a very small selection of games (2 games) but the iZ3D does not support the side by side full resolution aspect ratio required : it only supports it with squashed half resolution so even if it does render the real full 3840x1080 resolution (for games compatible with eyefinity super-wide surround resolution), the aspect ratio will be wrong.
I asked iZ3D to add side by side full resolution, I got a positive response but I do not know when it will be implemented.
With Nvidia cards, user reports tell different stories. for some there is no sync issues, but for others their systems have the same sync issues than ATI... but Nvidia does not provide the Eyefinity feature as a work-around : their super-wide surround system (Nvidia Surround) requires 3 screens and a dual card SLI. This means if you go with Nvidia you're goingwithout knowing what to expect.

If I were to recommend between ATi and Nvidia, I'd choose ATI because even if it doesn't do everything, at least I can predict how it will work and I know it will always work with the Eyefinity mode.

For games compatibility : let me make something very clear, the games with perfect graphics are extremely rare. The more recent, advanced with breakthrough technology the game is, the more likely the picture will be completely ruined. The usual biggest problems revolve around shadows being projected wrongly or in 2D at screen depth, and modern games graphics depend a lot on them.
The most obvious example is Crysis : you have to turn almost everything off to get something even remotely watchable and it's still not artefact free. In this respect, even Far Cry looks better than Crysis.
It was so bad that when Crytek wanted to make Crysis 2 in 3D, they decided to go with a native engine. I do not know the exact list of supported displays but the only time Crytek spoke about it, all they said was that they would support everything on the market without any further detail.
Two other games µI know of have 3D native engines :
Avatar the game, it supports dual projectors with the traditional method but I experience severe unsync (more than 2 frames of delay) and is unplayable on my ATI based system, I have not tried on Nvidia though
Trackmania Nations (with the latest patches) : it works using the Eyefinity mode, the only problem is the interface does not work (you can just play ingame and there is a key to hide the interface, but menus and the map editor are unusable)

With the iZ3D driver :
DIRT 2 has lots of visual artefacts (especially shadows and lighting effects) that will ruin everything, in both DX9 and DX11 mode.

I don't know about HAWX 2, but the first one had many issues. I heard they made some improvements for Nvidia 3D vision but it's still not bug-free, and I do not know if that translates well for iZ3D, i suggest you try it first with anaglyph and see if there are any artefacts. (you should expect many)

I play lots of games with iZ3D driver and Anti Aliasing usually works fine, in which games did you read about AA issues ? Or maybe particular types of displays ?

Nvidia is commited to 3D Vision for sure it provides Nvidia with exclusive features AMD can't match at the moment.
The problem is that the concept of 3D vision is all about locking up the software away from user control and get hardware and games support exclusivity. You can't just tell it what you want to do, it tells you what it wants you to do.

3D vision detects the display you are using, if it is an approved display, the 3D vision driver will automatically configure itself for this specific display.
If it detects an unauthorized display, the driver will automatically switch to anaglyph (which Nvidia calls "3D vision discover")
You can't select an authorized output, Nvidia does not allow you to choose.
You can't use dual projectors with the 3D vision driver, it knows how dual projector works : 5 years ago, the old Nvidia stereo-drivers had a dual-projector mode ! but now it's designed to prevent you from using it.
That is also why I believe 3DTV play is not working on your system (it does not detect an authorized hdmi 1.4 TV, so it does not activate the 3D mode)

If you were to use SLI, you'd have the two projectors plugged to one card, and nothing plugged to the other card, you don't need any special dongle on the second card.
There is a special connector that links the two cards inside the pc to improve the bandwidth between the two cards but that's all. You get this connector in the box when you buy an Nvidia graphics card.

If you go with dual projectors with the nvidia card then, yes that's about it, you setup your projectors as just two regular displays, just like you'd configure two monitors for work (the usual windows extended desktop) and in the 3D application you'd tell it you are using dual-projectors. It will automatically send one picture to display#1 and the other picture to display#2 (some of these applications crash or confuse the displays if you plug a 3rd display).
Just remember : the high end cards don't protect against sync issues, if the two outputs aren't sync locked together : issues can happen in any application, at any framerate, with any type of content.

DDD provides a driver called "Tridef ignition" (but we usually just call it "DDD" or "the DDD driver") it's similar to the iZ3D driver : it converts games into stereo and then send the pictures to the display in the format of your choice.

I don't use it but from what I read it has strong points and weak points.
It's interface is a bit different from iZ3D's, you have to launch a game from the driver interface for example (whereas with iZ3D, you enable the driver in the system tray and then you start any game the usual way)
It supports less games than iZ3D but from what I've read, it has better results in some high-profile games.
DDD also provides a special mode called the "virtual3D" mode. It uses a shortcut to generate the left and right eye views, instead of generating two full cameras, it only generates one and then moves the objects on the frame accoding to the depth map in the Z-buffer of the graphics card. It works very well with almost no performance loss but it is only an approximation and has serious restrictions on the strength of the 3D effect and issues when confronted with semi-transparent objects and reflections.
It's not the best 3D but it's a cool addition when the real 3D modes fail.
Just like iZ3D, the DDD driver is GPU agnostic : it will work on both Nvidia and ATi GPUs

I have been working along the same lines as this thread, trying to find a display compatible with our usual setup in a VR Lab. However, I have not been able to determine whether our Quadros will output the suitable 3D display format. There is support in the latest drivers for the DLP checkerboard frames, but nowhere have I seen mention of frame-packed stereo support under for the Quadro.

Could anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

That is because there is no frame-packed 3D format.
Frame packed is a part of HDMI 1.4a serial data transmission protocol and it only exist in HDMI cable.
The only 3D format that has 3D information was the Phillips WOWvx frame compatible 2d+depth, now RIP.

Mathew Orman

rdjam - from my days way back playing with dual projectors, back then tridef didn't support dual proj output format - it's confusing a little because they have a product that does, so if you look at the compatibility it looks like it, but the actual tridef driver didn't. That may have changed, but I don't think so.

However, I recently tried tridef again once I got a single projector, and it's actually quite nice. I still like iz3d better in most cases, but tridef does a better job dealing with crosshairs and has some really in-depth configuration options. I'm glad I have both

But you're right, iz3d is MUCH more actively engaged with their user/customer base. Getting a response from tridef on their forums just doesn't happen.

The one concern I'd have using an nvidia card is this-
Nvidia's driver works GREAT at the things it's specifically intended to work with (hdmi 1.4 displays, and *approved* 3d displays). That's not going to serve your long term goal of having dual outputs so that you can get high framerate 1080p (it should theoretically work fine with your 3d-xl to dual projector setup fine, but at 1080p/24 or 720p/60).
Nvidia cards work fine with iz3d & tridef drivers, BUT Nvidia does not work with iz3d/tridef to improve - AMD does. What this means is, for example, 120hz pageflip mode works beautifully with iz3d & tridef on AMD cards, but tridef doesn't work in 120hz mode at all on nvidia, and iz3d is not granted access to nvidia's internal buffers as they are to AMD's, so users will get random eye swaps regularly (excessively enough to be unusable).
So already, the cooperation between the manufacturer and the 3rd party software vendors has led to improvements that are not available on Nvidia. Those improvements do not relate to your specific configuration, but I'd expect that to be a trend that continues in the future.

As a result, I'd say only to use nvidia if you are truly happy with the options available in 3dtv play and nvidia 3d vision; any other configuration will fall behind AMD (and could potentially even be actively hampered by nvidia in future driver revisions).

Just my opinion, of course.


As for quadros, going with a professional board would give you all kinds of configuration options, but from what I've read, there are sometimes compatibility issues with consumer software. I have no personal experience with them, though, so take that as just an uninformed opinion.

*edit because I repeated "nice" several times and sounded like an idiot in the second paragraph*