Tom Robinson 2001-08-30 11:12
We have been trying to get a multi-mon configuration working. In our system we would like one stereo monitor powered by either a FireGL card or a Wildcat card. The other monitor is a standard monitor. Both monitors require some form of graphics acceleration. For the stereo monitor we need OpenGL since that is all that is supported (for stereo) by these two cards. For the other monitor we can use OpenGL or DirectX.
We have found one configuration that does not disable the OpenGL stereo/acceleration on the wildcat and the firegl. The wildcat or firegl card must be the primary. The secondary card must be placed to the left of the primary on the desktop or the OpenGL stereo/acceleration will be disabled. This does not work with all secondary cards but it does work with some.
I haven't seen that in any of the discussions of multi-mon and opengl acceleration. Did I miss something?
Thanks
Tom Robinson
james.robinson2@baesystems.com
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Anxiety 2001-08-30 22:55
This is the best multimonitor opengl page i have seen
http://www.gameart.com/braindead/opengl/
although i dont think that it covers what you are talking about.
what is meant by 'stereo' opengl?
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Tom Robinson 2001-08-31 02:34
The Microsoft OpenGL interface supports stereoscopic viewing. That is, in addition to having a front and back frame buffer you also have a stereo front and back frame buffer. A stereo capable video card (like the Wildcats, FireGLs, or Oxygens) will flip between the front stereo frames at the refresh rate of the display (desired refresh rate would be >= 100 hertz). Special glasses or a screen overlay is used to synchronize your left and right eye viewing with the display. When looking at images and graphics designed for stereo, the effect is stereo depth.
The OpenGL drivers for the video card must support stereo. So what happens when accelerated OpenGL is disabled is that the stereo capability is disabled as well. I believe this is because the upper levels (Microsoft) of OpenGL no longer call the video card OpenGL drivers, but instead use the video card independent drivers. The effect is to not only disable acceleration, but also disable stereo.
Tom Robinson
james.robinson2@baesystems.com
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Anxiety 2001-09-01 08:23
ahh yes. I remember reading about this a few years ago. It was when the Elsa (or elza??) card first came out and included the shutter glasses with the card. It seems interesting enough, but are the visuals convincing? I know right now that they have a program that will let you use stereo directx visuals with those red and blue glasses you used to get with cheap comic books. And there is also a winamp plugin that lets you do the same.
I've never heard of it being done with multiple monitors though. Perhaps you will be the first to try. Anyway, good luck.
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