3D Gaming

[Aten_Ra]

So Valve, will we be able to stream 3d games from a 3d enabled video card to a 3d tv?

[MarkedStaff]

I too would love to know this..

[teh_lama9000]

I can't speak for Valve, but I think I can figure this out from the specs I see:

What you need to put 3D into a 3D TV:
-Protocol: HDMI 1.4
-Resolution: ~1080p
-Framerate: 120 FPS
-Output: 10 GB/s

The hardware advertises 1080p60, which is about half the framerate you need for 3D TVs. That right away pretty much kills it because watching 30fps on each eye will make your head hurt.

The bandwidth constraints are also weird. Valve might be looking anywhere in the 100-1000mbit range.

AC speeds, in Mbits/s:

Type 2.4 GHz Mbit/s 5 GHz Mbit/s
AC600 150 433
AC750 300 433
AC1200 300 867
AC1300 400 867
AC1450 450 975
AC1600 300 1,300
AC1750 450 1,300
AC1900 600 1,300
AC2350 600 1,733
AC3200 600 2,600

You can purportedly compress a 3d video down a 5-12 Mbit line (a la netflix). If you don't care about latency, that will need a huge window + RTT to reach that compression, meaning *output* lag. You can think of that as being the time it takes for each picture to reach your screen with the minimal amount of data you need for it to be passably "un-chunky", because it has to be so intermixed with other frames in order to preserve bandwidth.

At the other end of the compression scale -- a raw 3d signal can consume as much as 13Gbit/s on an HDMI 1.4 cable. That's so much data only something faster than 10Gbit, or 802.11 _ad_ could produce that!

Strictly speaking though, some of these points make me wonder what they're doing for the video even in non-3d. If their ethernet is really only 100mbit, I wonder how pixelated the output will be.

If there's another version of this that ever gets released, I would encourage Valve to max out the 80211ac + Gbit -- and then they might be able to compress a 3D signal down enough to fit over 1Gbit/s (~AC1600)

[teh_lama9000]

So -- To reiterate:

No, because 1080p60 is too few frames.

[Aten_Ra]

Interesting. I might just have to run a cable from my PC to the TV afterall :(
Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

[KaidHourra]

someone can confirm if we will can or not?

[ba0701]

I can confirm, no 3D with Steam Link. Mine arrived today, along with my controller (which is going to take some getting used to, as well as apparently some configuring in each game), and it does not do 3D.

[KaidHourra]

Originally posted by ba0701:

I can confirm, no 3D with Steam Link. Mine arrived today, along with my controller (which is going to take some getting used to, as well as apparently some configuring in each game), and it does not do 3D.

you just confirm thaht i take the good decision when i cancel my pre-order, when i saw there is probably no 3D i tried to make a setup with my 46" on my desk, i finally find a good setup :) 3d works perfect on my samsung 46" with a HDMI cable

but it so bad they dont add this feature on their product, maybe they will add it in a future firmware update?

[Hinashu]

I assume you thing about 3D in a different way as I will give a response now.
Anyway - and just for the record. I´ve tested TRINE on STEAM LINK device today in 3D side-by-side mode on my 55" LG screen with 3D glasses on --- worked great.

[Livoirien]

Originally posted by Hinashu:

I assume you thing about 3D in a different way as I will give a response now.
Anyway - and just for the record. I´ve tested TRINE on STEAM LINK device today in 3D side-by-side mode on my 55" LG screen with 3D glasses on --- worked great.

I'm interested in this feature. How do you make it work ?
I got a 3d TV and 3d glasses. How do you manage to run a game in 3d side by side mode ?

[tpusch]

I recently successfully tested the TriDef 3D drivers (free demo period) on my Geforce 950 setup connected via LAN cable to my Steam Link. The latter is hooked to my passive 3D TV (Full HD), and 3D worked impressively!

I tried the following TriDef options via Steam Link:

3D interleaved

Just rendering the pictures for the two eyes in interlace mode with alternating lines. This would be mightily attractive in my case (passive TV), since it would essentially run 3D at up to 60 fps in native resolution (1920x540 for each eye). The TV does not have to be set to 3D mode, just putting on the polarized glasses sorts out the right lines for each eye.

This is how it worked: 3D effect worked well when streaming from my desktop to the Steam Link, but there were some "colour" clouds which I think might be a result of the whole 3D-"interlaced" picture being compressed by the Steam Host as one full frame, possibly resulting in compression artifacts of some lines influencing the neighboring lines meant for the other eye, respectively. It would be cool (but unlikely given the underlying nVidia streaming tech not meant(?) for such purposes?) if some sort of "interlaced compression" could be supported by Steam Link (Means two 1920x540 frames being dealt with separately and interlaced again on the client side, thus on the whole retaining the 1080p60 bandwidth target). Frame rate was 60 fps, IRCC.

3D side-by-side or top/bottom

This is the way I did most of my testing, it worked very well. It distorts the image for fitting the frames meant for both eyes to a full HD resolution frame, this means the streamed picture contains 960x1080 or 1920x540 per eye. When running this way, I had to enable "side-by-side" / "top bottom" 3D mode on my TV which then stretches the image back to correct aspect ratio.

This is how it worked: I went with top/bottom 3D (1920x540 per eye) since horizontal resolution would seem to be more important. 3D effect was again impressive, this time no strange colour effects were noticeable. I played around quite a bit with Mirror's Edge, after some parameter tweaking on the TriDef side, it was quite impressive... and a bit nauseating at times when peeking over the edge of a skyscaper roof... ;). The other game I played around a bit was Tomb Raider Underworld - some water artifacts distracted a bit from the experience, but otherwise, it was impressive as well. Frame rate was again stable at 60 fps, IIRC.

Additional testing that could be done

Unfortunately, I just went with one evening's testing a few weeks ago, the upcoming holiday season rendering the rest of my TriDef trial period days unused.

• I am planning on trying out the demo of nVidias 3DTV play on my setup, though I am not sure whether this would work with streaming? It wood be cool if Valve sorted out any arising technical issues together with nVidia (they seem to be working closely together already with NVENC?), thus enabling 3D gaming via Steam Streaming
  
• It would seem that nVidia 3D vision natively supports an interleaved mode as well, meant for some passive 3D monitors. Since this would involve two 1920x540 frames being interlaced, the 1080p60 bandwidth target of the Steam Streaming could be met, streaming at passive 3D native resolution should be possible. Since the technology already seems to be there on the nVidia side, maybe this could be supported by Steam? Admittedly, this would only be interesting to a small fraction of the userbase actually using passive 3D sets.

[PrimeTinus]

I can confirm the TriDef 3D solution works! Thanks TPusch. And it works quite well after tweaking the depth. Have been playing AC: Rogue in 3D, which runs great and looks fantastic in 3D. Too bad it's not free and Nvidia 3d option isn't working. I bought a licence for NVidia 3DTV Play already. Unable to select 3DTV as Steam Link is not recognized as a 3DTV.

[Livoirien]

Thanks to you
Tridef work so well with game and much more easy to use than Nvdia 3DTV

[TheTrippyHippie]

1080P = 3D 30fps
720P = 3D 60fps

Its a bandwidth limitaion of 1.4a HDMI as far as im aware ..

[Eddie_Brock]

People are still using 3D?

[Livoirien]

discover it and its quite awesome