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The lost dimension: Nvidia ending 3D Vision support

That Avatar era of 3D continues to close

Nvidia plan to soon stop supporting 3D Vision, the 3D glasses system they introduced in 2009. The GeForce driver release in April will be the last to support 3D Vision, so folks who wish to keep using their goggs will need to stick to older drivers - which could suffer compatibility and performance problems in the future. 3D Vision created the appearance of physical depth in games by using special electrical spectacles in combination with certain monitors, working a bit like the stereoscopic 3D that was briefly popular in movies rather than yer modern face-enclosing VR goggles. I know no one who used it.

The final driver to support 3D Vision will be April's Release 418, Nvidia explained on Friday. They do plan to still "address critical driver issues" that might pop up for 3D Vision in the 418 drivers, up until April 2020, but those would be updates for 418 rather than support in newer driver versions.

New driver releases tend to bring optimisations and fixes for new games, so it's not unlikely that being stuck on the 418 drivers will eventually lead to worse performance. And missing out on new features. But hey, even the newest revision of 3D Vision specs is six years old now and has long been out-of-stock, so Nvidia giving up on it can't be much of a surprise to owners.

I'd forgotten that 3D Vision was a thing. Heck, I forgot that I actually tried 3D Vision goggs years ago. OH GOD I've just remembered I actually tried them twice. Once was with Ubisoft's game of Avatar, the cursed film which made the daft 3D fad really blow up. Like 3D movie specs and VR goggles, 3D Vision did not work properly with my unfoolable eyes and made a perfectly good game a blurry mess of double vision. Can't prank these peepers.

For folks who also forgot, here's an Nvidia fella named ANDREW FEAR explaining what 3D Vision 2 was about:

Watch on YouTube

ANDREW FEAR!

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