GeForce GTX 460 review (roundup) - NVIDIA 3D Surround

NVIDIA 3D Surround

Along with the Series 400 GPUs also comes a technology called NVIDIA 3D Surround -- which now is supported by their latest GeForce Forceware drivers (download version 258.69 here).

3D Vision Surround allows you to play on three 3D displays simultaneously, and span your entire game across all three panels for a very immersive, rocking 3D environment. Of course, an idea carefully borrowed from ATI (Eyefinity) with the addition of the 3D Stereo part that is. Would ATI not have introduced Eyefinity, then NVIDIA would have never tried to integrate this technology. So who doesn't love competition?

First off, you can also use this Surround technology in 2D mode too -- 3D Stereo with goggles is really not a requirement.

3D Vision Surround was officially launched alongside the GeForce GTX 470/480 release. There is however good news for GeForce GTX 260, 275, 280, 285 and 295 owners. 3D Vision Surround will be supported on that series as well, all you'll need is a driver update, two cards and three monitors. Preferably with a 3D Vision kit of course.

So to recap: 3D Vision Surround offers 3D Vision support spanned across three displays, effectively allowing you to run three 3D displays simultaneously.

We mentioned this a paragraph or two ago already, there is a downside alright. SLI will be a requirement as the cards can only cope with 2 DVI outputs. This rule even applies to the GeForce GTX 470 and 480. So yes, two cards set up in SLI are a requirement, making gaming on three monitors definitely an expensive thing to accomplish. But granted, it really is a heck of a lot of fun though.

Considering you have three screens AND 3D Vision to render .. my advise to GTX 460/465 owners remains to stick with just one monitor.

 3D Surround Stereo with three monitors

NVIDIA will include software controls for bezel correction allowing you to compensate for monitor bezel gaps. So to recap once more, NVIDIA 3D Surround is a derivative, much like ATI Eyefinity, which will also work with three monitors; surround vision with the 3D goggles is not a requirement, an SLI setup with GT200 or GF100/GF104 cards however is.