Jim, where do we go from here! (Redux)

[Jav400]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

This is on my Vista system, which is a fairly powerful computer.  

Jim I hesitate to ask, since you usually program for the least common denominator, what is your system that you are calling a fairly power one. Are we talking a late model quad core at least?

PS. Merry Christmas to all.

[Jim Sachs]

It's my rarely-used Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.41 GHZ. It ran MA3 at 300 fps before I put in the 120 fps limit.

[nicksteel]

Jim, take a look at this:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1144725

It evidently takes a bit of tweaking to get everything right.

Also, some recommend quad cores with 2 cores dedicated to fraps, 2 cores to the program.

Will experiment on my quad-core and re-encoding avi to mpeg/vob with Avisynth (Fraps is uncompressed) when I return home from Xmas vacation.

Asus M2N68-AM SE2 motherboard, AMD Phenom X4 9600 Quad Core 2.3GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2-667 ULTRA memory, NVIDIA Geforce7025/nForce 630a integrated chipset.

What are the least expensive 3d glasses that will work with this?

[Jim Sachs]

I had seen a different site which recommended the same things, and I tried them all yesterday (lower res, half-height, lower speed, etc.). I gained a few FPS (up to a blazing 19 now!), but lost a lot of resolution.

The goal is to have a file which plays exactly like the original - Glorious Hi-definition 3D at a silky-smooth 60 fps per eye.

It's possible that the main bottleneck could be my hard drive. When I hit Record in FRAPS, the frame rate stays up for about a second, then begins its jerking and hesitation. I can see how the hard drive might not be able to keep up with the data rate. One interesting thing is that after each pause, the fish do not jump to a new location - they resume from where they were. This means that FRAPS is stopping my program clock, but continuing to record frames during the pause. If it simply did not record frames during the pauses, the final movie would play smoothly.

[nicksteel]

Also, Fraps has a 4GB max avi file size and creates many files you have to merge. No real problem.

[Time Crystal Pilot]

Sad to hear about the decreasing sales and the implications.
Jim, did you test your hard-disk-is-bottleneck conjecture by saving to a RAM disk instead?

[jleslie]

It's a tough one without stellar hardware. You need a lot of the CPU available to render the 3D. hence you can't really compress the video much if at all.This means you need a really fast disk system and ideally for it not to interfere with the system operation either. Also FRAPS needs to get the graphics out of the frame buffer, so you need graphics capacity available to do that too. My suggestion would be to add a pause key to freeze the aquarium, then capture it in small chunks (have something on screen during the pause so you can see the frames where it starts/stops). It would be better if you could slow its clock and frame rate by a factor on N. It's the simplest answer I can come up with - in case it helps.

There are free RAMDISKs for Windows, but really need a 64 bit o/s and lots of RAM as otherwise the slow-down from losing the RAM might make things worse, example:
http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk
or non-free, but trial lasts until next April:
http://members.fortunecity.com/ramdi...ad_and_003.htm

John

[Jim Sachs]

The system I'm attempting to use for this only has 1 gig of ram, and most of that is taken up by (32-bit) Vista.

Morgan's suggestion of re-writing FRAPS within MA3, and saving to an output file may be the only way of getting a quality video. But there's no way that could happen before CES, even if I understood the algorithms needed.

[nicksteel]

Ram disks are questionable, as Fraps can consume 1GB for each 20 seconds. Only solution I can see is to somehow slow down the program's output to 60 frames per 2 seconds, then double the avi file playback to 60fps. There can also be problems with the end and start of the 4GB avi files created, with the aquarium slowing down, then speeding up - especially with high fps captures.

Playclaw users claim 60fps without lost frames, but, who knows?

[Time Crystal Pilot]

My suggestion to employ a RAM disk was meant merely as a way to test Jim's hypothesis, not as a viable solution to the problem.

I have virtually no experience in DirectX/Direct3D programming, nor in BluRay authoring, and thus can't be of much help. But it's certainly not necessary to understand the algorithms involved in canvas capturing if the code used won't be part of any published product. It has to do the job, so any patch of code copied&pasted from an online coding help forum is ok if it works.

I got some basic understanding of what is possible with BD-3D and what isn't from this site:

http://www.netblender.com/main/resou...erstanding-3d/

For example, it seems that you can't have stereoscopic video at 60 fps and full HD at the same time.

[Nicki]

Would it help to use Vista's Readyboost feature with a really fast USB drive or SD card?

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/1585

[Bectile]

Hello, I haven't been around in a while, but I got a nice new widescreen hd monitor for Christmas so I thought I'd check for an update, and downloaded 3.1! So beautiful!

Anyway, I can think of three marketing areas which have given me success, and they aren't very expensive.

First I suggest craigslist. It is free, except for certain job listings and a few other miscellaneous stuff. Once your ad is on there, with the right keywords it will also show up on search engines for free. There is some tediousness of having to renew the ad once it expires each week, but.. free!

Second, make a facebook page! I just looked for you (Mr Sachs) or Marine Aquarium 3 on there and found nothing. I would "Like" it in a heartbeat. And then it would be suggested to all my friends... etc. Free as well! And millions of people, worldwide, are on there every day.

Third, advertise through facebook! They have a very competitive pricing program and a wonderful ability to target specific people based on their interests, hobbies, job, location, age, etc. I've done some advertising with them and I liked it more than google adwords.

As a disclaimer, I do not work for facebook, or craigslist. I simply understand what your going through (my husband has his own small handyman business) with this economy and I think these options will help.

Take care,
Rebecca

[patscarr]

We have a small Facebook presence.

[Jim Sachs]

Nicki - I'll look up ReadyBoost.

Rebecca - There are already Facebook pages for myself (James D Sachs) and SereneScreen. The SereneScreen page belongs to Patrick, so I can't make changes in it.

I'll try to research advertising on Facebook. Not sure if Craigslist is a good fit.

[nicksteel]

"Blu-ray Disc video specification only allows encoding of 1080p24 signal, and not 1080p50 or 1080p60".

Also, a 1920x1080 resolution display would be required, unless one stretches from a smaller resolution, say 1600x900, which is doable.

Is 1080p24 adequate for the 3d capture? ( I think Avatar is 24fps ). And you have to end up with something that will fit on a blu-ray dvd after compression to be usable.

[Jim Sachs]

The actual display equipment is beyond my control - I just need to burn a standard 3D Blu-Ray disk. Whatever Samsung will be using in their CES booth to display 3D should be more than adequate.

[feldon34]

Blu-Ray 3D Standard is 24fps. Left and right eye are each stored at 24fps.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/b...t-it-could-be/

[nicksteel]

My confusion is how to capture the thing. I have made HD captures of the aquarium in the past, in non-standard mpeg files that are played from a WDHD box or HDMI output from my computer. I see from the articles that each eye sees 24 fps, but basically, Marine Aquarium already generates screen frames that are seen as 3D. Jim has recorded, at low fps, 3D segments from screen captures with Fraps.

What we need to figure out is how to capture a 3D DVD compatible sequence with an adequate fps for smooth replay. I currently think the capture will have to be scaled to about half and "stretched" with AVS script to full 1080p.

This is going to be trial and error to find adequate fps, capture resolution and effective Avisynth scripting.

I wish I could get a few minutes of a Samsung sample file.

Which of these could be used as a "go by"?

http://www.ray3d.com/vid_clips.html

[Jim Sachs]

Most of the info I'm finding has changed in the last few months, so I'm ignoring any articles written before say, September.

[Jim Sachs]

I use nVidia 3D Vision glasses, which I got on eBay for about $100. It took me quite a while to put together the whole system to view MA3 in 3D. Besides the glasses, a 120hz monitor with a dual-DVI input jack is required, like the Samsung 2230rz. A 3D-capable video card is needed, like the nVidia 9800GT (which I also got used on eBay). And finally, a dual-DVI cable is required. Almost nobody talks about this part, but this cable was hard to find, at least around here. You need to look at the cable-ends, which have ALL the pins for dual-DVI, not two separate blocks of pins with a blank space in between.

Also, the "rz" in the Samsung 2233rz is vital in getting the right monitor. The other 2233 models (like the 2233hd which I got first) do not do 120hz. The 3D capabilities of the 2233rz are a bit weak, with quite a bit of "ghosting". It does a fair job on some 3D videos from YouTube 3D, but a high-contrast image like MA3 really points out its weaknesses.