I have had a difficult time getting hardware stereo configured using
CrystalEyes glasses and I thought I'd share the solution with other
pymol users. I've just set up a new system with an Intel motherboard
and quad-core processor and an Nvidia quadro fx1300 video card. The
operating system is Fedora 8. I'm using my old SGI IR emitter with
an adaptor that provides 12VDC power in place of the 5VDC the video
card delivers. RealD has a diagram of the necessary cable here:
http://www.reald-corporate.com/scientific/pdf/Sgi-retro-VESA-REV-B.pdf
My problem was that stereo mode would fail with no message on all the
applications I tried: Pymol, Chimera and VMD. It was difficult to
tell whether the problem was with hardware, driver or improperly
configured software. In the end the solution was lurking in my
/var/log/Xorg.0.log file:
(WW) NVIDIA(0): UBB is incompatible with the Composite extension. Disabling
(WW) NVIDIA(0): UBB.
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Stereo is incompatible with the Composite extension.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Disabling stereo.
Commenting out the Option "Composite" "Enable" line in the extensions
section of my xorg.conf file didn't fix the problem. Apparently the
Composite extension is enabled by default. Changing to:
Option "Composite" "Disable"
fixed the problem. I added the following to my device section for
good measure:
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "False"
because ARGB GLX visuals require the Composite extension.
In the end, the relevant section of my xorg.conf file looks like this:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 30.0 - 110.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 150.0
# 1440x1050 Stereo @ 100 Hz
ModeLine "1440x1050_100" 212.76 1440 1504 1824 1952 1050 1051 1054 1103
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "UBB" "True"
Option "Stereo" "3"
# ARGB GLX visuals require Composite extension which is incompatible
with stereo
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "False"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x1050_100"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
# UBB and Stereo are incompatible with the Composite extension
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
Stereo mode now works beautifully in all applications. Rendering on
large complexes, even without stereo, is slower with the Composite
extension disabled though. Anyway, I hope this is helpful to other
Pymol users.
Chad
