Nvidia Corp. has announced that it would delay the release of its 3D Vision Surround technology, a feature that allows to play video games on three displays with stereo-3D effect. The move will hardly affect the company financially since the designer of graphics processors has already postponed the commercial launch of 3D Vision Surround by months.

“We are not ready yet – the surround driver needs some final improvements. When we first showed this technology live at CES in January, we expected this to become available with the first release of our 256 branch driver which was then targeted for April. Our new target for 3D Vision Surround is the end of June in a follow-on release of this 256 driver branch,” explained Tom Petersen, a spokesman for Nvidia.

Nvidia 3D Vision Surround is currently the world’s only consumer, multi-display 3D solution which allows users to span stereo 3D content across three high-definition monitors with 120Hz or higher refresh rate or projectors for immersive gaming experience. In order to make the technology work, end-users will have to install at least two high-end Nvidia GeForce graphics cards. Nvidia’s 3D Vision Surround will compete directly with ATI Eyefinity technology that allows to play video games on up to six displays (in case one graphics processor is used). Nvidia’s technology does not seem to support six monitors, but can enable stereoscopic 3D effects on three, which will indisputably make gaming very exciting.

Originally Nvidia said that 3D Vision Surround would be officially launched with Nvidia GeForce GTX 400-series graphics boards in Q1 2010, and that that 3D Vision Surround would also be supported on GeForce 200-series graphics cards powered by GT200/GT200b chips. By present, Nvidia’s priorities seem to have been changed. Nvidia firstly plans to enable performance improvements for multi-GPU SLI technology and GeForce GTX 400-series chips and only then proceed with the multi-display stereo-3D support.

“Our first 256 based driver is planned to post to nvidia.com on May 24^th and will enable new SLI setup controls and improve performance on several key applications for GTX 400 GPUs. When we launch the 3D Vision Surround driver at the end of June, we will provide a game list and guidance on how to get the best experience with this cool new technology,” concluded Mr. Petersen.

Tags: Nvidia, Stereo 3D, GF100, Fermi, Geforce, NV60, 3D Vision