Nvidia Corp. announced this week its new version of stereo-3D (S3D) glasses kit designed for its proprietary 3D Vision technology and supporting devices. The new glasses became 25% more affordable, but improved battery life. The company hopes that this will help to drive popularity of stereo-3D in general and 3D Vision in particular.

The new Nvidia 3D Vision kit, which includes a pair of stereo-3D glasses (with IR receiver) and an IR emitter now costs $149, which is down $50 from its original price. The S3D glasses provide 50% longer battery life from a single charge, 60 hours compared with 40 hours before. In addition, Nvidia also lowered the price of extra wireless glasses to $119, which allows to share stereo-3D content with others.

In order to take advantage of Nvidia 3D Vision, which allows to build a stereo-3D-supporting gaming or multimedia system, one should not only acquire Nvidia-proprietary S3D glasses, but also a display or an HDTV certified for usage with Nvidia 3D Vision hardware and of course an appropriate high-performance GeForce graphics card. At present there is a significant number of full-HD displays and HDTVs supporting the 3D Vision technology.

Nvidia hopes that lower priced S3D glasses with longer battery life as well as generally widened 3D Vision eco-system will help this technology to become a major standard for gamers. While hardcore enthusiast gamers are likely to adopt 3D Vision technology, the mainstream PC gamers are more likely to prefer a single S3D standard for both ATI Radeon and Nvidia GeForce platforms.

Tags: Nvidia, Stereo 3D, Geforce, 3D Vision