Some basic information about the Revelator
Some basic information about the Revelator |
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Well, maybe you already know what it looks like. For those who don't :
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The thick cable passes all 15 VGA signal lines from your PC to the monitor, while the thin cable forks off those lines used by ELSA to supply and control the glasses to a 3-pin mini-DIN socket, where you can plug either the wired glasses' or the IR emitter's (for the wireless version). For those interested, here some links to technical details about the thick (AWM 2919) and the thin (AWM 2464) cable. |
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The mini-DIN connector follows the VESA standard for a 3-pin mini-DIN shutter glasses connector (see picture). The L/R signal is high for the left-eye picture (right eye dark) and low for the right-eye picture. |
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For their Revelator glasses, ELSA chose to use some pins from the 15-pin VGA connector to supply and drive the glasses. The VGA pinouts can also be found at the Hardware Book, both for the 'classic' VGA15 and the newer VGA DDC standard. Since some of these pins were already (or not yet) used otherwise, trouble was ahead... ELSA, making their own cards, could avoid most of them (though some are caused by the monitor) and provided their own FAQ for how to work around the rest (if they just could make their pages load a little bit faster..).
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VGA pin |
Signal (VGA15) |
Signal (VGA DDC) |
Use by ELSA |
Potential poblems |
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9 |
Key (no pin) |
+5VDC |
+5VDC |
Not connected by some VGA card makers (e.g. PowerColor), result : glasses don't work at all. Also missing on some monitor cables, so adaptor should not be connected between cable and monitor, but directly to VGA card. |
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10 |
Sync GND |
Sync GND |
GND |
none |
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12 |
Monitor ID1 or data (in) |
DDC data (bidirectional) |
L/R control (out) |
a) conflicts with the monitor or VGA card's DDC logic taking over the pin occasionally, which may result in gaps in the L/R pulse stream to the glasses, causing them to switch off (i.e. clear) for a short time ('white flashing'), or frequently, meaning the glasses will turn themselves off again immediately, showing just a short darkening of the right eye's shutter. b) IRQ conflicts/delays in the computer, causing vertical retrace interrupts from the VGA card being delayed or skipped. Delayed interrupts would make the glasses switch out of sync, skipped interrupts might toggle L/R orientation (just guessing) or, if frequently, make the glasses turn off for a short moment. |
For those with a Revelator and a graphics card that doesn't provide +5VDC on VGA pin 9 (and some soldering skills), I made a page with some suggestions of how to fix this. Candidates are some early ASUS TNT (frequently reported) and PowerColor (hands-on experience with their TNT2/M64 and Geforce2-MX/200) boards.
For DDC problems, try some (maybe all) of the following :
Use regedit.exe to disable DDC protocol in the registry. Find
the
key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Display\0001\Default
and
change the value for DDC
from (most likely) 1 to 0.
Some monitors have an entry somwhere in their OSD menu to disable DDC.
If that still didn't help, you may have to disconnect VGA line #12 between PC and monitor. If your monitor has BNC inputs, try a VGA-BNC cable. Otherwise, try a cheap VGA extension cable (old Voodoo2 loop cables are perfect) with pin #12 removed from the plug. If in desperate need, you could also remove pin #12 from the monitor cable itself (not recommended if the cable is fixed to the monitor – just in the case you change your mind later !)
Note that, without DDC communication between Windows PC and monitor, you will loose plug-and-play recognition of screen resolution and refresh rates. Thus, you will either have to get these parameters either from the .inf file that should have come with your monitor (check manufacturer's homepage if not), or need a separate software tool to control the refresh rates and screen modes. In some mood of poetic justice, PowerColor has bundeled their boards with a nice 'Display Control Panel' tool, that allows to set refresh rates for different screen display modes. Generic tools for this purpose are HzTool by Stefan Berglind (freeware) and PowerStrip by Entech (shareware).
