First, we have some apologizing to do.  In my first review of the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 graphics cards, which we were more impressed with than we thought we would be going in, I discussed the inclusion of 3D Vision Surround as one of the key differentiating features for the Fermi line of parts when compared to the existing Radeon HD 5000-series.  In fact, we mentioned on several occasions that 3D Vision Surround would be a launch feature and then we were told it would be available about 30 days after product release.  3D Vision Surround is meant to combine a set of three 120 Hz LCD panels for a wrap-around gaming experience that would also utilize the 3D technologies of NVIDIA’s 3D Vision.

Well obviously that 30 days has come and gone and while we didn’t get official word from NVIDIA directly, we did get wind of this blog post:

I have been talking to a lot of our customers over the last few months and many of the most enthusiastic among them are asking when we’ll have our driver update to support 3D Vision Surround. We’re also get the same inquiries from press folks looking to do reviews of 3D Vision Surround.

The fact is 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. Our first 256 based driver is planned to post to nvidia.com on May 24th 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. I am looking forward to it!

Yep, honesty and openness are good but some of the comments below that blog post bring up the valid point of waiting until well after the expected release to update the customers and fans.  Apparently the 3D Vision Surround features were even seen on some GF100 graphics card boxes lending credence to the claims of those users; and apparently the update of a late-June time frame isn’t going to appease them. 

NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround delayed officially - Graphics Cards 2

3D Vision Surround demo we saw at CES in January 2010

Personally, I want 3D Vision Surround to work right though I can understand the desire to have it working right now as well.  AMD took a bit longer than expected to get their 6-panel graphics cards out on the market than expected so we know that these things aren’t exactly easy.  We have seen AMD come through on their promises though; we have yet to see if NVIDIA can deliver on the 3D Vision Surround product in any more substantial way than highly-controlled tech demos at CES.