Hands-on: Radeon HD 6990 Running Eyefinity 5x1

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@dark_lord69

when you got a setup like this you need to train your peripheral vision, the setup is used exclusively to supply you with peripheral vision data, i remember fondly a game i used to play in the arcades called silent scope, now you can alternately close your eyes to concentrate on the sniper scope or main screen but to get anywhere in the game it's essential to have both eyes open, you track targets with your peripheral vision on the main screen while switching your focus to the scope when your going in for the kill (without closing one eye)
 

verbalizer

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@dark_lord69

when you got a setup like this you need to train your peripheral vision, the setup is used exclusively to supply you with peripheral vision data, i remember fondly a game i used to play in the arcades called silent scope, now you can alternately close your eyes to concentrate on the sniper scope or main screen but to get anywhere in the game it's essential to have both eyes open, you track targets with your peripheral vision on the main screen while switching your focus to the scope when your going in for the kill (without closing one eye)
just saw your reply after I edited my last...
like the name..
 

Spanky Deluxe

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[citation][nom]TeraMedia[/nom]What I want to know is why is eyefinity designed only for a flat array of displays?In MSFT flight sim, you can open a window and specify a view for that window. You can then put that window anywhere in your display area. So what if you could create a view representing looking left 45 degrees, and another representing looking right 45 degrees. Then you could angle the peripheral displays towards the user (at the intended viewing angle) and get two benefits: 1) avoid the visual distortion that would be caused by placing a forward-facing image at an angle, and 2) increase the overall horizontal viewing angle. THAT, in my opinion, would be something. And yes, you would have to turn your head, but that's the point. In a real race / flight / war / fight / whatever, you have to turn your head.I would take such technology, and use three projectors to have front, left and right wall images. THAT would be immersive.I too believe that eyefinity should allow for mixed monitors, in terms of resolution, orientation and pixel pitch. The center monitor should have a higher resolution (e.g. 1080p or 2160p) since that's where the eye can see best. The side monitors really only need something like half of that to still provide an immersive experience.[/citation]

Pretty much exactly what you're mentioning can be done with softth - google it to see the possibilities. The problem with softth is it's just some guy developing it on his own and so updates are few and far between and performance isn't always perfect (although it does now seem to have Crossfire/SLI support). It's sometimes a bit of a battle to get to work properly but once it's working, it's great. Unfortunately it doesn't support OpenGL games (shame as I was hoping to replay Doom 3 and Quake 4) but it does support most Direct3D games - with a bit of work. Ironically, things like bezel correction are far far easier with it than in eyefinity, all you need is the ability to add and subtract pixels and be comfortable editing a text 'ini' file.

That's one of the big annoyances overall though, if one lone developer in Germany can hack together software that enables multi-display support over any number of displays in any configuration with any resolution and even with any extra graphics cards as slave cards then how come nVidia and ATI can't release an update to support a PLP 20-30-20 setup??
 

Marcus Yam

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[citation][nom]gti88[/nom]BTW, Markus, did you say to AMD that these bezels suck?[/citation]
Honestly, after playing for a few minutes, the bezels almost "disappear". Your brain just erases them and you accept what you see.

It's like when you drive a car -- you don't get too bothered that there are the A- and B- and C- pillars inbetween each window. It's the same concept here.
 

jestern

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I agree with the bezel comments. I'd worry about the 'IMAX effect': It looks really cool for the 1st few minutes, then you forget about it or get used to it and pay more attention to the game/movie; then playing games/watching movies on other displays becomes substandard or impossible. No thanks.

Would still like some sort of wireless video glasses display with virtually placeable & configurable and spatially static, single or multiple display screens.

Think of something along the lines of Nintendo's 3DS' Augmented Reality Games, but displaying a computer screen directly to your eyes from a particular set area.

This would really be great for netbooks & laptops as well. No more people peeking over your shoulder minding your business and no more constraints on resolution and screen size.
 

larkspur

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Been running a 3 monitor 4800x1200 eyefinity setup for a year. First on a 5870 1gb and now on a 6970 2gb. The 5870 was great but I'd suggest a 2gb minimum frame buffer if you want to crank up your settings above high. You stop seeing the bezels very quickly because the right and left monitors provide more of a peripheral view. It's a lot like having glasses - you stop seeing them sitting on your nose and forget they are there. I seldom look directly at the right or left monitor during action gaming.

In WoW it is truly awesome. Maps, meters, quest logs, quest tracking, unit frames, bars, pretty much anything can be moved to any monitor freeing up your central vision. The peripheral vision definitely gives an advantage in pretty much every aspect of the game...especially pvp.

For games that don't work well (mostly older titles that are aspect-ratio or resolution-bound) I play them like everyone else does, on my center monitor at its native resolution...nothing lost there. For desktop productivity it is also great to have so much desktop area and it works great with Win 7.

I've always been a big fan of NVIDIA. Their drivers are nice and stable and I've always had a great experience with them. Unfortunately they are very behind on multi-monitor gaming as they require at least 2 hot, power-hungry cards to drive this kind of setup. I could easily put 2 cards in my system, but my 5870 was quiet. My 6970 is really quiet. My buddy's 2 x GTX460 are hot and loud... but he says he doesn't care because he's got headphones on... C'mon NVIDIA get going!
 

rmmil978

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Stupid, pointless expense of money. Too many screens, past 3 becomes a waste. Who wants to game with 5 big black lines interrupting the screen over and over again like that?
 
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@rmmil978

the extra details can give you a competitive edge, the extra 2-4 screen can mean the difference between spotting an enemy and having them sneak up on you
 

f-14

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[citation][nom]rmmil978[/nom]Stupid, pointless expense of money. Too many screens, past 3 becomes a waste. Who wants to game with 5 big black lines interrupting the screen over and over again like that?[/citation]
just admit it, you can't handle all the eye candy. i'm sure that fighter and bomber and commercial pilots and car drivers would only love to have one big window infront of them and not be able to see any where else yes no?
 

cburke82

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well....the screen shot of dirt has like 3 lines going through the dash so its not the same lol. Still dont know why nobody has mad a LCD with 3 inputs and angled sides that could run with no lines. I could be very very wrong but It seems there is a market and it couldn't be to extreamly hard could it ?
 

cburke82

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Saw a vid of this on youtube it does look awesome you do need a very dark room. Any ambient light will make the colors look washed out
 

redguard117

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That is true. I actually run a projector set up in my ht in my basement, although since my screen is 140" i really have no need to use Eyefinity :D
 

foogoo

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[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]just admit it, you can't handle all the eye candy. i'm sure that fighter and bomber and commercial pilots and car drivers would only love to have one big window infront of them and not be able to see any where else yes no?[/citation]

I'm pretty sure if you asked fighter, bomber, commercial pilots, or motorists: "hey do you want several thick vertical black lines or zero thick vertical black lines breaking up your field of view?" they would more than likely answer "Zero thick vertical black lines please.".
 

cburke82

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lol, we should start a poll thread " how manny would ask for the think black lines"
 

HPT

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Markham, Ontario. So close by, wish I could've been there to see the setup and ofcourse Toms themselves.
 

punnar

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Absolutely love it but I won't even think of a setup like this until the monitor manufacturers releases monitors without bezels. They're close but not there yet.
 

neo700

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[citation][nom]Mark Heath[/nom]It sort of looks like having all the stats (health ammo those sorts of things) on the extreme left or right would make it difficult to quickly glance at[/citation]got it thanks
 

rhino13

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Just so everyone knows it has been frequently reported that the 5990 can only run 5xEyefinity, but with DP 1.2 you can daisy chain monitors. So it is in fact capable of running 6xEyefinity still.
 

neo700

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[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]A bezel is the plastic edge around the monitor.[/citation]

thanks alot dark lord for clearing this up
 

cablecat

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If AMD had made it right from the start, this would not have been news. Why can't you run an arbitrary EyeFinity config. I bought a Radeon HD5870 EyeFinity6 one year ago, expecting to make exactly this monitor setup. I was pretty pissed when I had 5 monitors, of witch I could only use 3.
 
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