How the HECK do I set up Eyefinity?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

ckim2116

Distinguished
Nov 20, 2009
140
0
18,680
I have a Radeon 5970 and a 24" monitor; going to be picking up two more monitors this weekend, but there are only two ports on the video card. What else do I need to buy besides the monitors? Also, is it ok to buy two monitors that aren't the same brand as the middle monitor?

Thanks in advance for the help; I'm just really confused :hello:

Here are my system specs for reference:
Intel Core i7-920 (stock)
Diamond Radeon HD 5970
Patriot Extreme Performance Viper DDR3 6GB 1333MHz Tri Channel 7-7-7-20
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R
Corsair CMPSU-650TX- 650W
WD 750GB Serial ATA/300HD, 32 MB buffer
Cooler Master HAF 932
Lite-On 24X SATA DVD-RW Gen II
Netgear WG311 G PCI 54 Mbps Wireless-G PCI Adapter
Windows 7 Home Premium
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Thanks.

Another thing, will it be ok to use two 23" screens for the side monitors if they are they same resolution as my middle 24" screen? I read somewhere that they just have to be the same resolution but can be different sizes. And if I do this, can I still game with this setup?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
They have active mini displayport to DVI converters. This one is out of stock, but you can probably look elsewhere.
http://www.amazon.com/Accell-B087B-003J-UltraAV-miniDisplayPort-Dual-Link/dp/B0030XMREG/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1261509338&sr=1-34

With all the hassle of the converter, I think I'd be looking for a display that already had a displayport, at least for just one of my monitors. You never know what kind of lag there will be when you are shooting a signal through an active converter. lag + games = BAD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Now there is the detail I was looking for.

Tyvm.

:)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Interesting... I just started reading through some documentation and found just what the great ape said. He is so wise.

"If only one or two DVI/HDMI monitors are attached through a DisplayPort connector, then only simple
passive adapters are required. With a passive adapter the GPU outputs the display signal required for
the monitor with no conversion occurring within the adapter itself."
 
Upvote 0 Downvote



One more question for clarification:

A passive adapter only works for resolutions lower than 1920x1200 -or- does it also work for 1920x1200, but nothing higher?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It can work for 1920x1200 but it depends on the monitor. Most LCDs will support reduced blanking, but some don't, however it's like 95+% do. The soft cut-off i1920x1080, and the hard cut-off is 1920x1440, but there's a little play in between depending on how the montior supports the signal. Most monitors should be fine with 1920x1200 @ 60hz @ 32 bit colour (8 per channel plus alpha).

But you can even push beyond that like 12 bit per channel 1808P HDMI is not supported by single link, even though it's just 1920x1080, due to the added colour and the headroom for audio, you can do 8 bit per channel HDMI with audio on single link though.

I wish it were an easy yes/no answer but it's not. The best answer is, most times it will work for 1920x1200, and that's as good as it gets. :sol:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
:heink:
Im sorry I asked.

Seriously tho, thanks much for the information. I appreciate the details even if I don't understand them completely.



Edit:

This info shed some light on your explanation for this rube:


Reduced blanking

To understand blanking time it helps to understand the basics of how CRTs display images. CRTs work by by shooting a beam of electrons at phospors on the front surface of the CRT tube. The phospors glow for a little while after being hit by the electrons. CRTs use this glow to draw an image on the front of the tube. A CRT draws a screen image starting at the upper left corner. It moves the electron beam from left to right across the screen to draw the top row of the image. It turns the electron beam on and off as it moves from left to right to draw the row. When it has reached the right-hand side, it moves the beam back to the left and down by one row. That move is called a horizontal retrace. Then it draws the next row from left to right. It repeats this process to draw the rows successively from top to bottom on the screen. When the electron beam reaches the bottom of the screen it does a vertical retrace to move it back to the top so it can start the next screen image. During these horizontal and vertical retraces the electron beam is not actually drawing the screen image. It's just moving around to get it in position for the next draw. The CRT also has to spend time dealing with the empty border outside of the screen image. As a result, a CRT spends a substantial portion of its time doing retraces and other things which are not part of drawing the visible screen image. The timing can vary quite a bit among different screen modes, but for standard CRT timing about 70% of the time is spent drawing the screen image and the other 30% is invisible overhead. This overhead is often called "blanking time" because the signal is blank (shut off) while not drawing the visible screen image.

Blanking time is needed only by CRT monitors. LCD monitors don't have electron beams. LCDs just store the incoming image data directly into memory which is displayed on the screen. There's no need for retrace times or most of the other overhead required by CRTs. But DVI was designed to support both CRTs and LCDs so it sends out a digital signal which closely resembles the old CRT's timing including the blanking time overhead. LCDs don't need that extra overhead but it's in the DVI video signal anyway. Recall from the earlier single link and dual link section that a single DVI link has a maximum pixel clock of 165 MHz. For an LCD, the blanking time's portion of that 165 MHz is wasted due to using CRT timing. When connected to an LCD it would be awfully nice to be able to get rid of that overhead because you could display the same screen resolution and refresh rate with a lower pixel clock. A lower pixel clock means the data is less likely to be corrupted going through the cable. It's also easier on the DVI transmitter which can be useful if you have one of the NVIDIA cards with a slow transmitter. You could also get away with using a longer cable before the screen gets corrupted. With the blanking time overhead removed, you can use a higher screen resolution and refresh rate before having to resort to using a double link setup. Lots of things get better for DVI if you can get rid of the CRT overhead when using an LCD. Fortunately, there's a fairly well standardized reduced blanking video format which reduces the overhead to about 5%.
Click to expand...
Cite: http://www.playtool.com/pages/dvicompat/dvi.html
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Here's another good explanation from Lars who used to do reviews here and now works for nVidia;

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tft-connection,931.html'

It does a god job of explaining how DVI works, and the ranges, and also the carying quality at the time between integrated TMDS.

Good view of what blanking means;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tft-connection,931-5.html

Also a good idea of the usable ranges for single link;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tft-connection,931-6.html
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sorry, haven't been here lately.

My XFX card has a normal Displayport connection. Most cards should, except the forthcoming Eyefinity edition which has 6 mini-DPs for space reasons.

Next: no, you cannot run 1920x1080 resolutions to a DP from an ATI without either a powered adapter or the right monitor. I hate to disagree with you Grape. The issue is that there is no power on the ATI version of DP to power the conversion electronics. I did a lot of research before I bought my rig. Its not a single link/dual link issue at all.

I still think in the 23-24 inch range you can't beat the NEC monitor that I linked as a DP. It has all the bells and whisltes you might want (USB, speakers, headphone port), a good stand, and its an IPS. Its about $130 more than a basic 23 TN panel and you don't need the $100 adapter.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's OK to disagree RedWolf, BUT, ATi agrees with me on this one;

http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

Read page 8 which specifically refers to using passive adapters for solutions requiring only single-link connections and details the options available from that passive adapter.

This was not widely circulated enough initially, but it is pretty specifically laid out by ATi.

Hope that helps clear things up, I didn't repost it earlier because it came up in our other thread on the subject at the time. :hello:

 
Upvote 0 Downvote


From your own link.

You're giving bad information here and you're going to end up costing someone 20 bucks for a passive adapter, the time it takes to reorder and a ton of frustration.

It's VERY well documented, and I can speak from personal experience that a passive adapter will not work at ANY resolution when running 3x monitors.

Feel free to visit Wide Screen Gaming They've been all over Eyefinity since day one and have active forum conversations with the 2 ATI guys directly responsible for this tech.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Nice selective quoting to try and cover your statement. :non:

That full line reads: "If only one or two DVI/HDMI monitors are attached through a DisplayPort connector, then only simple passive adapters are required."

Not if one or two monitors are attached to the card which is why you're confused.

It works just fine, but you need to keep track of your connections, even in this case using your selective quote, you do understand, that he can use 1 VGA/DB-15 through the DVI-I, then the HDMI, and then a passive adapter to the output choice, or did you miss that part as well?

Also link to the article, don't say '2 ATi guys' @ WSG said something, because based on your selective editing I wouldn't be surprised if your omitting a pretty important point in why they needed the active adapter for their situation.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
There is no selective omitting going on here, just your misunderstanding. You take that to a new extreme by stating this misunderstanding of yours as fact. You're awfully quick to start slinging personal attacks around. I find it quite offensive and your behavior on this thread is a poor representation of this Forum as a whole.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=16942

You're more than welcome to go get your facts straight.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Late to the party, but I only just got my Eyefinity setup configured and running, also using a 5970 (Sapphire, not Diamond).

My center monitor is a Dell E248WFP flanked by a pair of Gateway FHD2401 displays. Both have the same screen sizes, but the Dell sits lower by default; I had a height-adjustable stand pulled from another display to make up for it (for consistency, the odd-monitor out should be in the middle and hopefully taller rather than shorter than the other two for comfort). As stated before, an active DP connection is required for at least one of the displays. I humored myself with a cheap mini-DP to DVI adapter I had around and confirmed that it did not work. An Accell Active DP-to-dual link DVI (my card came with a mini-DP-to-DP dongle) did the trick.

Make sure that if you use Catalyst 9.12, you apply an appropriate hotfix as the current 9.12 does not support Eyefinity on the 5970.

Guidance on setting up Eyefinity was frustratingly limited, so I'll give a quick overview. With all three monitors connected, go to the Desktops and Displays (or whatever it was called) menu in the Catalyst Control Center. Right click in the main pane and choose Create Group. Choose your appropriate layout and hit OK. It may prompt to confirm the ordering is correct (it usually isn't) or it may not. If not, right click on your group and find arrange in the context menu. One screen at a time will show blue, click the corresponding screen in the image. Once that is done, go to Display Properties and confirm that your resolution is extended, selecting the proper one if needed.

One of the oddities I've noticed, at least in the Source Engine games I've tested, is that the extended resolutions are all located in the 16:9 aspect set.

Hope this helps.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

So are you saying that an active adapter is required for three screens regardless of resolution or DVI link?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I can only say that the passive adapter I had been using on my iMac did not allow me to extend my desktop across three 24" 1920x1200 screens. It could have been an issue with my display or video card, but current guidance suggests that an active adapter is required (relating to the way DVI and DP signals differ). If you have a spare passive adapter laying around as I did, you might as well give it a try before investing an extra $100.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

Interesting info, thanks for sharing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom