Part 2: AMD's Eyefinity Technology Explained

[RazberyBandit]

[citation][nom]soulbro[/nom]I thought "portrait" was "taller than it is wide," like, well, a portrait, and "landscape" was "wider than it is tall," like, well, a landscape. Did the definitions get swapped somewhere along the line?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_orientation[/citation]
Yeah, I got it backwards... That's what I get for posting before the morning caffeine.

 

[blevsta]

DVI outputs can only use 2 active outputs per card. This is where display port comes in and allows for up to 6 per card. Unfotunately display port didn't catch on in time and is rarely supported by anyone but Dell.

ATI should fix their drivers to support activating a 3rd DVI display while using crossfire. It looks like that's what Nvidia is doing for their 3 monitor 3d vision. I think more people would be willing to upgrade to crossfire than buy a new display port monitor/adapter.

 

[soulbro]

Yeah, I got it backwards... That's what I get for posting before the morning caffeine.

The article got it wrong too, I think, so I was particularly confused. Author says he uses portrait-landscape-portrait, and then shows a picture of his landscape-portrait-landscape setup.

 

[a4mula]

As an owner of a 5870 and 3x Dell 2209wa in an Eyefinity portrait setup I feel obliged to let the readers know that the support of dongles is a crap-shoot at best at this point. After going through 2x certified passive adapters that didn't work at all I landed with the Dell (Accell) Active DL DVI-DP dongle. It runs about $100. It works, mostly. I still get monitor flicker and loss on that screen. In order to minimize this issue I had to flash my GPU bios. Now instead of it happening every few minutes it's only ever few hours. If you're considering this I'd suggest looking at

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=17012

WSG has been on top of Eyefinity from day 1.

 

[fausto]

that chick is hot...sure she looks like she don't know jack *** about pc and sounds out of her element but I'll forgive her. Tomshardware please don't fire her and have her wear a bikini next time.

 

[akula2]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]It's right above the comments section, to the right of "Share," amongst a ton of tiny little icons[/citation]

Got it my friend, apologies for annoying you guys Earlier "Print" was placed in the above as an URL, if my memory is correct?

 

[blcskate]

6 isn't enough. 120 at least (all 3D w/o glasses models). Then we can fill a whole room and really get down to business. I will check back in 10-20 years when processing power gets there. Till then 1 good monitor is fine.

Better yet MTI works with surgeons and gets us a nice display port in the back of our neck (yes we all want the Matrix to be real)

 

[knowom]

Conjoining two or more monitors into one gap-less bezel free bigger and higher resolution monitors would be the best thing for monitor makers to start doing and not exactly difficult to accomplish.

 

[michaelahess]

Wouldn't three monitor gaming be better with three portrait monitors? Side by side landscape is not the way the human eye really see's is it? My two 22" monitors side by side take up my entire horizontal viewing area (save for a small amount of periphery) but there is a lot of "extra space" above and below.

 

[AEternal1]

when i can afford two more projectors, it will be sweet to line them up for a perfect screen. the only part......that requires A LOT of wall space. my one projector already takes up one whole wall... i may need to build new walls, so i can do a mild wrap around.....from computer geeking to bob villa..the things i will do for my computer.

 

[Guest]

BUT THERE IS THE HUGE BLACK LINES BETWEEN THE SCREENS FFS!

How can anyone like playing on that? Until they have zero bezel, or they make 1 big display by combining 6 22ich monitors into 1 frame, its going to suck.

 

[Guest]

For FPS, they need to switch the way they think about solving the issue. The bottom center screen should be the same screen as if you didn't have all the extra screens. The left and right should be side to side and the top monitors should display more of the sky. The ability to see up is what would give you a huge advantage in a FPS or any combat game were people can be above you.

 

[heroofspirits]

lol she playing a demo...

 

[volks1470]

[citation][nom]blevsta[/nom]ATI should fix their drivers to support activating a 3rd DVI display while using crossfire. It looks like that's what Nvidia is doing for their 3 monitor 3d vision. I think more people would be willing to upgrade to crossfire than buy a new display port monitor/adapter.[/citation]

X2!!

I'd love to use 3 DVI outputs instead of the low quality VGA middle monitor. I guess I still have to get that 2nd 5870 to do that though...lol

 

[Guest]

I too had the problem of the Diplayport monitor blacking out on a three display setup. Going with the ATI promulgated theory of low USB port output, I tried all sorts of cures including an external USB adapter. None of that made a difference. Nor did fiddling with Motherboard BIOS settings or Windows 7 power settings. Finally, I stumbled across a thread at Widescreengamingforums.com where An individual identifying himself as the 5800 Series product manager stated that early card BIOSes,(earlier that ver. 091112), set the diplayport voltage a tad too low.
Acting according to that, I flashed the 091112 Bios to my card and the flashing and blackouts ceased.
In my mind, that puts a stake through the heart of theories that some thing is wrong with the various Bizlik manufactured active adapters,(mine is a Sapphire,like the one pictured with the package in your article),or the USB "too low voltage" story.
So, for those suffering with this, go to WSGF and locate the Eyefinity section of the forum. Look for a thread titled "My display keeps blacking out" and go to page 6 to find a link to the above mentioned ATI reference BIOS that almost certainly will fix your issue.
Amazingly, ATI tech support people still seem ignorant of the true cause of this issue and will parrot the,(in my mind), discounted theories, sending users on a wild goose chase in search of a cure!

 

[hoof_hearted]

Maybe I am off base here, but:

a bunch of small monitors cobble together, say 3, whatever kind of connectors or dongle, or other stuff to make connection and how many video cards do I need

vs

1 47" LD4700 hp monitor at newegg for $1780 + one video card, maybe a 5870 for $420 - to me this seems simpler

 

[Guest]

Should just make a decent sized monitor 24 inch or bigger with 6 displayports on it.

 

[Guest]

Cool video, but it is hard to take it seriously when you get a girl who is clearly there just for her looks making commentary on it.

 

[Alvin Smith]

It is likely to be some long time before I would trust Eyefinity to an Adobe Creative Suite type productivity environment.

My current edit build had two PNY 9800GT-EE single slot, reduced power cards with CUDA, OpenGL 3.0, DirectX 10 and SLI support ... I am hoping that two of these cards can run up to four 1920x1200 monitors.

QUESTION: What can Windows 7 do, NATIVELY, with two nVidia cards? ... With one or two Radeons?

Do nVidia drivers not automatically "find" all nVidia cards (Quadro/Gforce) and allow ganging monitors in various layouts? ... also combining CUDA compute resources?

 

[anamaniac]

Eyefinity certainly still has its own issues that need to be worked out.
But as others have said, WSGF is the best place for information at the moment to get everything working.

The active adaptors are still too expensive, they cost $150 in Canada.
Bezels and viewing angles. Viewing angles are more of a problem when all monitors are in portrait mode.
Multi monitor stands cost more than the monitors typically.
Bezels certainly could be smaller. Though not actually as big a problem as most people would think.
Stretching when using high aspect ratios (3x1 landscape), in some games it's unbearable.

I currently run three Samsung 2343 2048x1152 monitors all in portrait mode on a single 5770. It's quite impressive, but after a $1000 investment ($200 per monitor, $150 for the adaptor, and whatever I paid for a 4870 then paid some more to traid it for some guys 5770), I think I may have been better off going for a 30" 2560x1600 or a 50" 1920x1080 plasma.
I just haven't found multimonitor a viable option in gaming, but I do enjoy it for desktop usage. (Email and IM on one monitor, browser on the other, xbox hooked up the the third for some FF XIII lovin').

I am a multimonitor believer, and I think by the 6xxx series cards most of the issues will be fixed, and it should be perfected by the time the 7xxx cards release.

 

[Dkz]

O M G! some one pls make that chick stoP!!!!! her voice is sooo annoying!

 

[hixbot]

Do you need to combine the monitors for one big resoltion? Or can you use them for a unique perspective such as having them surround you (1 on each side) etc. That would be very useful for sims.

 

[mrboycom]

AMD and ATI is cool they inform their customer well. Which is very trust able and stable. Nice style AMD and ATI. They did well.

 

[Guest]

I'm wondering why, after 8 months there is still no support for a 5x1 configuration? That makes a lot more sense than a 3x2 when gaming.

 

[bonezy]

[citation][nom]tomtompiper[/nom]You aren't using FF + ADblock Plus?[/citation]

I think he was referring to the 4-minute ATI commerci... er, review.