ATI Eyefinity...set-up, functionality, and games.

[cadaveca]

Hey guys, after a long hiatus, I'm back!

As always, top-end stuff still graces my desk, and currently, I'm doing ATI eyefinity. HD5870 is in my house, and 3 Dell P2310H monitors are on thier way(estimated delivery Oct 19th). I will use this thread to relate my Eyefinity experience.

Eyefinity will replace a pair of HD4890's and 4x Dell 3007WFP...but currently my system is powered by 2x HD4870, as my 4890's were sent off for RMA to XFX. Only took two months for the RMA, but that's a story for another thread.

I've already got the signature edition of WIndows 7 Ultimate sitting on my desk here...over the weekend I hope to get off this laptop, and get my audio system backed-up and Win7 installed.

Pics and video will be inbound as the build progresses... Real user feedback will follow as well!

AMD's Eyefinity page:

http://www.amd.com/us/products/techn...eyefinity.aspx

Eyefinity Whitepaper:

http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_...logy_Brief.pdf

Supported apps(70):

Assassins Creed - Age of Conan - Battlefield 2142 - Harry Potter Half Blood Prince - Battleforge - Hellgate London - Bioshock - Left 4 Dead - Burnout Paradise - Lost Planet Colonies- -Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare - Lost Planet - Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood - Mirrors edge - Champions Online - Oblivion - Clive Barkers Jericho - Overlord II - Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena - Portal - Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Prey - Company of Heroes - Quake 4 - Condemned: Criminal Origin - Resident Evil 5 - Counter‐Strike - Sins of a Solar Empire - Crysis - Stalker Clear Sky - Crysis Warhead - Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl - Damnation - Star Wars Battlefront - Dead Space - Stranglehold - Devil May Cry 4 - Street Fighter 4 - DiRT - Team Fortress 2 - DiRT 2 - Test Drive Unlimited - DOOM 3 - The Godfather 2 - Empire at War: Total War - The Sims 3 - Enemy Territory‐Quake Wars - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X - Fallout 2 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Fallout 3 - Tomb Raider Underworld - Farcry 2 - Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - FEAR - Unreal Tournament 3 - FlightGear - Velvet Assassin - Flight Simulator X - Wanted: Weapons of Fate - Gears of War - Wildenstein - Ghostbusters - World In Conflict - GRID - X‐Plane 9 - GTA 4 - X3 Terrain Conflict - GTR Evolution - Half‐Life 2

[cadaveca]

reserved post #1(system building!)

Components:

AMD Phenom II X3 720 @ 3.6ghz, 4-core unlocked
ASUS Crosshair III Formula
4x1gb GSkill PC12800HZ(Samsung HCF0)
AMD HD5870
ASUS Xonar D2X
Enermax Galaxy 1000w DxX
Silverstone Raven Chassis
ThermalRight TRUE 120
2x WD500GB HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition 64-Bit

[cadaveca]

reserved post #2(Eyefinity working!)

[cadaveca]

reserved post #3(Eyefinity Gaming!)

[Daniel ~]

Great to see ya again Dave...

One thing I don't understand is the monitors setup...how is is better or as good as an 60" HDTV monitor

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

One thing I don't understand is the monitors setup...how is is better or as good as an 60" HDTV monitor

1. Cost. $750CAD(660US, maybe) for the monitors. $750 Might get you 42-inch panel. Don't forget, I use a 30-inch dell at about 16-inches from my face. 60" would be too much!

2.Immersion. The whole point is proper use of field of vision. Sitting up close to a 60" panel will #1, have horrible dot-pitch, and #2, have more vertical vision than you need...which will lead to neck cramps! Properly arranged, 3x 23-24" monitors, on a desk, fits almost your entire natural field of vision. Hence "Eye" in Eyefinity.


Or so it goes. I'll be finding out for myself very shortly. One display must use DisplayPort, so I just ordered 3 matching ones that did. Currently, Crossfire isn't supported either, so this is the first time since X800 days that I have bought my vgas in singles, and not pairs. 4890's are just now capable of pushing the Dell 3007WFP@ 2560x1600, and 60+FPS in most titles, but there are still a few niggling issues(Crysis, of course!). Doing the math, 2560x1600 is twice the megapixels as 1920x1080, so 4 x 1/2 the workload= twice the work, and the HD5870 is two 4890's in one, plus a few more extra transistors as well.


And with all that, I can finally build a decent driving sim rig, for reasonable costs!

[Daniel ~]

Thanks for the explanation...I can follow your progress a bit better now! ":O}

Although I must say a PS3 on a 60" doesn't leave much to be desired....but I have no basis for comparison... darn! LOL

[Samuknow]

Man I have missed your toys. Well you too Dave. Glade to see your still sporting the latest and greatest.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Thanks for the explanation...I can follow your progress a bit better now! ":O}

Although I must say a PS3 on a 60" doesn't leave much to be desired....but I have no basis for comparison... darn! LOL

I just finished playing Uncharted with the kids. A huge lack of interesting titles in the pc space had me go back to console gaming for a while...Wii, 360, PS3 included. You know, with 2 more 360's, I think I could run Forza on the three monitors? Hmm..for $400, that might be worth it!

I'm using a cheap 42-inch Tv for movies and gaming...and with eyefinity showing potential for 24 screen out of one box...how does almost 18-FOOT horizontal gaming sound?








Sounds like house re-wiring to me!

[Daniel ~]

"how does almost 18-FOOT horizontal gaming sound?"
Like a guy, hell an entire family could get lost in there and never find their way out!!! ":O}

[cloasters]

Faith and begorra, cadaveca doesn't half step!

[bonesaw]

yea i got to see how this goes. i was thinking about getting a better monitor soon after i upgrade my video card, i could get 2 more 19in monitors for this depending on how it looks.

[cadaveca]

Well, so far a busy week! Got Win7 working over the weekend, tomorrow night I should be able to get some benching done(just gotta find a displayport cable!). Teaser:

[Daniel ~]

Be sure to post show times! ":O}

[cadaveca]

Well, one of our actors broke his face travelling to the show. Hopefully a stand-in can be aquired very quickly!

[Daniel ~]

Ouch!! shipping "error"?

[cadaveca]

I'd actually say packing error. The black rub-marks from the stand on the cardboard clearly shows it was packed unwisely. The exterior of the box is basically immaculate.

Unfortunately, Dell's service/repair server is currently under repair itself. If I'm lucky, next-business day replacement means exactly that!

[cadaveca]

Dell says 3-5 days for the replacement. they almost sent me three new monitors!

That will give me time to play with the 5870 and compare vs the 4870's and 4890's I have sitting here. The 4 vgas should work together in CrossfireX...but I don't have a board with 4x PCI-E slots. Will have to add one to my list of parts to get!

XFX RMA replacement 4890's finally arrived at my door yesterday too...so I have to spend some time testing them as well, as the first set of replacements didn't work at all! Currently though, these cards seem to like 935gpu/1100mem on stock cooling, the first cards I sent in did 965/1055.

Anway, in the first pic of the monitors, I hadn't set them up yet, but you can see the damage on the leftmost monitor, if you look closely. I hope the replacement arrives in one peice!

[Daniel ~]

Good luck with the replacement!

[ThunderRd]

With all that graphics equipment can we get a 'lil folding out of ya after you're set up and stable?