Eyefinity "Stretching" on outer screens

[snedie]

Hey guys.

So I just bought a 5970 a couple of days ago (With a second one next week, or maybe just a 5870) but I'm having a few troubles in game.

Basically, all games appear stretched on the two outer screens, yet on the centre appear perfectly fine. As I pan around a scene, lets say to the right, the scenery rendered on the now left screen becomes increasing bigger as it approaches the edge of the FOV.

Please refer to my crude drawing:

Any help is greatley appreciated. For reference I play Metro 2033, BF2142, L4D2 among others. All games show this identical problem. I am also running the Cat 10.7 Drivers with Xfire Profiles.

 

[Geckovich]

I was under the impression that this was intentional in games? It's not supposed to be a crystal clear image, more just some peripheral vision.

 

[IceWind]

Its to do with the fact that most games dont officaly support the the resolution you get with eyefinity so the game is streatching the image.

 

[snedie]

Well that did occur to me, but to be honest it truly is a pain in the ass. If your always moving its pretty good, but the fact is most of the time your stood still or moving slowly. Surely it makes sense to have the ability to disable this?

Take Metro, when a cut scene comes on and it's close quarters (Say a small cubical) everything is massive on the outer screens (By quite a bit). Maybe if there is a way to adjust the ammount of this magnification true peripheral vision could be accomplished?

 

[snedie]

Its to do with the fact that most games don't officially support the the resolution you get with eyefinity so the game is stretching the image.

I wasn't aware a game had to be optimised for a particular resolution, and that this was handled at driver level by the GPU Drivers?

However, it would not surprise me if this was the case

 

[mmj_uk]

I think a game would need to render three separate viewpoints for this not to happen, whereas Eyefinity just stretches a single viewpoint across 3 screens.

 

[snedie]

I think a game would need to render three separate viewpoints for this not to happen, whereas Eyefinity just stretches a single viewpoint across 3 screens.

But as far as the game is aware, there is only a single rendering plain, right? For a game engine to render multiple instances would require a massive amount of threads to the GPU, something that right now is limited to a very small number.

I'm certain this is something that has been done deliberately by ATI as an attempt to create peripheral vision, but as with any new technology it doesn't work (Or as with any ATI product).

Think of it this way, you have a video at 640x480 and blow it up on a 50" plasma to 1920x1080; The video simply lacks quality, and quite often those cinematic black bars are added to compensate for Aspect Ratio, but no distortion is witnessed.

Taking this into account with game, the larger viewable are presumably would only require more horsepower but as long as the aspect ratio is say 16:9 or 16:10 then what is rendered by the GPU across the three screens should be almost identical to that of a single screen.

Now if aspect ratio is the problem, and this is not an intentional feature by ATI, than adjusting the resolution should in affect solve the problem....


Ideas?

 

[LeJosh]

Does bezel management not help no?

 

[mmj_uk]

This happens on a single widescreen monitor too it's just less pronounced because you don't get much in the way of peripheral vision, it's more of a tunnel vision with one screen, but for example if you go up to a wall and rotate on the spot you'll see the wall gets slightly distorted as it gets closer to the sides of the screen.

Video doesn't do it because it's a 2D image.

 

[Final8y]

This happens on a single widescreen monitor too it's just less pronounced because you don't get much in the way of peripheral vision, for example if you go up to a wall and rotate on the spot you'll see the wall gets slightly distorted as it gets closer to the edge of the screen.

Video doesn't do it because it's a 2D image.

+1 when i used to set the FOV 120 & above in games it would do exactly that, the edges would be stretched even on a single screen.

 

[snedie]

So, any way of stopping this; Make the game display a true flat image

 

[jak731]

If you put your monitors in portrait rather than landscape you would reduce this effect, but you would have less peripheral vision. Not sure if eyefinity even supports doing that btw.

 

[snedie]

I'm using the Asus VH222H monitors, which unless I purchase VESA stands (At a considerable price I might add) this functionality isn't possible. Although I do like the concept of vertical screens.

 

[jak731]

If you decide you really can't live with the stretching effect it might be worth selling your 3 monitors and buying something like this. You would notice a big increase in the quality of colours and black depth, movies would be bigger (as it's 24") and your graphics card would be less taxed, with the downside of overall resolution being much lower.

You could try balancing your monitors on their sides somehow to see what portrait mode is like.

 

[twist3d0n3]

it's the field of view of games... naturally as things get further to the edge it makes it seem to stretch, and as EF can't alter this in games you have to live with it really... it's not so much giving you a surround view more of an extension of your normal periphery

 

[snedie]

Well my whole reasoning for purchasing the 5970 was for eyefinity, I was considering just a 5870 or dual 5850's instead for single screen use....So selling my screens would probably tick the other half of to no end (and result in my need for a hospital).

 

[lay-z-boy]

Most games will do that. Older ones can be especially obvious but most of them can be tweaked around.

Though, I'm pretty sure bfbc2/moh:b doesn't. That said, I don't really notice it. Too busy playing the game.

As for going vertical. It's great for about half an hour then the bezels become annoying as the screens aren't wide enough, you ideally want 3x30" displays if you're going vertical. Not exactly cheap though.

 

[snedie]

Most games will do that. Older ones can be especially obvious but most of them can be tweaked around.

Though, I'm pretty sure bfbc2/moh:b doesn't. That said, I don't really notice it. Too busy playing the game.

As for going vertical. It's great for about half an hour then the bezels become annoying as the screens aren't wide enough, you ideally want 3x30" displays if you're going vertical. Not exactly cheap though.

Your not kidding, those Dell screens are well over the £1k barrier. I would much rather purchase dual 5970's and a single 24" screen and have done with it; Unless I was a rich guy like some people (Feel free to donate money to my cause...a Fat guy has to eat)

I'll try running through a few more games I have lying around and see if any of them run normally. As I said before, I only notice it the most on metro when I get close to an object and it suddenly becomes 1" away from my face.

 

[snedie]

Also, any one in the thread know anything about Espresso Machines?

 

[lay-z-boy]

Your not kidding, those Dell screens are well over the £1k barrier. I would much rather purchase dual 5970's and a single 24" screen and have done with it; Unless I was a rich guy like some people (Feel free to donate money to my cause...a Fat guy has to eat)

I'll try running through a few more games I have lying around and see if any of them run normally. As I said before, I only notice it the most on metro when I get close to an object and it suddenly becomes 1" away from my face.

Yep, that is a problem. Just stop walking into walls . However, metro is one game I have it switched off for turning up the eyecandy instead.

I have a la pavoni 2a, great bit of kit. Not failed since I got it. Highly recommended. I think it's been rebranded to the europiccola - el now.