GUIDE: Get the FOV of eyefinity on a SINGLE MONITOR!

[Temi_D]

This is a guide on how you can set custom screen resolutions with very high aspect ratios so it gives you a very high FOV (field of view) like eyefinity.

You do not need a 5000 series card to do this, i am using my HD 4870

Requirements:
- A monitor connected via DVI or HDMI for full screen mode (DO NOT USE VGA!). If you have VGA connection, PLEASE MAKE SURE the game is in 'windowed' mode
-The monitor needs to have a 'keep aspect ratio' option or something similar. My cheap Hannspree one does so I assume most monitors have them.
- Ati graphics card and Ati catalyst installed (might work with Nvidia cards but I do not have one to test it with)

The guide will be in my second post

What is FOV? Well I will demonstrate it using Crysis below (yes I haven't goten very far yet).

Crysis at my native resolution 1920x1080, aspect ratio 16:9 :

Full size: http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6106/25292968.png

Crysis at a custom resolution 1920x720, aspect ratio 16:6 (8:3) - same as two 1440x1080 monitors in eyefinity mode (2880x1080):

Full size: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1341/37102717.png

Crysis at a custom resolution 1920x540, aspect ratio 32:9 - same as two monitors at 1920x1080 in eyefinity mode (3840x1080):

Full size: http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/7206/52259756.png

As you can see when you compare the screenshots, the higher the aspect ratio, the more/wider you can see.

As for how it actuall looks on my monitor,

1920x720:

1920x540:

 

[Temi_D]

This trick only works properly with games that support eyefinity/abnormal resolutions. If you try it with others that don’t, the image will just be stretched.

NOTE: You can already set custom resolutions using catalyst but it is limited to 1280x720

The guide:

1. Open the CCC and navigate to information center

2. Right click on the 2D Driver file path and click copy selected.

3. Paste it in somewhere like notepad, microsoft word, etc…

4. Navigate to that location in the registry

5. Scroll down until you see ‘DALNonstandardModesBCD’. There are 4 of them. BCD1,2,3,4

6. Just right-click anyone (I used BCD1) and click ‘modify’. This brings up a table-like structure that looks like this:

7. This is where you enter the custom resolution you want to set. ONLY USE MULTIPLES OF FOUR ie 4,8,12,16 etc…. Enter it in the following format: The first 4 digits on the left cannot be edited, they are just identifiers. The next 4 digits are the width, the 4 after that are height. The last two digits set the refresh rate. Put zeros for everything else.

* The width should be the maximum supported by your monitor and not any higher. ie if your monitor's maximum width is 1680, dont go putting 1920


8. Example If I wanted to set a resolution of 1920x540 at 60Hz I would type: ‘1920054000000060’ The spaces are put automatically.

9. You can press enter add as many as you want. I also use 1920x720 so that is entered as: ’1920072000000060’

10. Once you are done, click ok and restart your computer, fire up a game and the resolutions you created should be selectable in the game

 

[Temi_D]

Yes eyefinity does mimic peripheral vision to some extent but thats not what I'm concerned about. All I care about is the increased area in which you can see more, which can give you an advantage when playing online or even single player. I see it as cheap eyefinity

 

[Temi_D]

http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-software.aspx

The list is outdated though

 

[Temi_D]

That's quite a good idea, I like it. Can I ask two things though. Could you resize your screenshots please to make them easier to view in the browser and can you do some screenshots that include the black bars so that we can see how that looks?

Also, do you mind if I post this in another forum (can't link to here)?

Cheers.

I've resized the images and included pics of how it actually looks on my monitor (windowed mode). I wouldn't mind you reposting elsewhere as long as it links back here

kinda pointless because with the 32:9 option you're essentially going for 25% of the pixels you'd get if you just bought another monitor

so although you get a larger FOV, 4 pixels now equals 1 so the quality will be extremely bad in comparison and stuff which is in your field of view may be no where as crisp

I'd say try it and actually see how it looks like in person before slating it. Also as for quality, there is no difference because the pixels are specific to the resolution you pick. Its not a single image that gets enlarged/shrunk. That said, I do use the 16:6 more often than the 32:9

 

[Temi_D]

Ahh I get what you mean, your monitor stretched everything to fill the whole screen. There should be an option in the monitor's menu for you to keep the aspect ratio and you end up with black bars instead. Something like this

 

[Temi_D]

Doesnt BFBC2 have a 'windowed mode' option?