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would like to learn abit about eyefinity ??? and ways to connect it

beasty6

beasty6

beasty6

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2010
Posts
3,104
Location
Kettering
hey guys,

I've been looking at game play videos on youtube and have noticed some using eyefinity and was just hoping someone could give any personal opinions and what's the ups/downs to using it

also what ways is there to connect two XFX HD 5870's in Xfire with three monitors/
these are the ways i fort it may work (probably wrong)

1) connect the middle monitor using a HDMI cable then the left and right monitor using display ports ???

2) using DVI cables all round

is those are correct and also if i wanted to game on just the middle monitor and had for example, facebook on the right monitor and ocuk forums on the left, how could i do this ???

beasty
 
If you are running Crossfire, all cables must be connected to the top card - the outputs on the lower card are unused. To connect three screens, one must be on the Displayport output. The other two can be DVI+DVI or DVI+HDMI, doesn't matter.

For my setup, I only have VGA,DVI & HDMI inputs on my monitors, so I have two connected from DVI-DVI, and one Displayport-adapter-DVI.

If you do end up using an adapter to go from Displayport to DVI, it needs to be an ACTIVE adapter, not passive, and will need to be dual-link if you're running higher than 1920x1200 on that screen (at or lower than 1920x1200 and single link is fine). I'm running 1920x1080 on my screen connected to that output, so this adapter is the one I'm running: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-250-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502

In my case, all I had to do was connect my cables up and it worked first time. Other people have had issues before, so your mileage may vary! :)

Once you have all three monitors up and running, you can then choose how to run them. You can run them as normal extended desktops so Windows "sees" 3 separate screens. This is what I run for normal desktop stuff, web browsing, etc. You can also setup an Eyefinity Group in Catalyst Control Centre and then Windows "sees" one really big screen (5760x1080 in my case). This means you can run a game in fullscreen and it will show across all 3 screens - because Windows is only "seeing" one screen.

In my case I have a profile set up for each screen setup (one for 3 extended desktops, one for Eyefinity) and switch between them by HotKeys. That way I can flick to Eyefinity to play a game, then flick back easily when I'm done. If you want to run a game on one screen and facebook & overclockers on the others, all you'd do is disable your Eyefinity Group and run it as 3 extended desktops.

I'm still new to Eyefinity (5870 & 2 additional screens were my Christmas present) but so far I am absolutely loving it. Some games are annoying because you need to install extra programs to sort out graphical issues where the game designer lazily assumed the screen would never go wider than 16:9 (Call of Duty, I'm looking at you!) but most games I've tried have worked brilliantly and it's so nice catching things out of the corner of your eye that you would never have seen playing the game on one screen. At the moment, I couldn't imagine going back to gaming on 1 screen.
 
VGA is theoretically the poorer of the options there, image quality wise. The PC produces a digital image, converts it to analogue to send via VGA, the the monitor converts the analogue image back to digital to display it - not ideal.

DVI and HDMI are both digital image formats, so both will be as good as each other quality wise. HDMI can carry audio too where DVI can't. I'm not sure if one can handle higher theoretical resolutions than the other (single link DVI and HDMI 1.0 both topped out at 1920x1200 @ 60Hz but we're now on dual link DVI and HDMI 1.3, so who knows!) but either will be fine for monitors at Full HD (1920x1080) or 1920x1200.

My advice, steer clear of VGA unless that is the only thing your monitor/PC can do. Go for either HDMI or DVI and you won't go wrong.
 
Confused Stu said:
VGA is theoretically the poorer of the options there, image quality wise. The PC produces a digital image, converts it to analogue to send via VGA, the the monitor converts the analogue image back to digital to display it - not ideal.

DVI and HDMI are both digital image formats, so both will be as good as each other quality wise. HDMI can carry audio too where DVI can't. I'm not sure if one can handle higher theoretical resolutions than the other (single link DVI and HDMI 1.0 both topped out at 1920x1200 @ 60Hz but we're now on dual link DVI and HDMI 1.3, so who knows!) but either will be fine for monitors at Full HD (1920x1080) or 1920x1200.

My advice, steer clear of VGA unless that is the only thing your monitor/PC can do. Go for either HDMI or DVI and you won't go wrong.
Click to expand...

i have my setup with 2xDVI and one DP>VGA adaptor. Cannot tell any difference in image quality between the DVI screens and the adapted one. It does take a while longer (1-2 secs) to come one than the DVI fed ones, but that is at boot up time and there is no issues when in Windows. I had issues when connecting with HDMI where that the screen would appear to have a black border all around, wiht the actual desktop sitting inside it. Was very odd and only occured on the HDMI connection.

I wasnt aware that there are programs to sort out the stretching issue that you get with CoD,but will investigate that when i get back and can use my rig (will also be setting up groups too). I mainly play EVE, so have had no issue with my Eyefinity setup in that. Am looking forward to it as will soon have 3 characters, so will be able to have 3 clients open at the same time.....yikes.
 
Shelster said:
I wasnt aware that there are programs to sort out the stretching issue that you get with CoD,but will investigate that when i get back and can use my rig (will also be setting up groups too).
Click to expand...

Here you go mate: http://www.widescreenfixer.org/
It's a case of running this in the background and assigning a keyboard shortcut to it. Press the keyboard shortcut in the game and it's sorted. :) You have to do this every time you fire up COD. :(
 
I will be setting up eyefinity with 3 screens over the weekend, one thing I would like to know is could I run a fourth screen a 40”lcd tv too. at the moment that’s my pc monitor,when im sat at my pc desk I would like to play games and browse the net with the three monitors, but I would also like to watch stuff and browse the net while on my sofa through the 40”

Can I set the 40 as a completely separate monitor that I can just switch to and from while having the three other monitors connected(obviously they would be off while im using the 40)
 
thanks

when you say eyefinity will choose the lowest res posibble do you mean it will auto switch to the 40 which is 1080p and then from the 1080p i would have to choose a profile to switch to the three monitors?
 
Semple said:
bare in mind though that eyefinity will choose the lowest res possible.
Click to expand...

:confused:

Mine is doing the highest possible resolution that 3 1080p screens can do.

Theorectically, if you connect the TV to the second card when not in crossfire, it should work. And yes, it can be a seperate monitor. The other 3 screens can still be on too if you like.
 
For example if you had three monitors, 2 running at 1920 x 1080 and the third running at 1600 x 1050 then in the setup well make all three monitors run at 1600 x 1050. (AFAIK)

EDIT:
Orcvader said:
:confused:

Mine is doing the highest possible resolution that 3 1080p screens can do.

Theorectically, if you connect the TV to the second card when not in crossfire, it should work. And yes, it can be a seperate monitor. The other 3 screens can still be on too if you like.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that all three of your monitors run at 1920 by 1080 though?
 
Ah if you put it that way then yes, that is true. You got me thinking all three monitors will go to a super low resolution :p.
 
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