AMD's ATI Eyefinity Technology Review @ [H]

CaptNumbNutz said:
Dear left nut,

You've been a great friend, but unfortunately I have to sell you to get the funds to feed my insatiable lust for three new monitors and a 5870.

Signed,
Me
Click to expand...
Hmm, sounds like a plan. What is the going rate for a good testicle? :p
 
I fail to see you mention those games that does not work with Eyefinity?
Games like World in Conflict and Resisdent Evil 5?
People might think all games will work flawless on this, when it won't.
 
Quality review!.. didn't even realize that I was watching it for 40 minutes. That NFS Shift demo was the shit.. Would like to see more Eyefinity gameplay reviews, even though this review was quality enough to stick for some time.
 
Atech said:
I fail to see you mention those games that does not work with Eyefinity?
Games like World in Conflict and Resisdent Evil 5?
People might think all games will work flawless on this, when it won't.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure Kyle talked about the fact that not every game is going to work with Eyefinity. I was working and watching at the same time, so I could be wrong.

Either way, it is not unreasonable to expect some games are just not going to work right with Eyefinity, after all most of these games were never designed or intended to run at super high rez settings/multiple screens.
 
Gret review Kyle, your first one covering the 5870 caused me to pull the 4870 out and grab the first 5870 I found. I initialy thought the bezels would be a deal breaker for me and Eyefinity, but after I seen another site show a brief run through with L4D I was surprised how little it affected the immersion. Now the [H] review answered a lot of my questions, and showed a lot more games in action, thanks ! Getting a feel for it is nearly impossible from looking at the still pics.

The day the NDA lifted, there was a pic of a black active DP/DVI adapter shown on the back of a 5870, not sure of the source or if it was one of the prototypes you mentioned in the video ?
 
All HL2 games were played in 16:9 on a 48:10 display - I know it's 16:9 cause you picked that in the settings. No wonder there was terrible fish eye distortion. Equally there was no peripheral advantage - you saw no more then anyone else with a 16:9 display would have.

It was also obvious there was no angle compensation - e.g. look at the fences in need for speed. See how there is a sharp angle change going from the centre to side monitors. That's because you angled the monitors but the game was expecting one big flat monitor.

You mentioned bezel compensation and the problems with huds at least, although missed out on the problems of not being able to run windows in dual screen mode - horizontal span is not as good (e.g. having a three screen wide task bar is irritating, setting that word doc to full screen will fill all three monitors not just one which is normally what you want).

I am used to hardocp being very precise and for example noticing the quality of the AA in some HL2 chain link fences - personally something I find it hard to see - yet here even looking at a low quality video I can spot image quality problems that you seem to have missed?

I am sure eye infinity is (or at least could be) great but I think you do your readers a dis-service by not pointing out it's problems in your rush to praise it.
 
Nice video review, need more of this on the site.

Hopefully once they have the Crossfire kinks out, 3 30 inch monitors on a 5870x2 will be fantastic.

Well, there goes my electric bill!
 
wow nice setup kyle, but I dont know if it is worth AUD$3300

I am still interested but will wait for drivers and that to mature.
 
I'm impressed, mostly, yeah, in a way I kind of really like this.

Small leap for ATI/gaming... just the start of something that could be huge (since monitor resolution doesn't seem to get bigger than 30"/2560x1600.... so we'll simply run on huge grids of monitors)!
 
colinstu said:
I'm impressed, mostly, yeah, in a way I kind of really like this.

Small leap for ATI/gaming... just the start of something that could be huge (since monitor resolution doesn't seem to get bigger than 30"/2560x1600.... so we'll simply run on huge grids of monitors)!
Click to expand...

I'd rather see the development go down the road of VR-goggles.
No bezels, full vision, total immersion.
 
All HL2 games were played in 16:9 on a 48:10 display - I know it's 16:9 cause you picked that in the settings. No wonder there was terrible fish eye distortion.
He also stated/demonstrated that is where the correct 5760x1200 setting was, and it was a common issue in the games that function currently

Equally there was no peripheral advantage - you saw no more then anyone else with a 16:9 display would have.
Wrong, watch as the the resolution was changed in HL2, the centre image remains the same, yet additional info is added to the side monitors. What you're suggesting is either a 3:1 stretch of the image, or heavy vertical cropping, neither of which was displayed in the video.

It was also obvious there was no angle compensation - e.g. look at the fences in need for speed. See how there is a sharp angle change going from the centre to side monitors. That's because you angled the monitors but the game was expecting one big flat monitor.
On my 24", I sit 18"-24" away from the display, if I still had my 30" I'd either have to back up or pivot my head, so the side monitors will definately be in my peripheral vision. In a fast game like NFS, the side monitors will be blurred a bit, just like real life ! ;) But in a FPS, with the additional landscape, I would probably pivot my chair if the action focused there.

You mentioned bezel compensation and the problems with huds at least
Agreed, issues that I hope get cleared up, hopefully just in a patch.

although missed out on the problems of not being able to run windows in dual screen mode - horizontal span is not as good (e.g. having a three screen wide task bar is irritating, setting that word doc to full screen will fill all three monitors not just one which is normally what you want).
Wouldn't this be handled in the 2d settings of CCC ? there are numerous options for 2d set-ups there. Eyefinity is meant for gaming, not productivity.

I am used to hardocp being very precise and for example noticing the quality of the AA in some HL2 chain link fences - personally something I find it hard to see - yet here even looking at a low quality video I can spot image quality problems that you seem to have missed?
If there others besides the ones you mentioned above, please speak up, I as a potential buyer don't mind hearing negatives, to see if they'll affect my experience or decision

I am sure eye infinity is (or at least could be) great but I think you do your readers a dis-service by not pointing out it's problems in your rush to praise it
No Comment.

Thats what I've seen from watching the video ??
 
Awesome review!

Was anyone else taken by surprise by Eyefinity? While not a [H]ardcore gearhead, I do try and stay relatively up to date on the bigger technology developments. This one flew completely under my radar.

It reminds me of the stories surrounding the Sega Saturn's development; how Sega's development team were taken completely unawares by the Playstation's reported 3D capabilities, and were left scrambling to re-engineer the Saturn to compete (which was initially designed with 2D in mind). I bet Nvidia is feeling somewhat like Sega these days. It wouldn't surprise me if they try to shoehorn Eyefinity-like technology into the GT300 series at this late stage.
 
great review, loved every segment of it and watched the entire 30 mins...loved the gameplay footage and it needed more of it!
 
Modred189 said:
That's rather amusing.
But it can't be true. It's an Apple product... "It just...uh.....yea, it flickers."
Click to expand...

I did have the Apple adapter working beautifully on a 3007 monitor in 2D fine. Did not like 3D though.

GORANKAR said:
It seems like wider aspect ratios would be something game devs could easily be able to support, then again, we saw how long it took some devs just to support 16:10/16:9.
Click to expand...

Surely a gave dev can support whatever aspect ratio they want to with its engine. With 5760X1600 we are looking at a 3.6:1 ratio. Should not be hard to handle that IMO and will stop all of the fisheye issues you see due to the aspect ratios being heavily skewed.

BravO))) said:
Kyle, does AMD plan on making it to where you can use a passive dp to dvi adapter instead of an active one with current 5870's?
Click to expand...

AMD has NEVER said that to me. They have talked about putting together certified active adapters that are not so costly. I have read that some devices can detect if a DVI is plugged into a DP and adjust its signal accordingly, but I don't think that is going to be a efficient alternative for a video card due to the extra logic needed on the board.

92miata said:
damn how did he get all those new u2410's?????

how about using 3 3008WFP's and show me. that would be impressive, EH?????
Click to expand...

The three there are AMD's that it loaned me, I purchased three others this week, same model, for Brent to use in his testing. I am going to work towards getting three of our own DVI monitors.

CaptNumbNutz said:
Dear left nut,

You've been a great friend, but unfortunately I have to sell you to get the funds to feed my insatiable lust for three new monitors and a 5870.

Signed,
Me
Click to expand...

/Cleans off monitor.

kuyaglen said:
Well this video review is more impressive to me than any screen shot, any review, I've seen about Eyefinity to date.

Question: In your first review you guys noticed that the card used more power (when idle) when driving 2 displays vs just 1 display. Did you guys notice the same phenomena with 3 displays at idle/load?
Click to expand...

Yes, and this was the reason we wanted to do video. Even still the video does not convey the creamy goodness of the setup. I did not take power loads, but according to the engineer I talked to, the idle power usage should be the same with 2 or 3 displays. Not sure on the upcoming version with support for 6, but we will be asking.

XXGG said:
I think 5 monitors in portrait mode will really be kick ass setup.

But before that, I would love to see Kyle do a eyefinity setup using multiple 1080p front projectors. Each screen doesn't have to be wall size but each being 40~60" level

That would really be awesome fun project to do.
Click to expand...

I think 5x1 in portrait will kick ass!

I don't have the means here to do projectors, but we did play Dirt2 on a huge projection screen (50x18 feet??) and it was incredible. Also played L4D on a projection setup (18x7??) and it was a great experience!

Atech said:
I fail to see you mention those games that does not work with Eyefinity?
Games like World in Conflict and Resisdent Evil 5?
People might think all games will work flawless on this, when it won't.
Click to expand...

I actually showed you one in the video that did not work, and mentioned several others. So in no way did we express the technology is flawless at this time. All of the games we tried in 3x1 landscape just worked. While I wish I would have had time to QA all the games in the world, sadly that is not going to happen. All the games we tried we had great success with. Here is a list of tested games as well that is in the article.

FragMagnet said:
The day the NDA lifted, there was a pic of a black active DP/DVI adapter shown on the back of a 5870, not sure of the source or if it was one of the prototypes you mentioned in the video ?
Click to expand...

I did not see that. Dell has a black active adapter but I have not used it.

sbuckler said:
1. Equally there was no peripheral advantage - you saw no more then anyone else with a 16:9 display would have.

2. It was also obvious there was no angle compensation - e.g. look at the fences in need for speed. See how there is a sharp angle change going from the centre to side monitors. That's because you angled the monitors but the game was expecting one big flat monitor.

3. You mentioned bezel compensation and the problems with huds at least, although missed out on the problems of not being able to run windows in dual screen mode - horizontal span is not as good (e.g. having a three screen wide task bar is irritating, setting that word doc to full screen will fill all three monitors not just one which is normally what you want).

4. I am used to hardocp being very precise and for example noticing the quality of the AA in some HL2 chain link fences - personally something I find it hard to see - yet here even looking at a low quality video I can spot image quality problems that you seem to have missed?

5. I am sure eye infinity is (or at least could be) great but I think you do your readers a dis-service by not pointing out it's problems in your rush to praise it.
Click to expand...

1. You are simply wrong here. We tested and proved it to ourselves. Even though 16:9 might have been selected to get the resolution selection needed, it was in no way sticking to 16:9, and the videos easily proved that if you have ever played any of those games.

2. No, there is not angle compensation.

3. You can easily run Windows in a dual screen mode. You are simply going to have to set your display for an Eyefinity group to get it recognized for gaming. Not seamless, but hardly a pain as modes switch quickly. I would expect hotkey functionality in the future as I did discuss this with folks at ATI.

4. I would suggest you see it in person as I went to very specific lengths to explain to our viewers that a camera shooting this is NOT the greatest solution in the world. Given that you are educated about graphics, you should obviously understand the artifacting we are going to see shooting HDV video of an LCD display then compressing it and resizing it to be acceptable for Web streaming. I would suggest you watch for a follow-up performance article from Brent on Eyefinity and particular GPUs. This was, remember, and look at what Eyefinity could offer in terms of experience. And to note, I did specifically talk about having GPU limitations with so many pixels in play.

5. Obviously you did not watch the entire video, which is fine, but if you are going to accuse us of not showing the whole story, I would appreciate if you would actually LISTEN to the entire story which you obviously did not.

CookiePuss said:
Nice video review, need more of this on the site.

Hopefully once they have the Crossfire kinks out, 3 30 inch monitors on a 5870x2 will be fantastic.

Well, there goes my electric bill!
Click to expand...

Thinking the same thing!
 
Mr_Lore said:
They've gotta get a 2x 20" portrait plus 1x 30" landscape going with this, that and the bezel trick and I'm sold!

Mmmmm...

2x Professional P2010H 20-inch Flat Panel Monitor
1x Dell High Color 30 inch UltraSharp Widescreen Digital Flat Panel

:eek:
Click to expand...

Totally agree...I have the Apple 30" Display, and all this time I thought Eyefinity would work with me setting up two 20" 1600x1200res monitors on either side flipped upright in Portrait mode, so all three monitors would then have 1600res vertical height across all three.

They better get that working, it can't be that dificult to have Portrait + Landscape + Portrait ?
 
Somnambulator said:
great review, loved every segment of it and watched the entire 30 mins...loved the gameplay footage and it needed more of it!
Click to expand...

Zorachus said:
Totally agree...I have the Apple 30" Display, and all this time I thought Eyefinity would work with me setting up two 20" 1600x1200res monitors on either side flipped upright in Portrait mode, so all three monitors would then have 1600res vertical height across all three.

They better get that working, it can't be that dificult to have Portrait + Landscape + Portrait ?
Click to expand...

I would GUESS that is something coming very soon as the subject was discussed by Brent and myself with AMD specifically, we did not however ask about an ETA, but I will today.
 
Your stock totally went up in my book the moment I heard large in the margin playing... :D
 
Atech said:
That list i bogus, it lists Resident Evil 5 as working, but it's not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nAhcWqIgts&feature=player_embedded
It also lists World in Conflict:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=783&type=expert&pid=11

Another dud...not pointing my finger at you, but AMD PR...
Click to expand...

I would suggest that is one person's experience. I don't see where he followed up with AMD on this either.

And I get it Atech, you don't like this technology, you think it is full of holes. I understand your point, but as above, you come with a bunch of flimsy arguments.

Should you want to address other issues besides what we cover in the review, take it to your own thread please. Please do not thread crap our review thread when you have not even watched our entire review. This is your one warning.
 
I can't wait for HardOCP's CF review. HardOCP's benchmarks are the only ones I trust. Keep up the good work guys!
 
Tater Poon said:
I can't wait for HardOCP's CF review. HardOCP's benchmarks are the only ones I trust. Keep up the good work guys!
Click to expand...

5850 tonight at 12:01am Eastern Time. We will cover single GPU and CFX in this 5850 review. No Eyefinity yet, but that will be next. Brent is getting his own 24" Dell U2410 3x1 setup so we will start to see performance specifics on Eyefinity very soon.
 
Zorachus said:
Thank you Kyle, and I thought I was the only freak who wanted a crazy setup like that, 20" Portrait + 30" Landscape + 20 Portrait.

But the more I read on the [H] and widescreenforums I am definitely not alone in wanting this. I think it is all of us who spent the big bucks on a nice 30" Display the last few years, now have no options to run Eyefinity with it, unless we buy two more 30" which is very expensive, and would also be too taxing a resolution to game on in my opinion . But adding two 20" monitors is much more affordable and easier to game with.
Click to expand...

I currently run 20.1" Portrait + 30" Landscape + 20.1" Portrait on two cards, so you are not alone in wanting that configuration supported, and on one card or two cards with crossfire enabled. Ideally for me, I think Landscape in the middle and Portrait on the sides will be perfect for gaming, and reduce the fish eye problem considerably.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I currently run 20.1" Portrait + 30" Landscape + 20.1" Portrait on two cards, so you are not alone in wanting that configuration supported, and on one card or two cards with crossfire enabled. Ideally for me, I think Landscape in the middle and Portrait on the sides will be perfect for gaming, and reduce the fish eye problem considerably.
Click to expand...


Thank you Brent, please ask the AMD techs if they will get this working soon ?

It seems a lot of us 30" owners would like to run our displays, and game at 4960x1600res. Pretty much everyone that bought a 30" lately and wants to run Eyefinity will go this route. I highly doubt they will just pop down the cash for two more 30" monitors, that is a minimum of at least $2k to $3k. But just two 20" in Portrait mode would cost like $600 or so max, even cheaper on eBay.
 
Take it to viddler.com if you have issue with its ads. Or pony up the bandwidth for every to watch it for free. If you want to discuss the ads, I suggest you do it in the OT section of our forums. I am sorry if you find them offensive, but it 100% out of my hands. :( - Kyle
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Zorachus said:
Thank you Brent, please ask the AMD techs if they will get this working soon ?

It seems a lot of us 30" owners would like to run our displays, and game at 4960x1600res. Pretty much everyone that bought a 30" lately and wants to run Eyefinity will go this route. I highly doubt they will just pop down the cash for two more 30" monitors, that is a minimum of at least $2k to $3k. But just two 20" in Portrait mode would cost like $600 or so max, even cheaper on eBay.
Click to expand...

Yes gentleman these are very important questions for me as well, and I am one of those people on the WSGF asking these questions (20/30/20) because, I personally just bought three Dell monitors: 3007WFP-HC and the 2 IPS side panels 2007FP to the tune of $1500.. Hindisght I would have probably bought 3 U2410's but I really had no idea Eyefinity was happening and that it would work so well...

I also would like to express my gratitude to [H]ard and Kyle in particular for the video reviews of not only the current 5770 but also the core i7, P6T dleuxe reviews of the past which have been so informative and helpful..

"KUDOS" I watched the entire review all 33 minutes and I loved every minute of it. Thanks again for practical application of new technology as it pertains to the end user and little guys who buy all this stuff.. You are AWESOME!
 
Jimmmy said:
Yes gentleman these are very important questions for me as well, and I am one of those people on the WSGF asking these questions (20/30/20) because, I personally just bought three Dell monitors: 3007WFP-HC and the 2 IPS side panels 2007FP to the tune of $1500.. Hindisght I would have probably bought 3 U2410's but I really had no idea Eyefinity was happening and that it would work so well...

I also would like to express my gratitude to [H]ard and Kyle in particular for the video reviews of not only the current 5770 but also the core i7, P6T dleuxe reviews of the past which have been so informative and helpful..

"KUDOS" I watched the entire review all 33 minutes and I loved every minute of it. Thanks again for practical application of new technology as it pertains to the end user and little guys who buy all this stuff.. You are AWESOME!
Click to expand...

Trust me, we here you on this. Here below is the mail I have into the "Father of Eyefinity," Carrell Killebrew as of this morning. I will get you the information ASAP.

Carrell,

Let me ask you a question that I have already been asked more than once since last night. I am directing this at you since we specifically addressed this sort of configuration in your offices.

Here is a post that is on this topic.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034684170&postcount=102

Folks are wanting to use a landscape 30" (2560x1600) in the middle with two portrait 20" displays (1200x1600) on either side for an Eyefinity display group of 3760x1600. We talked about this exactly. It seems it is not supported currently if I understand the literature.

To be clear: Is such and Eyefinty display group supported? If no, will it be in the future? If yes, ETA?


Kyle R Bennett
Editor-in-Chief
[H]ard|OCP.com
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kudos from all of you! I had some big reservations about it being so long, but there was a lot to say. And I have not seen any complaints about the length yet, so I guess I made the right call. Thanks again for the kind words, they are all appreciated.
 
Very well done Kyle but i do have a few questions about screen layout that no one addressed. I notice that it ofcourse defaulted the windows start bar over to the left most monitor. While this makes sense from a stretched screen stand point, it is no way erogonomic or good for you to be turning your head to use windows and i know i would not want to always go back to single monitor set up once i had it set up for 3. Call me lazy but i think most people like things to stay working and not require constant change. So that being said was there an option anywhere to pull the main view into the centre screen when not playing games?
 
Once again a quality review from the [H]. Many thanks for putting up with all the bullshit and spending the extra time to get this done Kyle. :D

Eyefinity is awesome. The bezel issue would may annoy me on certain FPS games but then again maybe not. MMOs, RTS games the bezel's wouldn't matter. Hopefully this technology catches on!
 
Looking at the screen shots, I know that this will be awesome but watching the video, this totally kicks ass! Games are much more immersive when the surrounding flies by in the side screens. For me, it adds much more immersion than having curtains in games. I hope that nVidia will soon have this feature too, that way this feature will be supported by more game developers.
 
trudeak said:
Very well done Kyle but i do have a few questions about screen layout that no one addressed. I notice that it ofcourse defaulted the windows start bar over to the left most monitor. While this makes sense from a stretched screen stand point, it is no way erogonomic or good for you to be turning your head to use windows and i know i would not want to always go back to single monitor set up once i had it set up for 3. Call me lazy but i think most people like things to stay working and not require constant change. So that being said was there an option anywhere to pull the main view into the centre screen when not playing games?
Click to expand...

Actually I did mention this in the review, but no, I have not found a way to alter that yet either. It is a pain in the ass once you are working heavily on the desktop. That said, I THINK it will be remedied in upcoming software. If not, I think we will see hotkey setups in the future that will allow us to change Eyefinity modes easily and quickly. Even now, it is not that big of a deal to change it to play a game. Much less a PITA than SLI or CFX used to be for that matter.

Vermillion said:
Once again a quality review from the [H]. Many thanks for putting up with all the bullshit and spending the extra time to get this done Kyle. :D

Eyefinity is awesome. The bezel issue would may annoy me on certain FPS games but then again maybe not. MMOs, RTS games the bezel's wouldn't matter. Hopefully this technology catches on!
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing about the bezel issue initially as well, but once you get to gaming, the distraction is almost nil for myself even in FPS titles. I think your brain learns what to do with the bezel encroachment as you experience it.

Mazgazine1 said:
Are the 57XX cards budget versions of the 58XX cards?
Click to expand...

I dropped the ball and referred to those cards incorrectly through the entire video! I screwed that up. The card shown in the video is a 5870. The 5850 is being launched today. I would expect a 57XX line of cards next year.
 
How about 1x22" and 2x19"? They don't match up exactly, but are pretty close. 1024 vs 1050.
 
I remember Matrox TH2G also got distortion to the outside. Not sure how helpful that is, but it seems to be a symptom of all widescreen gaming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vigu4bTwRk remembered this vid i saw a while back when i was looking into Matrox. It seems to claim edge distortion is always there, but gets greatly exaggerated by widescreen gaming.
 
trudeak said:
My god im a tard i watched parts of the review twice and the whole thing at least once lol. well at least you had the same worry i did. And im sure there are many ways it could be hotkeyed to reset to a default layout. The worry i always have with things like this is that as the techheads and hardcore gamers wont really see an issue with making simple changes. The guy who buys a Dell/alienware system with this defaulted may be much less skilled and in the end if they dont have an out of the box fix for this it could hurt the bottom line acceptance of this tech.
Click to expand...

I think you are 100% right. We discussed multiple orientation hotkeys for moving from Eyefinity display group to another Eyefinity display group. Maybe I have one game I want 3x1 portrait for, and another I want landscape? ;)
 
FranklyShankly said:
I remember Matrox TH2G also got distortion to the outside. Not sure how helpful that is, but it seems to be a symptom of all widescreen gaming.
Click to expand...

It is a symptom of a funky FOV and aspect ratio. Some games are not bad as others, but I am 100% sure we will see more attention to this in the future now. Keep in mind that AMD had this technology fully under wraps a month ago not even letting gave devs have access to it. (One reason it was a surprise to many of us.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top