Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello there,

Ive recently orderd me a new rig and it will be running three 23" monitors using a ASUS DirectCU II 7970 "TOP" Card (when asus gets their GDDR5 problem solved) but today i got my new 23" monitor so i plugged it in. Works like a charm as i have it set up like this:



This using Ultramon software so that i get the taskbar across all screens showing the active windows on that screen on the correct taskbar (I.E not all tasks on the middle taskbar). Everything worked fine but then i thought i should try out eyefinity on an older game (TF2 since im currently on a Radeon 5770) so i enabled eyefinity in AMD Vision Engiene Control Center and started gaming, it also worked pretty neat but i saw a problem with my desktop. As i told the CCC that i was running eyfinity on 5760x1080 it put my left screen as #1 thus putting the windows button way over there and the activity panel waaay over on the right monitor, not optimal for when im not gaming. Also when in this mode and im fullscreening a Chrome window, it stretched across all three monitors, really irritating. So i went in to CCC again to disable eyefinity, and thats when hell broke loose.


This is what windows thought everything should be after that. I could not for the life of me get eighter windows nor CCC to go back to my original setup of having three monitors running 3x 1920x1080 resolutions. Eighter i had that strange 1|3 2 setup or that it identified all screens as 1 (I.E. 1 1 1 running 5760x1080). After about 40 minutes of random clicking in CCC and uninstalls and what not, i finally got it working as the original picture again.

But this raises a question: When i do get my new PC and i do want to run certain games in eyefinity, it seems like it will be hard work switching between eyefinity mode and normal "browsing" mode. Since i do work alot infront of my PC i dont want to have my desktop as one huuuge 5760x1080 display where the taskbar behaves in an irritating way and where fullscreen chrome windows does not fullscreen across all three monitors. Did i do something wrong when i set up eyefinity? Did i do something wrong when i disabled eyefinity? Is there some way to have two profiles set in CCC so that i with ease can switch between Eyefinity mode and "normal" mode?

Sorry for the wall of text, its hard to write down this problem in fewer words.

Thanks for reading!

I utilize Windows Key + P, which gives you the options to switch between DUPLICATE and EXTEND.

Duplicate will be for your single desktop / Eyefinity games, Extend will treat each monitor as a separate desktop (which I switch back to for games I play in one monitor @ 1920x1080). If anyone else has any suggestions for being able to keep the desktop in the Eyefinity mode *while* being able to run some games at the single monitor 1920x1080, I am up for hearing about that too.

Hope that helps.

...when asus gets their GDDR5 problem solved...

What exactly do you mean by that? Include a source if you can :)

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Personally I just use the preset option in catalyst control centre. You can set up as many versions and what hotkeys you like.

I have CTRL and W for Work
CTRL and E for Gaming
CTRL and L for my left monitor only
CTRL and M for my middle montior only
CTRL and R for my right monitor only

You could have as many combinations as you like.


One question though. What did you mean about Asus and there DDR5 problem?

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i7 3770k, P8Z77v Pro, 16gb Ram,2x Samsung 840 SSD RAID 0 + 4.5tb storage, 7970 Oc'd + 7950 in crossfire, 3x SP2309w monitors + 1 acer monitor, Asus D2X Xonar, Creative T40 Speakers plus satalite speakers + audio transducer

Thanks for the repies! That Windows key + p thing was something i had no idea of, but it seems to not recognize my different setups, i will look in to that.

The CCC preset options seems to be a very good idea, i will have a look on that also, thanks!

Well, about the ASUS problems:

Ive orderd mine a while ago, they changed the delivery date from middle feb to 31st march, which is a bummer. When i asked why there was such a delay on Swedens biggest computer community (Sweclockers.com) i got the answer that the reason for the delays is that ASUS apperantly found some problem with the Voltage Regulation to the GDDR5 memory that the could not fix with software and had to re-design something. A twitter comment is all the sources i have on that however, but since they have direcct dialogues with the manefacturers over at sweclockers i think that information is accurate.

Another explenation ive heard as to why the ASUS Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II cards are delayed is due to that they missed their european shippment thanks to the chinese new year, this ive heard from two different retailers when i phoned them and asked why the card was changing release date each day.

The stock ASUS 7970 cards should not have this Voltage Regulation problem however since its the very same chipset and components on that card as ATI have on their own 7970 cards.

catalyst 12.2 with 7970 compatibility was released either today or yesterday, it will allow you to set the windows task bar to a single screen while in eyefinity. before that, i was having to assemble/break down the eyefinity setup several times a day as i did different things...having my start button three feet off to the left was not fun. the new release is pretty much a life saver on that front.

maximizing a window still spans the whole array, though. i just have my windowed sizes set to one screen's size, and drag them around as needed. it'd be nice to have a way to designate a 1/3rd maximize or something, but this isn't too bad.

I use Windows-P to change between single monitor and Eyefinity (you select Computer Only for single monitor and Duplicate for Eyefinity). 100% reliable and fast, not something I can say for CCC presets.

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Hello, im back again!

So last time i learned how to do presets in CCC for switching between eyefinity and extended desctop (i.e. desctop goes across all three monitors but they still remain independant from eachother) and i also learned about the winkey + P command to switch display modes. When i first started testing all this i had CCC 11.x something and for some reason the presets did not work for me. I then did a rollback to 10.x and yay, the presets worked! I could just do a preset for eyefinity with a ctrl+alt+w command and a preset for normal desctops with the ctrl+alt+q command, all was good.

Then today i got my new XFX 7970 and installed all new parts (everything brand spanking new in the PC now) and i started with my presets once again, doing a "Normal" mode and an Eyefinity mode, but it does not work... I make my presets, but nothing happens when i try to activate them. I do the ctrl+alt+w command but it does no switch from eyefinity to normal mode. I can use the windows+p command to switch between the different profiles, but this CCC problem is irritating me to no end!

Im currently running CCC 12.3since it was what was reccomended for my 7970 card. Is this a known bug in the 12.3 version of CCC? Or have i just made something terribly wrong? (all ive done mind you is just install windows, install the latest CCC from amds website)

Hello there,

Ive recently orderd me a new rig and it will be running three 23" monitors using a ASUS DirectCU II 7970 "TOP" Card (when asus gets their GDDR5 problem solved) but today i got my new 23" monitor so i plugged it in. Works like a charm as i have it set up like this:
[IMG]http://funkyimg.com/t2/1354/276/973028xray.jpg[/IM G]
[IMG]http://funkyimg.com/t2/1354/094/917108howiwant.jpg[/IM G]

This using Ultramon software so that i get the taskbar across all screens showing the active windows on that screen on the correct taskbar (I.E not all tasks on the middle taskbar). Everything worked fine but then i thought i should try out eyefinity on an older game (TF2 since im currently on a Radeon 5770) so i enabled eyefinity in AMD Vision Engiene Control Center and started gaming, it also worked pretty neat but i saw a problem with my desktop. As i told the CCC that i was running eyfinity on 5760x1080 it put my left screen as #1 thus putting the windows button way over there and the activity panel waaay over on the right monitor, not optimal for when im not gaming. Also when in this mode and im fullscreening a Chrome window, it stretched across all three monitors, really irritating. So i went in to CCC again to disable eyefinity, and thats when hell broke loose.

Use HydraGrid to fix maximizing app behavior outside of gaming. Only thing Hydragrid can't fix is Flash Player behavior.

Reviving this thread, slightly.

I'm running the newer CCC, 13.2 I believe.

Trying to do the hotkeys so I can switch between Eyefinity and what I call normal - Where each monitor is a seperate desktop.

I have Alt+D for Duplicate, and Alt+E for Extended. Those are the terms that CCC assigns to the two different monitor modes.. But, Duplicate does just what it sounds - It puts an identical picture on all three monitors.

Extended does what it's supposed to, and keeps all three seperate (Work mode)

What am I doing wrong?

So far, all my attempts have been made prior to making an "Eyefinity Display Group". I'm about to make one, and then try Alt+E to switch back to the normal, working mode.