Widescreen Gaming Forum

With Eyefinity6, using six monitors would be great for general use, but worthless for gaming, since a huge double bezel would divide the center of vision. So I thought about using five displays; a traditional three monitor setup along with an additional monitor above and below the central one. This setup would allow the player to see what is directly above and below. Would an irregular display surface such as this work with an Eyefinity6 card?

With Eyefinity6, using six monitors would be great for general use, but worthless for gaming, since a huge double bezel would divide the center of vision. So I thought about using five displays; a traditional three monitor setup along with an additional monitor above and below the central one. This setup would allow the player to see what is directly above and below. Would an irregular display surface such as this work with an Eyefinity6 card?

Unless they've changed EyeFinity mechanics, no. The displays must be symeticaly orientated either in a horizontal row or a vertical column. What resolution would be used in such a theorietical setup? Windows needs to see it all as one single virtual display.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Well actually this would be pretty easy to calculate. Make your video card have "virtual ports" if you will, where you can configure it to be part of the large desktop even though they don't exist. Next configure the resolution so that it's 3 times what one monitor would be (multiply the vertical and horizontal resolution of one monitor by 3). It'll look something similar to this diagram.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

Well actually this would be pretty easy to calculate. Make your video card have "virtual ports" if you will, where you can configure it to be part of the large desktop even though they don't exist. Next configure the resolution so that it's 3 times what one monitor would be (multiply the vertical and horizontal resolution of one monitor by 3). It'll look something similar to this diagram.

I thought about that, but won't Eyefinity only allow six monitors max? Also, wouldn't that cause an unnecessary performance hit? I guess if that's the only way to do it, it's probably not worth it, especially with 30" monitors; that'd be four rendered but unused megapixels. Or would the offscreen pixels just not be rendered? Also, what program did you use to make that diagram?

I thought about that, but won't Eyefinity only allow six monitors max? Also, wouldn't that cause an unnecessary performance hit? I guess if that's the only way to do it, it's probably not worth it, especially with 30" monitors; that'd be four rendered but unused megapixels. Or would the offscreen pixels just not be rendered? Also, what program did you use to make that diagram?

Well this way of doing it is similar to using a virtual resolution for bezel management. You are going to take a rather large performance hit for unused rendered pixels, but if you want something like this, that is the only way to do it without having a game that support Multiple monitors natively (I.E. Flight Simulator) in the manner like this.

BTW, Eyefinity doesn't have this capability built into it, even though it could. This is merely theoretical.

The Program I used is good ole' MSPaint.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

It's beyond the scope of current EyeFinity. If it just render the whole area and used only portion of it, you're talking about a bit of a nasty performanace hit. Frankly, I wish it could do this stuff, because it would allow for some very advanced simpit display setups. I'm not holding my breath on this option though because it's way too specialized for a large enough userbase to budget for it.

My suggestion is if you do 5 displays, go 5 1920x1080 in portrait mode in a horizontal span once the EyeFinity6 is out.

On the other hand...you can trick the EyeFinity6 into doing a span of 3 with one above OR one below. Put 2 dummy plugs on the outer ports to simulate the displays. Google dummy plug to understand how to make them. One would think you could make them out of the DP-to-VGA converters. People use dummy plugs a lot with Vista and Folding@Home.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

It's beyond the scope of current EyeFinity. If it just render the whole area and used only portion of it, you're talking about a bit of a nasty performanace hit. Frankly, I wish it could do this stuff, because it would allow for some very advanced simpit display setups. I'm not holding my breath on this option though because it's way too specialized for a large enough userbase to budget for it.

My suggestion is if you do 5 displays, go 5 1920x1080 in portrait mode in a horizontal span once the EyeFinity6 is out.

On the other hand...you can trick the EyeFinity6 into doing a span of 3 with one above OR one below. Put 2 dummy plugs on the outer ports to simulate the displays. Google dummy plug to understand how to make them. One would think you could make them out of the DP-to-VGA converters. People use dummy plugs a lot with Vista and Folding@Home.

Interesting; that's actually quite helpful, since seeing below really isn't necessary, especially in FPS or RPG. Being able to see above would show people hiding in clever spots like support beams in shooters. For example, that beam at the top of the stairs in the main house on Estate in MW2. That makes me wonder if with Eyefinity6 two rows of three could be used without splitting the crosshair, i.e., just having extra visibility above. I'll look into dummy plugs, but do they still cause a performance hit? When does Eyefinity6 come out? I thought the 5970s support it already.

That makes me wonder if with Eyefinity6 two rows of three could be used without splitting the crosshair, i.e., just having extra visibility above. I'll look into dummy plugs, but do they still cause a performance hit? When does Eyefinity6 come out? I thought the 5970s support it already.

Not sure about crosshair alignment. Every game is different with this surround-screen tech. You'll probably have to do some custom camera hack for alignment purposes though. As far as dummy plugs and performance hit, It's going to be just the same as if real displays are plugged in instead of dummy plugs. So, you'll be rendering pixels for 6 displays but only really showing 4. A dummy plug is a cheap fake display. The computer thinks there is a display there when there really isn't. As far as the 5870 EyeFinity6, your guess is as good as mine when that'll be on store shelves. I suppose AMD/ATI will hold off on that till Fermi is released as to have something to show off against nVidia's launch.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com