Anyone solved Eyefinity screen tearing yet?

[Unknown-One]

Still dealing with that annoying problem where one screen has a fixed horizontal tear that becomes apparent whenever something moves. I've heard some people have managed to fix it, I'm curious how...

My current configuration is as follows:
- Radeon HD 6970 with Catalyst 13.2 Beta 3
- Three Dell U2412M monitors.
- Left monitor is native DisplayPort.
- Center monitor is native DVI.
- Right monitor is native DVI.

When the center or right screens are selected as "primary," only the left screen tears. If the left screen is selected as primary, then the left screen is fine, but BOTH the center and right screens tear.

Anyone know if there's any secret sauce for fixing this? I used to use three 22" Asus monitors (two on native DVI, one on an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter) and had exactly the same problem, so changing monitors / adapters doesn't seem to have an effect.

 

[Elmy]

I got rid of my tearing by going to 2 MSI Lightnings and using 3 Mini displayport to displayport to my 3 new Asus VG248QE 144Hz 1ms dp capable monitors. No tearing at all.

I heard of a some guys limiting their FPS to 60 using 60Hz monitors and that works for them but never tried it myself.

 

[pandora's box]

limitting fps to 60 doesnt solve eyefinity tearing, just solves the normal tearing you get by frames going over your monitors refresh rate. 3 display port connections is the only way to solve it. I'm trying to hold out for AMD or Nvidia's next generation before attempting to fix this. Really don't want to buy another 7970 and try to sell off one I already have. especially considering the cheapest 7970 with 4 display ports on it (no 7970's have just 3 its either 2 or 4) is $480 on newegg. way too expensive

 

[suiken_2mieu]

I fixed tearing years ago when Eyefinity first came out. Buy a card with at least 3 display ports and use the same adapters on each. Done.

 

[haste]

this was fixed in the 7xxx series kinda recently with a driver update..12.8 and above, i think?

i run two displayport and one dvi and have no tearing.

 

[Unknown-One]

I fixed tearing years ago when Eyefinity first came out. Buy a card with at least 3 display ports and use the same adapters on each. Done.

If it requires replacing the entire graphics card, then I might as well just jump ship and go Nvidia.

Nothing I can do in software or with cable swaps to fix this on a regular HD 6970? I'd rather not have to throw this thing out, considering this card was actually a gift directly from AMD (it replaced an HD 5850... which didn't have this problem. >_<)

this was fixed in the 7xxx series kinda recently with a driver update..12.8 and above, i think?

i run two displayport and one dvi and have no tearing.

I've heard reports to the contrary on 7xxx series cards and recent drivers. Nobody seems to be sure what driver resolves, if it's resolved, or if the displays have to be in a particular configuration for the supposedly "fixed" drivers to work.

 

[Relayer]

I've heard reports to the contrary on 7xxx series cards and recent drivers. Nobody seems to be sure what driver resolves, if it's resolved, or if the displays have to be in a particular configuration for the supposedly "fixed" drivers to work.

He owns one. I'd try what he said.

 

[pandora's box]

this was fixed in the 7xxx series kinda recently with a driver update..12.8 and above, i think?

i run two displayport and one dvi and have no tearing.

Yes it was fixed and then broken again.

 

[Unknown-One]

He owns one. I'd try what he said.

Trying what he says involves dropping $400 or more on a new graphics card for something that may or may not work...

Again, if I need to replace the card itself to fix this, I might as well go Nvidia where it isn't (and has never been) an issue. I was hoping there was something I could do with my existing HD 6970.

I've already tried throwing money at the problem. I replaced all three of my monitors (in part) because I had heard that matched displays had resolved it for some people. That didn't work either...

 

[Relayer]

this was fixed in the 7xxx series kinda recently with a driver update..12.8 and above, i think?

i run two displayport and one dvi and have no tearing.

Trying what he says involves dropping $400 or more on a new graphics card for something that may or may not work...

Again, if I need to replace the card itself to fix this, I might as well go Nvidia where it isn't (and has never been) an issue. I was hoping there was something I could do with my existing HD 6970.

I've already tried throwing money at the problem. I replaced all three of my monitors (in part) because I had heard that matched displays had resolved it for some people. That didn't work either...

I meant Haste266. Use 2xDP and 1xDVI. You just need another cable. It was suiken_2mieu who suggested 3xDP.

 

[Unknown-One]

I meant Haste266. Use 2xDP and 1xDVI. You just need another cable. It was suiken_2mieu who suggested 3xDP.

Ah, that I can try!

One of my DVI cables is too short anyway, it's messing with my cable-management chi. Guess I'll hit Monoprice and order up another DisplayPort cable.

 

[Unknown-One]

Alright, ordered a 10 foot displayport cable. Should be here tomorrow, so I'll be able to report back fairly quickly.

Ideally I'd like to have the center monitor on DVI and the left and right monitors both on DisplayPort. It's only possible to consider that as an option if this fixes tearing, though.

 

[Unknown-One]

Nope, using 2x DisplayPort + 1x DVI doesn't appear to do squat. Same problem as before.

Any other ideas?

Edit: After using the new configuration for a few moment I've noticed a huge problem. Motion quality is now TOTAL shit. Dragging a window from left to right causes a horrible black shadow to trail it, and you can tell that the entire window "slants" as it's moved. What kind of crap is that?
Edit: One of the screens (the one using the old cable that has been working fine for ages) decided to turn all colors into either green or purple. Had to turn it off and back on to get normal picture again. Possible issues with running two DisplayPort monitors at once?

 

[svideo]

I head tearing problems until I went and bought 3 matching DP monitors and a Lightning 7970 with enough DP ports to run them. As a knock on effect, I can now also do 120hz 3D across the 3 monitors and it works fairly well. It's an expensive solution to what should be an easy problem to solve.

 

[Unknown-One]

I head tearing problems until I went and bought 3 matching DP monitors and a Lightning 7970 with enough DP ports to run them. As a knock on effect, I can now also do 120hz 3D across the 3 monitors and it works fairly well. It's an expensive solution to what should be an easy problem to solve.

I'm leaning more towards a GTX 670 at this point. If I have to get a new card to solve this, I have no reason to stay with AMD.

A GTX 670 would be faster, cooler, quieter, and lower wattage than my current HD 6970, while also having no issues with tearing and no DisplayPort requirement.

It would also allow me to remove the GT 430 I'm using as a PhysX card, so that's even more heat and power done-away with.

 

[[G]Ernesto]

For me, the tearing in desktop environment was solved by switching to cards that had 3 DP ports, before I ran 6870 DCII and that had only 2 DPs.

I cannot however, stop some tearing in games, even with FPS limiters or vsync. It seems to be the combination of Crossfire and Eyefinity that does it. CF one screen, or Eyefinity single card, does not seem to give me the tearing, but I have only tried that once and haven't exactly gone all sciency on it.

I have also noticed that many games, where the HUD gets distorted for me, while for others it's ok, is due to the fact that I have a 4th monitor connected. Disconnect that, reset all game settings, then the game can properly understand my resolution, and the HUD will be proper again. Many games you can tweak this manually, but for others I have to use Widescreen Fixer third party program.

 

[Unknown-One]

Well, one of the DisplayPort cables broke, so that ends that experiment... I went to rotate a monitor and all I heard was "crack" and the screen blanked out. All the pins had pulled out of the connector, leaving the connector stuck in the back of the monitor and the cable sitting on my desk.

Looks like the blob of solder they used to hold it together gave out.... not exactly the best design there.

Anyway, I'm back on 2x DVi + 1x DisplayPort and motion clarity is back to normal. No more black shadows trailing windows as I move them around the desktop, and no more horrible slanting effects. Still no impact on that tear, whatsoever

 

[Nuby1Canuby]

I only notice screen tearing when my frame rates are low. Dropping the graphics quality settings so I'm averaging over 50 fps seems to take care of it.
I'm using an active dp to dvi on the left monitor and dvi cables on the other 2.
This is with 3 Acer 1680x1050 monitors on an XFX 6950 flashed to a 6970 bios.

 

[finlof]

anyone happen to have a stock cooler for the xfx 6970? i would be willing to purchase from you. i dont have mine anymore and need to send my card in to xfx for repair and they require the stock/reference cooler that it originally came with. any help would be appreciated.

 

[Unknown-One]

I only notice screen tearing when my frame rates are low. Dropping the graphics quality settings so I'm averaging over 50 fps seems to take care of it.

This has nothing to do with frame-rate, it's not normal tearing produced by running without v-sync.

This is the card setting the display timing incorrectly on one of the output heads, so that the top half of the screen is always a frame behind the bottom half. Doesn't matter if v-sync is on or off, there's always a horizontal tear on at least one monitor if you're using an Eyefinity display mode.

I'm STILL trying to resolve this issue. Running 2x DP + 1x DVI only seemed to make things worse, so I'm back on 1x DP + 2x DVI.

Is there an active DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter that can handle these discrepancies? The only other fix I know of is using an active DVI-to-VGA adapter and then passing the signal through a (very expensive) genlock device to fix it... but that would cost more than just getting a new graphics card.

 

[Nuby1Canuby]

Since all 3 of your monitors have a dvi connection it's probably worth a shot trying a $30 mini display port to dvi active adapter. I don't have a problem with constant screen tearing on my system using the dvi port on all 3 monitors but that is no guarantee that it will resolve the issue with your hardware.

 

[Unknown-One]

Since all 3 of your monitors have a dvi connection it's probably worth a shot trying a $30 mini display port to dvi active adapter. I don't have a problem with constant screen tearing on my system using the dvi port on all 3 monitors but that is no guarantee that it will resolve the issue with your hardware.

I have an active adapter, the very expensive dual-link one that requires USB power. Got it when I had an HD 5850 and monitors that lacked DisplayPort input, and these dual-link adapters were all you could get.

I've tried 2x DVI + 1x Active DisplayPort-to-DVI Adapter with the 6970 before...

Same problem... which is why I asked if there's an active adapter known to be able to fix this problem. The one I have certainly can't.

 

[Nuby1Canuby]

I would think that your adapter would be better then my Powercolor Active Mini DisplayPort to Single Link DVI-D Adapter. I guess I got lucky with my 1 Acer AL2223W and 2 Acer X223W monitors working well together.

 

[haste]

Still no tearing here using x2 DP and x1 DVI with the new 13.5 betas...not sure what your problem is, OP. It could be a combination of hardware that I just got lucky with...

 

[milchiboy]

Try using Catalyst 12.6. That solved the problem for me. Just make sure that you remove the previous AMD softwares properly (AMD cleanup utility) before you install the 12.6.

my spec:
GIGABYTE HD 7870 OC 2GB
2x mini-DP to VGA, 1x DVI-I to VGA

 

[Unknown-One]

Wow... someone went grave-digging. This thread is 4 months old

Anyway, solved the problem... I bought a GTX 780.

No more tearing in spanned display modes. No more need for adapters or DisplayPort. No more cursor corruption. No more being stuck with only DXVA for hardware decoding. No more needing to run Radeon Pro. No more hitching in Bethesda games. No more horrible input lag when v-sync is enabled. My system is also cooler, quieter, and many times faster.

Like I said, if I had to throw money at the problem in order to fix it, there was no reason for me to stick with AMD. The HD 6970 still lives on in a secondary PC, and now it only has to deal with one monitor (so this particular unresolved bug doesn't rear its head).