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Eyefinity or what?

K

Krieger91

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 6, 2007
Messages
1,879
Since xmas is coming up I will probably have a few extra bucks to spend, I have always been curious of trying eyefinity. I have been running a 27" ASUS for a while now and it's great. But if I were to get 3 new monitors I am sure I would need a second 6970, and most likely a fulltower. Not even sure if that would be worth it?
 
i've never been a fan of eyefinity because the bezel's of the screens annoy the piss out of me, but there are quite a few who swear by it. It can be fun because it gives you a much wider view range, but it does cost a lot of money in screens and the extra horsepower required to run such a high resolution setup.

I love having dual+ monitors, and i know i make good use of them, but will you? do you multitask a lot? is it worth it to you to have 3 monitors just for gaming? Will you be able to utilize all three outside of games? how many games do you play that work with eyefinity?
 
lilfiend said:
i've never been a fan of eyefinity because the bezel's of the screens annoy the piss out of me, but there are quite a few who swear by it. It can be fun because it gives you a much wider view range, but it does cost a lot of money in screens and the extra horsepower required to run such a high resolution setup.

I love having dual+ monitors, and i know i make good use of them, but will you? do you multitask a lot? is it worth it to you to have 3 monitors just for gaming? Will you be able to utilize all three outside of games? how many games do you play that work with eyefinity?
Click to expand...

On this pc all I do is play games, right now I just play Skyrim and BF3, I pretty much only buy the heavy hitters for the most part.
 
Krieger91 said:
On this pc all I do is play games, right now I just play Skyrim and BF3, I pretty much only buy the heavy hitters for the most part.
Click to expand...

Note there are some issues with both Skyrim and BF3 with crossfire. The BF3 issues seem to be rather limited, but Skyrim still sees some significant performance drop from CFX. As far as eyefinity, you can run eyefinity with just one 6970, but probably not at ultra high settings. So the question is do you want ultra high settings and crazy resolution, or do you want crazy resolution with decent settings? I would think your FPS in BF3 would be the biggest issue when going to eyefinity.
 
A single 6970 should handle Skyrim just fine on medium / medium/high settings.
 
Eh. Its different for everyone. its nice and all, definately something to show off to your buddies, but like someone above me said: I can't get over the bezels in the middle that just makes everything look crappy. If I could find some really really thin bezel screens out there I would give it a shot, but meh.
 
Eyefinity is great if you've got the performance and play the right games. Unfortunately Eyefinity support is a bit hit and miss, but when it works it's awesome. An easier route would be using a 30" or 27" monitor, That won't get you more peripheral vision, but it works every time. Personally I need plenty of screen space for working so Eyefinity is definetely the way to go.
 
I DO NOT play games unless they support eyefinity. I don't care how big your screen/tv is once you try eyefinity there's no going back.
 
guitarguy6 said:
I DO NOT play games unless they support eyefinity. I don't care how big your screen/tv is once you try eyefinity there's no going back.
Click to expand...
This, after playing on my eyefinity playing on a single monitor is like wearing a cardboard box and looking through the handle holes. The loss of perriphial vision really bugs the crap outta me in games now. If you do get it, its distracting as fuck as first. I couldn't concetrate in fps games and suffered a bit. About 4 days of gaming and suddenly my eyes and brain adjusted and you stop trying to concetrate on all 3 and begin using them for what its meant as, periphial vision and you start noticing only the things you need to see on them. Its now at the point where like I said its very awkward not to have it, they start to become very natural to game on, atleast imo lol
 
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guitarguy6 said:
I DO NOT play games unless they support eyefinity. I don't care how big your screen/tv is once you try eyefinity there's no going back.
Click to expand...

Ragenrok said:
This, after playing on my eyefinity playing on a single monitor is like wearing a cardboard box and looking through the handle holes. The loss of perriphial vision really bugs the crap outta me in games now. If you do get it, its distracting as fuck as first. I couldn't concetrate in fps games and suffered a bit. About 4 days of gaming and suddenly my eyes and brain adjusted and you stop trying to concetrate on all 3 and begin using them for what its meant as, periphial vision and you start noticing only the things you need to see on them. Its now at the point where like I said its very awkward not to have it, they start to become very natural to game on, atleast imo lol
Click to expand...

i agree with both posts. since going eyefinity 2 months ago, i never want to game on a single screen game again. like has been said it was a little disorienting at first but i was actually trying to look at the monitors on the sides instead of just using them for my peripheral and it actually made me nauseous the first time i sat down and played, after a little use it felt completely natural.

Bezels?!?!? What bezels!?!?!??!!!!! :p
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_vf1ycSRGA


There are 2 options here.

Eyefinity

No Eyefinity

I hear people complain about the bezels all the time. They have some serious issues. If you sit down and play on an Eyefinity system you will never go back to one monitor. Being able to have multiple windows open on 3 monitors is amazing. Multitasking is much easier.

I wonder if the people that complain about the bezels also complain about the pillars between the front window and the side window while driving down the street?

Some of the ppl only complain about Eyefinity because they can't afford it and make up excuses why the dont have it.

Get Eyefinity and never look back.

The End
 
Eyefinity is typically a relatively expensive proposition. I went to the technology 2 years ago and it cost me $1300 for two new screens, a 5970, and an active DP to DVI adapter. I'm running three 24" screens. I will say that I absolutely love it and it enhances your gameplay and game experience by quite a bit. Most games that are coming out today will support triplehead technology, and if they don't, then you always have one screen if you really must play them, but all of the big titles, and many smaller titles will support eyefinity.

There is a list of games that support eyefinity and support it with a little modification at http://widescreengamingforum.com/. Sometimes you have to edit some .ini files to make it work, but the forums are typically very helpful. I even got eyefinity working on Command & Conquer Generals after reading some threads over there.

You can do eyefinity on some smaller cards like the 6770, 6870 and 6950, but if you like playing with more than 30fps on low graphics settings on some of the more demanding games, you will need a crossfire setup (6990, or two 6970s). I'm personally updating my entire rig for BF3. I've already spent about $2500 on a new case, motherboard, processor, memory, 6990, and all the watercooling components I'm using (and I haven't even picked up my 6970 for the Trifire I have planned) . Admittedly, I'm going towards the enthusiast cooling solution which adds a ridiculous amount of cost, but it's fun and I'm doing it for the challenge - So lets hope I don't spring a leak and brick my computer :)


So Eyefinity is great! It's also expensive. It's usually supported, or can be made to be supported. There's always a few caveats, and you typically have to wait a month or two for AMD's drivers to mature.

One side effect of using eyefinity is picking up a little snobbery towards people who say "I'm running BF3 at high settings on my 6770" because you know that they're running a tiny screen and when you see them on the battlefield, they're going to be calling you a hacker. However, they're a necessary component of the game. Meatshields sometimes come in handy ;)
 
Krieger91 said:
Since xmas is coming up I will probably have a few extra bucks to spend, I have always been curious of trying eyefinity. I have been running a 27" ASUS for a while now and it's great. But if I were to get 3 new monitors I am sure I would need a second 6970, and most likely a fulltower. Not even sure if that would be worth it?
Click to expand...

Only you can really answer that question. I myself would rather just purchase a larger monitor before I had to shell out money on multiple monitors and most likely another fairly exspensive graphics cards.

Your looking at another grand probably for a decent setup like your talking. For that + selling you 27" you could get a damn nice monitor. However the performance upgrade from another 6900 series card would be pretty awesome too.

Really comes down to what you can afford and what you really want.

EDIT: The bezels is what kills it for me as well.
 
Been using EF and/or Surround since it was released.
Some early adopter issues, but now I really like it.
lately AMD has just sucked with their driver support though, so you may want to consider looking at nvidia, just my 2 cents.

Overall EF has been the wow factor in PC gaming for me. Bezels have never been a problem for me, I never even "see" them.
That said nearly every game at release has some issue with three monitor support.
If the game natively supports EF/Surround, quite typically the menu pages or the HUD are not correct and you have to hunt all over hell for a fix.

Widescreengamingforums is your friend from now on.:)

To adequately support three monitors however you need dual or triple Crossfire.....yeah, it costs some bucks, but it's pretty amazing.
 
m33pm33p said:
EDIT: The bezels is what kills it for me as well.
Click to expand...


Have you gamed on an eyefinity machine? The bezel argument never really made sense to me. They're not blocking anything you would usually see. It's like when you drive your car. You have the material between your windshield and your side windows yet you still use them.
 
The way I look at it, people spend $1000+ on these monitors so it makes sense they would come on the internet and try to justify their purchases. I hardly expect anyone who uses Eyefinity/Surround to say they regret the decision. It's the same thing as Nvidia vs ATI, Xbox360 vs PS3, etc. Asking Eyefinity owners "Do you like it?" is a loaded question; they will all answer yes.

But, I've only ever used single monitor setups.
Feel free to skewer me.
 
UtopiA said:
The way I look at it, people spend $1000+ on these monitors so it makes sense they would come on the internet and try to justify their purchases. I hardly expect anyone who uses Eyefinity/Surround to say they regret the decision. It's the same thing as Nvidia vs ATI, Xbox360 vs PS3, etc. Asking Eyefinity owners "Do you like it?" is a loaded question; they will all answer yes.

But, I've only ever used single monitor setups.
Feel free to skewer me.
Click to expand...

I'll bet you're a great Monday morning quarterback too.


Personally, Eyefinity took a bit getting used to. At first I did notice the bezels, and it was slightly strange, but after a week my brain got used to them and I effectively filter them out when gaming. The only time they really get annoying is if I'm trying to do a full screen (across all three screens) CAD program and things don't visually line up due to the bezels. For typing documents my productivity went up a lot due to being able to easily have enough screen real estate for spreading documents/research around and not having to alt+tab through things. I went Eyefinity portrait because I wanted more vertical view. I find that to be more immersive. It also makes everything larger and closer to what you'd see staring though real gunsights.
 
UtopiA said:
The way I look at it, people spend $1000+ on these monitors so it makes sense they would come on the internet and try to justify their purchases. I hardly expect anyone who uses Eyefinity/Surround to say they regret the decision. It's the same thing as Nvidia vs ATI, Xbox360 vs PS3, etc. Asking Eyefinity owners "Do you like it?" is a loaded question; they will all answer yes.

But, I've only ever used single monitor setups.
Feel free to skewer me.
Click to expand...

Look if it sucked, I be the first to tell you so and NOT to do it.

But, that is not the case at all.

Yes, you have to deal with the quirks and shit that the game developers forgot or didn't do; and it can sometimes be weeks after a game is released to get it to play out the way you want.

But, once it's good, it's just better than single monitors, period.
 
Having used Eyefinity on three monitors for a while now:

1) Everyday use in Eyefinity sucks. Mostly because using a browser or almost any other program running across 3 screens (and ~90 degrees of vision) is very hard to use, especially when you're going from 1 side of the "screen" to another constantly (and bezels really suck when they split up a letter or word, or even worse, hide a few letters/words in the "compensation zone"). However, having 3 seperate monitors, 1 for each program is awesome.

2) IF THE GAME SUPPORTS IT, full landscape Eyefinity is awesome, especially for FPS. Once you go 5760x1200 (or whatever your thing is), there's no going back. Having to look way over in the corners for things like health and ammo is a little wierd, but you'll happily accept it as a tradeoff. The one time I tried going back from Eyefinity to one monitor in TF2, I went from roughly a 2:1 kill ratio to 1:5, and quit after 20 minutes. For games that don't, assuming your bezels don't suck, you may be able to run them in 3600x1920 (or equivalent), but at that point the bezels get somewhat painful. Of course, if one monitor worked just fine for your games before, it'll still work fine now.

3) Ye gods, is it expensive. An extra video card (not a necessity, but helpful) plus 2 extra monitors run ~$1000 at the bare minimum.
 
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meyerkev said:
Having used Eyefinity on three monitors for a while now:

1) Everyday use in Eyefinity sucks. Mostly because using a browser or almost any other program running across 3 screens (and ~90 degrees of vision) is very hard to use, especially when you're going from 1 side of the "screen" to another constantly (and bezels really suck when they split up a letter or word, or even worse, hide a few letters/words in the "compensation zone"). However, having 3 seperate monitors, 1 for each program is awesome.

2) IF THE GAME SUPPORTS IT, full landscape Eyefinity is awesome, especially for FPS. Once you go 5760x1200 (or whatever your thing is), there's no going back. Having to look way over in the corners for things like health and ammo is a little wierd, but you'll happily accept it as a tradeoff. The one time I tried going back from Eyefinity to one monitor in TF2, I went from roughly a 2:1 kill ratio to 1:5, and quit after 20 minutes. For games that don't, assuming your bezels don't suck, you may be able to run them in 3600x1920 (or equivalent), but at that point the bezels get somewhat painful. Of course, if one monitor worked just fine for your games before, it'll still work fine now.

3) Ye gods, is it expensive. An extra video card (not a necessity, but helpful) plus 2 extra monitors run ~$1000 at the bare minimum.
Click to expand...

Interesting points, but some caveats:

1) You don't always have to stay in Eyefinity, you can have different display groups.
3) My second 6950 Video Card was $250, my 2 28" monitors were $500, that is a total of $750 for Eyefinity, well below the $1000. And you can easily get a second card for < $200 and 2 monitors for < $400. I could have gone with a 6770 for under 200 or 6870 for under 200. I could have gotten 2 22" monitors for under $150. So its not really that expensive. Just like everything else, the expense is up to how high end you want to go.
 
Elmy said:
I hear people complain about the bezels all the time.
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No one who has ever used an eyefinity setup for any significant amount of time has ever complained about bezels.

HydraGrid makes window management easy while leaving your eyefinity group intact. If I hold alt and maximize a window it fits the center monitor perfectly. If I drag it to either side it snaps to that respective monitor. If I boot up a borderless windowed game it automatically goes to the center as that's my primary monitor.

I was very happy with my first eyefinity setup - a single 5870 which I already had pushing my 3x monitors. That's not really that expensive for the amount of enjoyment and multitasking productivity that I gained. Even if I only gamed on a single screen I would still want the extra desktop space.
 
I used Eyefinity for a couple months, and I ended up selling it. The main reason I sold it is because I mostly play RTS-style games, like Heroes of Newerth and Starcraft II. These games don't support 3x landscape, but work in 3x portrait. Now in an FPS or racing game, you can view the 3 monitors as a whole. However, in RTS, you need to focus on parts of the screen. If the part of the screen you're focused on happens to be on a bezel area, it's a bit annoying. In an FPS game, if an enemy is within a bezel part of your screen, you simply move your mouse and and your view of the enemy is now on the center screen. In an RTS game, if an enemy unit is in a bezel region, you have to scroll the window to move your view of the enemy to the center screen. This is problematic, especially if you are playing these games at a higher level.

For FPS games, eyefinity is truly amazing. The bezels are hardly noticeable with these games, and you have the option of playing 3x landscape (peripheral vision style) or 3x portrait (giant screen style). I switched between the two every few weeks just for variety.

tl;dr: What kind of games will you be playing? Eyefinity isn't great for RTS, but is amazing for FPS.
 
I will say, I do not notice bezels at all. Just completely filtered them out when playing. Games HURT when I'm forced to play in a single monitor. It just feels so compact and limited. I've been running dual monitors for over a decade. That's before video cards could even let you run both outs. When you needed to add in a 2nd 'PCI/AGP' video card just to support more then a single monitor. Productivity takes a dive whenever I'm forced to a single screen now.

Games, 3 monitors. All the time, everytime I can. I'm using crossfire 6xxx cards. I got dozens of them all over the place. LOL at bitcoin and grats to people who got in early. Since they've earned many many times over what it cost me in hardware.

For specific games, go check out widescreengamingforum. They have detail reports on tons of games. If you're looking for a specific title. I will completely agree with most people here. As long as the game you're playing supports it, once you start playing wide setup going back sucks. Bezels aren't even a factor/noticable a few days in.
 
I have used Eyefinity almost dedicatedly for about two years now. I love it and it is hard to go back to playing on the single screen. I don't have much problem transitioning from playing in Eyefinity to playing on my big screen TV if something doesn't work for Eyefinity or while waiting for fixes/patches, but I prefer my triple screen Eyefinity.

The bezels have never bothered me and don't seem to interfere with the immersion factor for me.

The best games I have seen for playing on Eyefinity are MMOs and FPS games.

Unfortunately the developer interest in supporting Eyefinity (and Nividia Surround) is diminishing.
 
Right now I'm waiting for a good deal on a 460 so i can get my 3 monitor setup going. I've watched a lot of videos on tri monitor setup and I think the bezel is something most people would get over in 5-10 minutes.

It also depends on how close you place your monitors. My advice is to go for it.
 
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