Eyefinity vs 30 inch??

[Dan_D]

PrincessFrosty makes some good points. I too have had a 30" panel for several years now and have had to purchase several seriously high end graphics cards to maintain playable frame rates with newer games. Just about the whole time I've used 2 or 3 graphics cards in SLI or Crossfire/CrossfireX to do so. I started with dual X1950XTX's at $500 a piece and then on to 3x GeForce 8800GTX's, 2 GeForce 9800GX2's, 3x GeForce GTX 280's, and now the Radeon HD 5970. Which I've managed to overclock to 850/1200 just as PrincessFrosty did.

 

[blastingcap]

Get the 30. Screw eyefinitiy and its bezels.

Do you notice the beams surrounding your front windshield in your car, while driving? Probably not. With 3x1 screens, it's the same thing: you don't even notice the bezels after you start a game. I have Eyefinity. I hope people critical of it don't criticize it without first having played at least a few hours with 3x1.

 

[blastingcap]

Most games aren't that demanding these days thanks to consoles (Fallout Vegas for instance; even Crysis 2 is a console game since Crytek cried about how they didn't make enough money on Crysis despite its being a PC-exclusive title), and even if they are, just turn off Eyefinity and use the center monitor.

Also, a 1680x1050x3 setup is only 29% more pixels than 2560x1600x1. Also fps drop is NOT linear drop along with pixels despite what princessfrosty says; on average (more or less depending on the game), you will get about half the frames at 1680x1050x3 as you would at 1680x1050x1, even though it's THREE times the pixels, not TWO. (See examples of non-linearity here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793&type=expert&pid=4 ) In TF2, with a mild overclock on my 5850 I am easily above 30fps for entire matches, at high settings.

TF2 works well with Eyefinity and there is a mod out there that lets you squish the HUD onto the center monitor so you don't have to look left or right to see your stats. I hear that there are other such fixes for other games, too, and AMD even keeps a list of Eyefinity-validated titles. For instance, BC2 had Eyefinity support built in to begin with--no modding required. http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-software.aspx

5870 overclocked should tide you over for 1-2 years, which is about the same time as the next console generations start showing up. That would be a good time to upgrade your video card. If you insist on more than 30fps, you may need more than a single 5870 though, or drop down to one monitor for those particularly heavy games.

Ok I came into a some unexpected cash (bonus, thanks boss). I have a 5870 Sapphire Vapor X. I just got a 25.5 Asus monitor 19x12. I was thinking about trying out an Eyefinity set up, but I just dont know. I play TF2, ME2, JC2, STO, thinking about playing COD2 or BC2. I also play strategy games DoW1-2, Dawn of Discovery etc. My concern is how well this will hold up in a Eyefinity set up for a year or more. I really dont have the time to try and keep up with the latest and greatest on vid cards. I want to use it for a couple of years then upgrade as necessary. Do you guys think these cards in a years time will still be able to handle games at reasonable frames (ie at least 30fps)?? Would I be better off just going with a 30inch? I know Crysis 2 is a year away or so. But Fallout New Vegas is coming this Fall I think. Would there even be an advantage to upgrading to a 5870 2gb? I think the common answer to that is no. I guess I am kinda old school in thinking that FPS is king for alot of games.

 

[Blazestorm]

That windshield argument is so stupid.

Eyefinity is like sticking a helmet on your head that puts black bars directly in your vision 100% of the time. If you play a racing game with eyefinity in the cockpit view, you now get bezels in your view and the beams inside of the car. Twice as much shit in your way.

I also don't like putting 66% of my graphics cards to work on screens I don't look at directly. It's silly.

Yea I went from a 30" to 3 x 23" and went back to a 30" after a month or so. I agree that everyone should try it out before saying anything, and I think more people would find out it doesn't live up to the hype.

 

[Tudz]

I like the "idea" of Eyefinity, but in practice when I used it I really wasn't all that impressed. Being a race/flight sim fan I really *want* a 3 screen set up, but the implementation just isn't good enough at the moment. I dont think it will be until games start coming out with 3x screens in mind rather than simply forcing them to run at a freakishly high field of view.

 

[blastingcap]

Other than fps, you do not lose anything with multimonitor, you only gain. Your helmet analogy is totally incorrect (it would be correct only if with Eyefinity you kept the same aspect ratio but inserted 2 bars on the screen instead; that's not how it works, Eyefinity actually extends aspect ratio). Put it this way, if you are looking at a single monitor right now, what's to the left and right of the monitor? Bezels. To the left or right of the bezels? Probably a wall. Well imagine that instead of wall, you get more screen real estate. In both cases, there are bezels--you don't magically lose the bezels by having 1 monitor instead of 3. If you're going to have bezels no matter whether it's 1 monitor or 3, then if performance wouldn't suffer too much, why not have 3? Plus for many people, bezels disappear once you are immersed in a game.

Reasonable minds can differ. You're entitled to your own opinion but I am not going back to one monitor and am surprised anyone who plays FPS or racing games would want to go back. That peripheral vision helps you navigate tight spots in races better; it lets you see people trying to stab your back in TF2, or flank you in another FPS, better.

That windshield argument is so stupid.

Eyefinity is like sticking a helmet on your head that puts black bars directly in your vision 100% of the time. If you play a racing game with eyefinity in the cockpit view, you now get bezels in your view and the beams inside of the car. Twice as much shit in your way.

I also don't like putting 66% of my graphics cards to work on screens I don't look at directly. It's silly.

Yea I went from a 30" to 3 x 23" and went back to a 30" after a month or so. I agree that everyone should try it out before saying anything, and I think more people would find out it doesn't live up to the hype.

 

[TehQuick]

Do you notice the beams surrounding your front windshield in your car, while driving? Probably not.

BS, of course we do. Damn things block the view and sometimes, hide such things as pedestrians. So unless you don't care about driving over someone, you must always look around them.

Now, Eyefinity/surround is a different matter, you won't really kill anyone by not looking around the beams.

 

[blastingcap]

BS, of course we do. Damn things block the view and sometimes, hide such things as pedestrians.

Now, Eyefinity/surround is a different matter, you won't really kill anyone by not looking around the beams.

If your vehicle is moving, the beams won't hide much. Also, see above about 1 vs 3 monitors. Playing on one monitor is like spraypainting your car's side windows completely black so you can't see through them. You would prefer driving around like that to driving around in a normal car?

 

[TehQuick]

If your vehicle is moving, the beams won't hide much. Also, see above about 1 vs 3 monitors. Playing on one monitor is like spraypainting your car's side windows black. You would prefer driving around like that to driving around in a normal car?

Are you dumb or just pretending? On intersections, stop signs and so on, beams are extremely important to watch out for. Who taught you to drive? A serial killer?

 

[Tudz]

Other than fps, you do not lose anything with multimonitor, you only gain.

Yeah you do, you lose about $1000 upwards

The only thing that bothers me about people saying Eyefinity is awesome is they act as if everyone who dislikes it mustn't have tried it. I've tried it and didn't like it. Ok ok, thats a lie, I think its SLIGHTLY better than a single monitor assuming everything is working properly. Sure as hell not worth doubling or tripling the cost of my set up to use.

Single monitor may be like painting your side windows black, but Eyefinity is like looking through some fucked up fisheye lens

 

[blastingcap]

Yeah you do, you lose about $1000 upwards

The only thing that bothers me about people saying Eyefinity is awesome is they act as if everyone who dislikes it mustn't have tried it. I've tried it and didn't like it. Ok ok, thats a lie, I think its SLIGHTLY better than a single monitor assuming everything is working properly. Sure as hell not worth doubling or tripling the cost of my set up to use.

Single monitor may be like painting your side windows black, but Eyefinity is like looking through some fucked up fisheye lens

I dunno, 3 smaller monitors is still potentially cheaper than one big one--and gives flexibility to drop down to 1 or 2 screens if you need more fps. Plus multimonitor is good for productivity/non-game applications, like TV on one screen, firefox on another, excel in a third, or something.

Actually quite a few people in the past, especially when it first came out, have done that--criticized without trying it.

Hey I agree with you that the software is lacking sometimes. It's sorta like 3D, when it works it works (I posted AMD's list of validated and other games; TF2 and other Source-based games I can personally vouch for, BFBC2 supports it natively, etc.), but not all software supports it 100%. That's not hardware's fault, though. Certainly multimon is not a must-have feature yet. Maybe in the near future now that NVIDIA's marketing power will go behind it, too, instead of just AMD's.

 

[heatlesssun]

Yeah you do, you lose about $1000 upwards

The only thing that bothers me about people saying Eyefinity is awesome is they act as if everyone who dislikes it mustn't have tried it. I've tried it and didn't like it. Ok ok, thats a lie, I think its SLIGHTLY better than a single monitor assuming everything is working properly. Sure as hell not worth doubling or tripling the cost of my set up to use.

Single monitor may be like painting your side windows black, but Eyefinity is like looking through some fucked up fisheye lens

All depends on the game and with the right game a high resolution triple head display kicks the shit of of single screen. And if a particular game doesn't work well on three screens fine, don't use two of them for particular games.

3D Surround has been the biggest jump for me in gaming enjoyment perhaps ever. Sure its not for everyone, hardly anything new and expensive is, like cars, computers, cell phones, etc. I do see multi-monitor becoming a bigger deal with desktop PCs in coming years for a lot more than games, multiple screens are an ENORMOUS productivity booster. I think games will simply follow. 3D will always be problematic for widespread adoption for a number of reasons but when it works it's just amazing.

 

[Blazestorm]

Reasonable minds can differ. You're entitled to your own opinion but I am not going back to one monitor and am surprised anyone who plays FPS or racing games would want to go back. That peripheral vision helps you navigate tight spots in races better; it lets you see people trying to stab your back in TF2, or flank you in another FPS, better.

I played FPS... BC2, TF2, etc. with Eyefinity. The extra monitors don't add much, if anything they caused more distractions. I see a little blip out of the corner of my eye on one screen so I spin my view only to see some part of the map or something instead of a player. My K/D ratio never got better with Eyefinity, if anything it got worse because of the lower FPS (caused by higher resolution).

The bezels exist on a single monitor, yea... but you don't notice them because you're looking at a single screen.

If you want additional field of view (with a little fish-eye) you crank up the FOV like all competitive gamers have been doing for a long time. but you get the benefit of everything being on a single screen directly in your line of sight.

It's fine that you're happy with Eyefinity, but don't fucking hype it like everyone else just to make you feel better about your purchases. I'm pissed I fell for the hype and wasted that time and money on it. I'm trying to prevent people from falling into the same trap by saying try it out first.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't understand why you are so disrespectful, especially when I noted some limitations of Eyefinity (fps hit in particular). Does that call for your swearing at me and accusations of hyping it to justify my purchases? Where the hell did THAT come from? Am I cussing you out and accusing you of being anti-Eyefinity because of your buyer's remorse? We don't need to be so negative okay? I just thought I'd give OP my honest opinion. I'm not pushing Eyefinity for everyone. I just think people should try it before they knock it--I think we are in agreement there. There's really no way to describe it on paper, or even screenshots, though youtube videos do give one some idea of how Eyefinity works in real life.

You didn't like Eyefinity despite trying it out, okay, I think we got the point a long time ago with your inaccurate rantings about helmets or whatever. But many other people do like Eyefinity, including the owner of this website you are ranting on. It's simply not cut-and-dried that a single 30" is better than 3x22" or 3x24".

Your FOV rant is misleading, btw. Cranking up FOV on a single screen distorts views more than cranking up FOV on multi-monitor, because a single widescreen monitor is still stuck at 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio, not 48:9 or 48:10. An ultrawide 3x1 array would handle distortion better than a lone monitor.

Sorry you didn't do any better with Eyefinity and I'm not saying it's a miracle worker that makes you a pro gamer all of a sudden. Maybe turning settings down a notch for whatever heavy game you're playing, would have helped with your fps problem. Older games and console ports seem to do just fine with fps. E.g., TF2 runs fine on the older Source engine on 3x1 screens, and the extra FOV helps avoid backstabs and flanking fire. It converted what used to be unnecessarily-high single-monitor frames into useful frames by giving peripheral vision. Of course, you could buy stronger cards or SLI/Crossfire to help out with framerates, though I totally understand why some people don't like multi-GPU.

If all else fails you can always turn off the side monitors and go to single screen; it's literally as easy as pressing a hotkey before and after starting up a game. Yeah, maybe the center monitor isn't a big honking 30" (unless you went 3x1 30" Eyefinity), but the point is that you have choices with Eyefinity that you don't have with lone monitors, to say nothing of productivity and other non-game uses for multi-monitor.

The real downside to Eyefinity is the hardware cost of this flexibility, not just in GPU cost but in monitors, though it's arguable that 3x24" and 3x22" are cheaper--especially if you already own one or two of them. Other smaller downsides are how much desk space and weight it takes, the extra wattage of extra monitors, and the fact that not all games can support well, so you may wind up playing more games on one screen than you wanted. Also there is potentially an adapter cost; VGA-DP adapters cost $20-30, active DVI-DP $100, or you could go NVIDIA to get around that. Personally I can't tell the difference between VGA and not, because my monitor auto-calibrates really well.

I played FPS... BC2, TF2, etc. with Eyefinity. The extra monitors don't add much, if anything they caused more distractions. I see a little blip out of the corner of my eye on one screen so I spin my view only to see some part of the map or something instead of a player. My K/D ratio never got better with Eyefinity, if anything it got worse because of the lower FPS (caused by higher resolution).

The bezels exist on a single monitor, yea... but you don't notice them because you're looking at a single screen.

If you want additional field of view (with a little fish-eye) you crank up the FOV like all competitive gamers have been doing for a long time. but you get the benefit of everything being on a single screen directly in your line of sight.

It's fine that you're happy with Eyefinity, but don't fucking hype it like everyone else just to make you feel better about your purchases. I'm pissed I fell for the hype and wasted that time and money on it. I'm trying to prevent people from falling into the same trap by saying try it out first.

 

[blastingcap]

Are you dumb or just pretending? On intersections, stop signs and so on, beams are extremely important to watch out for. Who taught you to drive? A serial killer?

Are you always this charming?

While you are immersed in a game, the bezels fade away; it's how many people's vision works. That was my original point which you seem to have misinterpreted.

As for your point, which was NOT about the psychological fade (above): if you're playing a FPS or racing game you are almost always moving or looking around; objects are rarely obstructed for very long. In real life, unless you are driving pretty slowly, you are constantly moving and objects don't get obstructed for very long. See the analogy? And if the potential of obstruction is enough of a danger, you can do things such as turn off bezel correction (in a game) or look around your beams (in a real-life car)--or move!

Furthermore, see my explanation of aspect ratio and why the helmet analogy is wrong. You have bezels whether it's one monitor or three; you have beams in the car whether you paint your side windows black or not. A solo monitor is like driving with only your front windshield.

You're being obnoxious AND being wrong, which is a pretty bad combo.

 

[Mr. K6]

Other than fps, you do not lose anything with multimonitor, you only gain.

If it means giving up a 30" 2560x1600 monitor, then no, you lose a lot. The only way I'd go multi-monitor is with 3x 30" monitors.

 

[Tudz]

Your FOV rant is misleading, btw. Cranking up FOV on a single screen distorts views more than cranking up FOV on multi-monitor, because a single widescreen monitor is still stuck at 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio, not 48:9 or 48:10. An ultrawide 3x1 array would handle distortion better than a lone monitor.

I just have to say I disagree with this point. When I used Eyefinity, I could only increase the FOV slightly over a single screen because the fisheye effect becomes extremely stretched anything beyond about 90 degrees regardless of how many monitors you use. In racing games, on a single screen I set FOV between 70-90 degrees depending on the game and car I'm driving, but with 3 monitors it only adds a few degrees to that because I start to notice the stretching even more. Yeah you can say arrange the screens flat, yeah you can say only look at the centre screen, but to me this largely defies the point of multiple monitors in that you can physically have a FOV larger than 110-120 degrees.

But in the end we both want the same thing, better support for multi-monitor set ups... I just want that support before I buy it and think people should definitely try a surround/eyefinity set up before they buy. It tends to get hyped up a lot when I think there's plenty of people who wouldn't like it in its current form.

 

[blastingcap]

If it means giving up a 30" 2560x1600 monitor, then no, you lose a lot. The only way I'd go multi-monitor is with 3x 30" monitors.

Omg I just realized how old this thread was, I feel stupid now haha. Anyway, that's a good point, you do lose some immersive effect due to smaller screen size, in addition to losing the ability to watch movies on a 30". And I'm sure the Photoshoppers out there would prefer 30". For games though it's an arguable point whether 30"x1 is more or less immersive than Eyefinity on smaller monitors.

I just have to say I disagree with this point. When I used Eyefinity, I could only increase the FOV slightly over a single screen because the fisheye effect becomes extremely stretched anything beyond about 90 degrees regardless of how many monitors you use. In racing games, on a single screen I set FOV between 70-90 degrees depending on the game and car I'm driving, but with 3 monitors it only adds a few degrees to that because I start to notice the stretching even more. Yeah you can say arrange the screens flat, yeah you can say only look at the centre screen, but to me this largely defies the point of multiple monitors in that you can physically have a FOV larger than 110-120 degrees.

But in the end we both want the same thing, better support for multi-monitor set ups... I just want that support before I buy it and think people should definitely try a surround/eyefinity set up before they buy. It tends to get hyped up a lot when I think there's plenty of people who wouldn't like it in its current form.

FOV and software... I dunno, I'm sure it varies from game to game. TF2 with FOV at 90 on Eyefinity still gives more peripheral vision than when I set FOV at 105 on a solo monitor, so I think the FOV 90 only applies to the center monitor? So if you add in the other monitors, your total FOV is actually more than 90? I could be wrong.

Also, now that we have NVIDIA on board, and not just AMD and Matrox, we might start seeing better compatibility with multimonitor gaming.

Anyway I have tried to be pretty honest about the pros and cons of Eyefinity as I see it. Reasonable minds can differ, and I've heard some good arguments for a solo 30" (like if you watch a lot of movies on your computer and don't game as much). Hell even the people who don't like Eyefinity are saying the same damned thing as the people who like it: try it out first before making a decision!

And with that, I'm out of this thread.. I don't want to participate in necro'ing it.

 

[Unknown-One]

TF2 with FOV at 90 on Eyefinity still gives more peripheral vision than when I set FOV at 105 on a solo monitor, so I think the FOV 90 only applies to the center monitor? So if you add in the other monitors, your total FOV is actually more than 90? I could be wrong.

That FOV value is the vertical FOV, not the horizontal FOV.

The vertical FOV stays at a fixed value (90, in this case), and the horizontal FOV automatically gets larger or smaller depending upon the width of your monitor.

 

[Tudz]

That FOV value is the vertical FOV, not the horizontal FOV.

The vertical FOV stays at a fixed value (90, in this case), and the horizontal FOV automatically gets larger or smaller depending upon the width of your monitor.

I believe the FOV in racing games usually applies to the horizontal FOV but I could be wrong. I'm talking games like LFS, GTR, RACE, etc. Though I reckon some probably are vertical FOV as some racing games like a lower FOV than others.

 

[Unknown-One]

I doubt that's correct. Widescreen (and by extension Eyefinity) does not work correctly in games that use a horizontal based FOV.

It's easy to spot games that use a horizontal FOV instead of a vertical one; the wider your monitor is, the more they crop off the top and bottom of the screen. This completely screwy behavior actually causes widescreen users to see less than fullscreen users. Unreal Tournament 3 and Mass Effect are two games that have this problem, which basically makes them unplayable at super wide aspect ratios.

In short, if the horizontal field of vision expands automatically as your screen gets wider, it's using a fixed vertical FOV (which is the correct way to handle widescreen and eyefinity).

 

[Tudz]

I believe LFS is horizontal FOV, but its adjustable up to 120 degrees. Would need to double check. EDIT: Looking at the LFS site it seems like the latest patch has added a lot of additional multimonitor features... this is what I want to see from most if not all new release games before I take the dive on Eyefinity/Surround.

 

[Dan_D]

There are a lot of games that do not properly support Eyefinity in that their aspect ratios (really FOV) are not self-correcting to maintain an image free of being squashed or stretched. There are of course a few that do, but they seem few and far between.

 

[noquarter]

I believe the FOV in racing games usually applies to the horizontal FOV but I could be wrong. I'm talking games like LFS, GTR, RACE, etc. Though I reckon some probably are vertical FOV as some racing games like a lower FOV than others.

It all depends on the game engine. A vert- game adjusts the vertical FoV freely relative to the horizontal FoV and aspect ratio so the horizontal FoV is the number you specify. UE3 engine games work like this so when you put in FoV 90 in Mass Effect or Borderlands you are specifying the horizontal FoV and the vertical is calculated off that.

A hor+ game adjusts the horizontal FoV freely so when you specify an FoV it's the vertical FoV you're setting. A lot of racing games are hor+ to handle widescreen which is the proper way to handle it so you would be specifying the vertical FoV if they are.

 

[Ramirin]

I have Eyefinity and the wow factor wore off after the first month. I'm selling my 3x Dell p2310h in order to purchase a single 30 inch monitor. Eyeinity is more a headache than an advantage in games. I like RTS so I found myself constantly rotating to portrait to play those and back to landscape to play the other games. World of Warcraft looks beautiful but is hard to keep track of the stats, health etc. Same thing with Dragon Age Origins. There is also the issue with games not working in ultra-wide, like Mass Effect 2, Street Fighter 4, Resident evil, Bioshock to name a few.
Yes, I know there are workarounds to make some of this games partially playable, but I don't have the time for that. I just wanna sit and play.
As for FPS games, the extra screens on your side cause a lot of distraction in multiplayer. Single player is not that bad because the action is usually not that frantic.
In the end, the only game I still find myself playing with eyefinity on is FSX.
Once I discovered that portrait mode felt more inmersive than landscape, I told myself what the heck, I'm better off with a single monster screen!

 

[Dan_D]

I disagree on the comment about first person shooters. I found the extra peripheral vision to be an asset in multiplayer.

 

[Zorachus]

I have Eyefinity and the wow factor wore off after the first month. I'm selling my 3x Dell p2310h in order to purchase a single 30 inch monitor. Eyeinity is more a headache than an advantage in games. I like RTS so I found myself constantly rotating to portrait to play those and back to landscape to play the other games. World of Warcraft looks beautiful but is hard to keep track of the stats, health etc.

Check my thread with a video of WoW in triple 27" landscape.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1538471

Totally love the extra real estate for WoW, I use the add/on "moveanything" and have my character info, plus all buffs, raid party and maps etc...moved off to both side monitors, freeing up the center to actually see the game world and monsters better. With a single display WoW would be a cluttered mess for me.

I used to own a single Apple 30" Cinema Display, it was awesome, and very crisp vivid picture, but my 3 Dell 27" blow it out of the water. For me Eyefinity requires beefy large monitors to pull it off. I used to have 3 -24" monitors, and it felt too narrow or thin, didn't look right, but 27" or larger is the sweet spot for Eyefinity.

 

[TheWeazmeister]

Check my thread with a video of WoW in triple 27" landscape.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1538471

Totally love the extra real estate for WoW, I use the add/on "moveanything" and have my character info, plus all buffs, raid party and maps etc...moved off to both side monitors, freeing up the center to actually see the game world and monsters better. With a single display WoW would be a cluttered mess for me.

I used to own a single Apple 30" Cinema Display, it was awesome, and very crisp vivid picture, but my 3 Dell 27" blow it out of the water. For me Eyefinity requires beefy large monitors to pull it off. I used to have 3 -24" monitors, and it felt too narrow or thin, didn't look right, but 27" or larger is the sweet spot for Eyefinity.

Interesting. With the amount of real estate on the 30", I don't feel WoW as cluttered and I run a silly amount of addons. I would feel it a distraction to have 3 monitors, but then again I am legally blind in one eye so that might have something to do with it

 

[atrance5]

I'm waiting till they release no bezel screens, basically till I can buy just the panel.

What I will get is a 27" 3D Monitor and glasses when they get released, to have some 3D experience at home once in a while. Main monitor will always be my 32" Viera, and I don't see that changing soon. I might step up to a 37'er but thats about it.

 

[Lateralus]

Hearing you guys say that you pretty much need 2 high-end cards in SLI/CF makes me feel better about the fact that my GTX 480 didn't provide a totally smooth gaming experience in Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033 at 2560x1600 with the details cranked up. 4MP is no joke and like Frosty said, a lot of what we PC gamers have been getting lately are console ports not designed for the PC from the ground up. I guess that could go both ways; one one hand, the games could run more smoothly because they weren't built for PC first and thus don't use all of the advanced features that our cards are capable of vs. the graphics chipsets on the consoles. On the other hand, the games could run worse because they weren't built for the PC first and thus are less optimized for efficiency when ported.

And to think I was once considering 3x30" for Eyefinity...I guess one could always lower the resolution when needed, but the amount of GPU power needed to push three 30" monitors at full res in recent games is pretty staggering. Or 3 x 1920x1080 @ 120hz for that matter...

 

[Matrices]

If you primarily play RTS or isometric perspective games, Eyefinity may not be for you. If you mainly enjoy FPS and simulators (flight, space, cars), then I can't imagine someone not liking it.

The bezels, as the vast majority of users have said, is not really an issue. It's the FOV that took me a couple days to adjust to, in that the peripheral monitors give you a skewed view. In some games, you can control the degree to which stuff in the peripheral monitors is magnified relative to the center monitor by adjusting the FOV. Mainly, you train yourself to focus on the center monitor so that the skewed view on the peripheral monitors appears pretty normal to you.

I've had a fantastic experience in HL2 (any Source game will do), BC2, NFS: Shift, Dead Space, and Serious Sam HD.

A couple games have been disappointments simply because you can't adjust the UI so key items are scattered across monitors - Dragon Age and X3.

And a few games simply don't work - GRID (if bezel correction is used), Unreal-engine based games (except Batman), and some id Software games.

For me, it's absolutely been worth it.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Also, a 1680x1050x3 setup is only 29% more pixels than 2560x1600x1. Also fps drop is NOT linear drop along with pixels despite what princessfrosty says; on average (more or less depending on the game), you will get about half the frames at 1680x1050x3 as you would at 1680x1050x1, even though it's THREE times the pixels, not TWO. (See examples of non-linearity here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793&type=expert&pid=4 )

This aside, my point is that keeping up with a 30" screen is very taxing on your wallet, it's not just a one off investment, it's a continual investment requiring you to pour money into high end hardware every 18 months to play your games in high settings.

Keeping up with eyefinity is harder, I'm not really prepared to argue the exact difference between the 2 since it depends on your hardware and what eyefinity setup you chose, but nevertheless is more, it's enough to bring even elitest rigs to their knees when playing games like Crysis and Metro2033.

 

[WorldExclusive]

I'm not going Eyefinity/Surround until they enable mixed resolutions so I keep my 30" and buy two 20" monitors.
If they never make it possible then it's not for me. I can't go back to a smaller main monitor. I use my 30" for more than just gaming i.e. Adobe Master Suite

 

[Zorachus]

I'm not going Eyefinity/Surround until they enable mixed resolutions so I keep my 30" and buy two 20" monitors.
If they never make it possible then it's not for me. I can't go back to a smaller main monitor. I use my 30" for more than just gaming i.e. Adobe Master Suite

I agree, that a wicked cool Eyefinity setup would be 20" portrait + 30" landscape + 20" portrait

 

[Vega]

Eyefinity is over-rated. One 30" super-crisp display is better having used both.

 

[Dan_D]

Eyefinity is over-rated. One 30" super-crisp display is better having used both.

What about 3x 30" Eyefinity?

 

[Vega]

What about 3x 30" Eyefinity?

That is what I am contemplating now. I could keep a nice 30" main display for RTS etc and have the 3x 30" for flight simulators etc with nVidia Surround.

 

[JacobC1983]

I am as well, one monitor away - I just can't seem to find a good deal on another Dell 3007wfp-hc. I check the Dell outlet every day but I haven't caught them in stock in a month or so.

I have this feeling I am going to revert back to a single 30 inch monitor after playing with surround simply because I can crank all settings and the side monitors aren't going to enhance the game as much as I hope. Mainly I play FPS though, not a lot of racing games or flight sims. Are others finding this?

 

[Vega]

I've tested Eyefinity with flight sim's, MMORPG's and FPS. I would say for flight sim's, it's a no-brainer that it add's tremendously. In MMORPG's, it works pretty darn well. In FPS's I would say it's more of a personal preference. I do like being able to see to me sides, much harder for people to sneak up on you in a FPS.

 

[Mr Mean]

Ok I came into a some unexpected cash (bonus, thanks boss). I have a 5870 Sapphire Vapor X. I just got a 25.5 Asus monitor 19x12. I was thinking about trying out an Eyefinity set up, but I just dont know. I play TF2, ME2, JC2, STO, thinking about playing COD2 or BC2. I also play strategy games DoW1-2, Dawn of Discovery etc. My concern is how well this will hold up in a Eyefinity set up for a year or more. I really dont have the time to try and keep up with the latest and greatest on vid cards. I want to use it for a couple of years then upgrade as necessary. Do you guys think these cards in a years time will still be able to handle games at reasonable frames (ie at least 30fps)?? Would I be better off just going with a 30inch? I know Crysis 2 is a year away or so. But Fallout New Vegas is coming this Fall I think. Would there even be an advantage to upgrading to a 5870 2gb? I think the common answer to that is no. I guess I am kinda old school in thinking that FPS is king for alot of games.

I've been so tempted to buy this http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/382087-382087-64283-72270-3884471-4194577.html

But, the benchmarks I've seen with 30 inch monitors on high settings with the current hardware isn't too impressive. Some benchmarks are around 70's FPS. The new 4GB 5970s benchmarks show good improvement with higher resolution. But I think the next gen video processors will be much better than what we have now. I assume 4GB of onboard memory and high memory bandwith will help in native 2560x1600. I'm just waiting for the time when 100 FPS and two video cards will be adequate.

Monitors is something I rarely upgrade myself. They last many computer upgrades. If you find a good price on a 30 inch monitor I would take it. But my phobia is once I get my 30 inch monitor, here comes 3D monitors!