The Eyefinity Challenge with HardOCP

That's the worst picture I've ever seen on a 50 inch monitor.
Look at all those hideous black bars on the screen !!!
It looks like a window pane. LO:eek:L
 
utnorris said:
I live in the Dalls are and would love to see Eyfinity in action. I have been wanting to try it out, but the bezel thickness and the DP to DVI/HDMI adapter are my concerns, so seeing how it actually looks close up would be nice and could push me over the edge. The video was awesome, but you can only get so much from that.
Click to expand...

Once you try it out in person and see it live, you'll be craving it. I had the itch as soon as Kyle's Eyefinity review went up. Couldn't stop thinking about it.

The financial risk isn't so great if you don't mind lower end TN panels. The three Samsung 2343bwx (great for TN panels) set me back less than $700. Apple adapters are plentiful and work great with these panels.

Although the vertical viewing area hasn't changed, just having FIVE FEET of horizontal viewable gaming surrounding your field of vision changes everything. It fills your vision better than a large screen TV (I had a 40" 1080p prior to this on my desktop).
 
Honestly as a competition gamer myself, I can honestly say the eyefinity team is going to be the one at a handicap. Sorry but the bezels put breaks in your view area and that is death in high end competition.

I give props to AMD for the technology, but honestly as a serious gamer 1 Large uninterrupted screen is far superior to a multi screen format. Always has been, always will be.
 
Can you honestly say that based on your experience or are you just basing that on you expert opinion of LCD bezels?
 
Dekoth said:
Honestly as a competition gamer myself, I can honestly say the eyefinity team is going to be the one at a handicap. Sorry but the bezels put breaks in your view area and that is death in high end competition.

I give props to AMD for the technology, but honestly as a serious gamer 1 Large uninterrupted screen is far superior to a multi screen format. Always has been, always will be.
Click to expand...

You're thinking about it too much. Bezel this, bezel that. This is something you have to try in person.

I get a kick outta absolute statements like "always has been, always will be." How do you know unless you've tried? You have tried a proper Eyefinity setup, right?
 
I wish I could be there in person to see the setups. It would be nice to see some change their opinion about eyefinity or experience it for the first time in person. It's certainly something to see, or try.

I'm now a big supporter of EF. I can't go back. I'm already moving up from 3 23" monitors to 3 27". I would get 30", but damn....I'm not made of money.
 
They should ask people at the door what their expectations are before they ever get to see it in person, just to see how the experience really changes their PoV
 
Dekoth said:
Honestly as a competition gamer myself, I can honestly say the eyefinity team is going to be the one at a handicap. Sorry but the bezels put breaks in your view area and that is death in high end competition.

I give props to AMD for the technology, but honestly as a serious gamer 1 Large uninterrupted screen is far superior to a multi screen format. Always has been, always will be.
Click to expand...

I can't say this for gaming but I have worked with equipment that limits vision and judging by the way the eyes adjust to distances, multiple monitors in a more natural configuration of curvature would be easier on ocular focus and emersion. The bezels will eventually almost disappear from vision the more one plays I would imagine.


Have fun at the event, Kyle and frag 'em good! :D
 
Hmmm.... If you were comping Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, I'm sure TEAM FATE would be interested. Most live in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area. Plus there's a chic in Killeen I wouldn't mind seeing again............
 
NoOther said:
While I applaud them for including this in a single card, I honestly fail to see the significance for the average user, or even most high end users. It is truly a niche market.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the point. ATI is trying to finally bring something that was a niche market to mainstream gamers. There's no doubt that it was fun and more immersive in the past, but it was never fully adopted for the guy next door because it was never affordable. With 22'' LCDS at ~$120-$130 and these new videocards coming down in price as we speak makes it worthwhile for people to pick it up. When something becomes the Standard of support for the industry and doesn't spike the cost by charging more for a "feature" the community benefits all around and it becomes mainstream.

I'm looking forward to seeing what people say about the gaming experience and how the scores differ out. I think theres a huge advantage in racing and in first person shooters. Being able to see your perifs is going to make it a hell of a lot easier to spot people. Also, being able to look through the apex of a turn for once now is going to mean better racing.
 
Getting more peoples views in a controlled environment sounds like a great idea, shame I live on the other side of the world :(

As far as competitive gaming goes eye infinity adds to fov, which is good (I was an early adopter of a wide screen display just for that reason) but it's got to do so without taking away from other things.

I would rate competitive gamers graphics priorities as follows:
1) fps + input delay + ghosting. The best is 100+ fps and a CRT, if not that a 120hz LCD and no input delay or ghosting, if that's not possible at least an LCD with no input delay. It might make sense to setup one eye infinity station with three 120hz monitors (even if they are only the little 22 inch ones) running at 100fps+.

2) resolution. Not necessarily screen size (bigger screen would need to be further away to fit in your eyes vertical fov). A good resolution helps you place the mouse accurately for those long distance headshots.

3) fov. The wider the better as it lets you see more going on around you.

4) graphics settings (AA, AF, texturing and the like). Someone really focused on winning will often end up running at min settings as that's the clearest (without all the secondary effects like fancy lighting, or weather, or scenery blocking up your vision).

I know this must be an ati sponsored event but since you have all those people in one place would also be interesting to see what competitive gamers thought of 3d vision (which gives better depth perception)?
 
If it was an MMO and I wasn't using the corner of my virtual eye to spy for something in the distance and it was (kinda) blocked out by a bezel, I'd move my camera a little. In an FPS I'd continue playing like before with wrist-flicking movements to quickly look left and right - only this time I'd have a wider field of view helping me out. In an RTS I'd simply have a lot more to see information at hand.

Look past the bezels and into the game, or see Eyefinity with your own eyes. You're a hard head if your prejudice towards it doesn't change, even the videos did the trick for me, and then I had it demoed in a store (after an hour of "c'mon it'll help your business bigtime").

(I come from a bezel-less past of mirrors and cabinets in arcade games for multi-monitor action)
 
MrLonghair said:
If it was an MMO and I wasn't using the corner of my virtual eye to spy for something in the distance and it was (kinda) blocked out by a bezel, I'd move my camera a little. In an FPS I'd continue playing like before with wrist-flicking movements to quickly look left and right - only this time I'd have a wider field of view helping me out. In an RTS I'd simply have a lot more to see information at hand.

Look past the bezels and into the game, or see Eyefinity with your own eyes. You're a hard head if your prejudice towards it doesn't change, even the videos did the trick for me, and then I had it demoed in a store (after an hour of "c'mon it'll help your business bigtime").

(I come from a bezel-less past of mirrors and cabinets in arcade games for multi-monitor action)
Click to expand...

I am not against change, I have said multiple times I like it. I am just pointing out that in this challenge the team with the eyefinity is going to be at the disadvantage. Top tier competition is a completely different world then regular gaming. If you haven't experienced it you wouldn't know. Why do you think top tier gamers get some bent out of shape over little things like mouse responsiveness that is not even noticeable by most gamers? Little things are a big deal to top tier.
 
I use a projector and have a 106" screen. Why is this not a much better solution that does not have all of those bezels to distract you and likely many other complications?
 
lawguy said:
I use a projector and have a 106" screen. Why is this not a much better solution that does not have all of those bezels to distract you and likely many other complications?
Click to expand...

Because all you are doing with a bigger screen is making the image bigger, not the field of view.
 
Dekoth said:
I am not against change, I have said multiple times I like it. I am just pointing out that in this challenge the team with the eyefinity is going to be at the disadvantage. Top tier competition is a completely different world then regular gaming. If you haven't experienced it you wouldn't know. Why do you think top tier gamers get some bent out of shape over little things like mouse responsiveness that is not even noticeable by most gamers? Little things are a big deal to top tier.
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. Nobody really knows until EF is put to the test. We'll have some idea after the challenge, tho no definitive answer since it sounds like the challenge will not be setup to test this specifically.
 
i had a chance to play with an EF setup today. went toi houston to pick up a KVM from Directron and they had a big shindig going on. AMD was rep'd and had 2 EF systems. one for gaming, and the other set up for gen desktop stuff.

i was quite impressed with a single card on 3x24". looked good, played smooth, but i was curious, does EF work under crossfire? i admit not following it too closely as it is out of my budget atm. the gaming system AMD was showing off was a single 5870, but the MoBo was a Crossfire board. does EF work with SLI? under what OS's?
 
xxGriff said:
i was quite impressed with a single card on 3x24". looked good, played smooth, but i was curious, does EF work under crossfire? i admit not following it too closely as it is out of my budget atm. the gaming system AMD was showing off was a single 5870, but the MoBo was a Crossfire board. does EF work with SLI? under what OS's?
Click to expand...

Currently no, EF is not supported by CFX, but it will in the future. Hardware support is there, software simply has to be written for it.

SLI is NVIDIA graphics cards and NVIDIA currently does not support a feature like this on its non-Quadro card.

Vista and Win 7 currently support Eyefinity.
 
Thanks Kyle.

my bad, i meant CFX...i was a bit puzzled as when i asked the AMD rep he stated EF was supported in CFX. i beleived i had read otherwise, so i asked [H]ere for clarification.

having only played for 45 min or so, i was impressed. it looked great and play was smooth. on one card too. wish i was in DFW...thats a long drive from houston.

i'm gonna tear into the stickys and articles on EF now...
 
lawguy said:
Not really. I can pretty much designate any aspect ratio that I want.
Click to expand...


I don't think you understand. You only have so many pixels to work with. EF can greatly expand the number of pixels you are seeing.
 
lawguy said:
Not really. I can pretty much designate any aspect ratio that I want.
Click to expand...

it's still the same resolution, just bigger. let's say you're running 1920 wide, that's still much less than 5760 wide on eyefinity, you're just seeing those 1920 pixels bigger.
 
teenk said:
it's still the same resolution, just bigger. let's say you're running 1920 wide, that's still much less than 5760 wide on eyefinity, you're just seeing those 1920 pixels bigger.
Click to expand...

Well, I have a 106" 16:9 aspect ratio screen. That is a lot of screen real estate. I can set it up so that I have something like a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If I do that, I get bars below or above (which I can mask) and I am using only part of the 1080p resolution. This could introduce some resolution-related issues.
 
lawguy said:
This is true. But, this raises several questions. What is the native resolution of the textures? I would rather see things in their native resolution than scaled to some greater resolution. Scaling introduces artifacts. Also, what is the viewing distance? I prefer to sit around 1 screen width from the screen. This is ideal for me. At this distance, I see no pixels on my screen and everything is very immersive and looks great. In short, all things considered, in my mind whatever small gains that more pixels might bring about are more than offset by things like the distracting bezels that really would kill the experience for me.
Click to expand...

You will have to try it to understand. Think of pixels as in feet. you have one screen that is 1200 feet wide, then you have three screens for a total of 5760 feet wide. This is basically how it is with the fov going from one screen to three screens. The bezels are not as big of a deal as you think they are. I forgot that they were even there after giving myself time to adjust. I would rather play on 3 x 17" screens than play on a 62' single screen any day. But I play on 3 x 24" screens though :D
 
This sounds like an Awesome idea Kyle. Will be keeping an eye out for the drawing/contest :D
 
BravO))) said:
You will have to try it to understand. Think of pixels as in feet. you have one screen that is 1200 feet wide, then you have three screens for a total of 5760 feet wide. This is basically how it is with the fov going from one screen to three screens. The bezels are not as big of a deal as you think they are. I forgot that they were even there after giving myself time to adjust. I would rather play on 3 x 17" screens than play on a 62' single screen any day. But I play on 3 x 24" screens though :D
Click to expand...

The picture on the front page shows 6 30" plat panels. The typical dimensions of a 30" flat panel are like 26"X15". This means that the total area on the screen is 78"X30". This yields an aspect ration of around 2.6 to1. A typical wide screen TV is 1.78:1. Most widescreen movies are 2.35:1. When you watch a 2.35:1 movie on a 1.78:1 tv, there will be black bars on the top and botton. The dimensions of my screen ar 96"X54". I could get almost the same field of view (2.6:1) on my 16:9 display, but that is at the expense of some resolution (The black bars are essentially wasted pixels). The question is what do you value more, horizontal or vertical field of view.

Also, if you look at the pictures at where people are sitting when playing on this display, they are pulling their seats back from the desk to what looks to be around 1 screen width. For me, this is the same general area that is comfortable. Any closer and it is too much. At that distance, lots of resolution is wasted because you can't reolved individual pixels so they just blur together.

There is no right answer here. It just seems like a very complex solution and one with drawbacks that might be big to some people. I love gaming with my projector as a screen. I can't know for sure but I bet that most people would choose a large screen projector over this eyefinity solution.
 
Last edited:
lawguy said:
The picture on the front page shows 6 30" plat panels. The typical dimensions of a 30" flat panel are like 26"X15". This means that the total area on the screen is 78"X30". This yields an aspect ration of around 2.6 to1. A typical wide screen TV is 1.78:1. Most widescreen movies are 2.35:1. When you watch a 2.35:1 movie on a 1.78:1 tv, there will be black bars on the top and botton. The dimensions of my screen ar 96"X54". I could get almost the same field of view (2.6:1) on my 16:9 display, but that is at the expense of some resolution (The black bars are essentially wasted pixels). The question is what do you value more, horizontal or vertical field of view.

Also, if you look at the pictures at where people are sitting when playing on this display, they are pulling their seats back from the desk to what looks to be around 1 screen width. For me, this is the same general area that is comfortable. Any closer and it is too much. At that distance, lots of resolution is wasted because you can't reolved individual pixels so they just blur together.

There is no right answer here. It just seems like a very complex solution and one with drawbacks that might be big to some people. I love gaming with my projector as a screen. I can't know for sure but I bet that most people would choose a large screen projector over this eyefinity solution.
Click to expand...

Bigger doesn't mean better. Going from a 24" 1080p monitor to a 102" projector in 1080p yields the same experience only bigger. Nothing more, nothing less. With eyefinity you can see more. You can see to your right, left, and middle. The field of view is what makes eyefinity so great, not the size of the screen used. If running down a hall way with a single screen, you would have to look in order to see whats in a room while running by. With eyefinity I am able to see it out of the corner of my eye which allows me to fucos more on whats around me instead of whats in front of me. When I got my setup I had a feeling that could only be explained by pure joy. I had never felt such emotion about gaming like I did when I got it. FOV is what makes eyefinity so great, not the ability to run more pixels. I see the samething on my center screen as you do with a single screen, the exact samething. Same size, same picture, everything. But if something was coming from my left or right, I would be able to see it and you won't.
 
Last edited:
lawguy said:
Well, I have a 106" 16:9 aspect ratio screen. That is a lot of screen real estate. I can set it up so that I have something like a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If I do that, I get bars below or above (which I can mask) and I am using only part of the 1080p resolution. This could introduce some resolution-related issues.
Click to expand...

But it is 106" of the same thing. You're not seeing more, you're only seeing bigger. Doesn't matter what aspect ratio you set your projector it is still limited by the maximum pixels/width your projector can display.

edit:

I guess this is the best way I can show the difference. This is eyefinity running 3 projectors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csOISrFN0O0. Now with your setup you would not have the 2 side projectors and you would not see what you can see on those extra screens regardless of what aspect ratio you set your one projector on.
 
Last edited:
teenk said:
But it is 106" of the same thing. You're not seeing more, you're only seeing bigger. Doesn't matter what aspect ratio you set your projector it is still limited by the maximum pixels/width your projector can display.

edit:

I guess this is the best way I can show the difference. This is eyefinity running 3 projectors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csOISrFN0O0. Now with your setup you would not have the 2 side projectors and you would not see what you can see on those extra screen regardless of what aspect ratio you set your one projector on.
Click to expand...

Yup. Some people keep glossing over one of the main advantages of Eyefinity. It's not just about immersion but also about seeing so much more of the gaming environment because of the crazy wide aspect ratio (5.33:1 in my case).
 
alxnet2003 said:
Yup. Some people keep glossing over one of the main advantages of Eyefinity. It's not just about immersion but also about seeing so much more of the gaming environment because of the crazy wide resolution.
Click to expand...

Yup, many seem to confuse seeing bigger != seeing more.
 
Here is the difference. Notice the sides and how much more you can see. Now imagine running or racing.
If you can't see, hold ctrl and scroll down. it will zoom out.

Here are 1920x1200 screen shots.
opfp2.png

opfp3.png



Here are 5760x1200 screen shots.
opfp.png

opfp1.png
 
alxnet2003 said:
Yup. Some people keep glossing over one of the main advantages of Eyefinity. It's not just about immersion but also about seeing so much more of the gaming environment because of the crazy wide aspect ratio (5.33:1 in my case).
Click to expand...

Except that you can get the same effect using other things besides Eyefinity. I am still flabbergasted that people are so amazed by EF like it is something brand new. I have been doing multi-monitor gaming for years along with many other people. The actual benefit of EF is having the extra support on one card, but you still need the outputs. You are also still limited to the same problems as other cards too, the more resolution you display, the heavier it impacts your performance. Now I am not a avid frame rate fanatic, I generally don't care as long as my frame rates are as close to 60 as I can get it, because that tends to be the sweet spot for me for smooth quality gameplay.

As for bezels limiting play ability, that is absolutely true, especially for first person shooters and first time users. I have had to deal with that before, but once you get used to having a bezel, then it really isn't as much of a problem. You eventually learn to ignore the break in the screen. Coincidentally using widescreen format or resolutions that are not hard coded into the game initially also can create problems. Just because your game will display at a certain resolution, doesn't mean it will function properly at that resolution. That is something to think about. I still consider the ability for more screen real estate and seeing more of the game a bigger benefit than acute accuracy or extreme frame rates.
 
NoOther said:
Except that you can get the same effect using other things besides Eyefinity. I am still flabbergasted that people are so amazed by EF like it is something brand new. I have been doing multi-monitor gaming for years along with many other people. The actual benefit of EF is having the extra support on one card, but you still need the outputs. You are also still limited to the same problems as other cards too, the more resolution you display, the heavier it impacts your performance. Now I am not a avid frame rate fanatic, I generally don't care as long as my frame rates are as close to 60 as I can get it, because that tends to be the sweet spot for me for smooth quality gameplay.
.
Click to expand...

This is the same thing we went through when widescreen monitors came out, nothing new and nothing that can't be over come. The wider resolution = more of a performance hit. But how many would go back to 5:4 / 4:3 gaming after having enjoyed 16:10/9 gaming for so long? (i know i won't go back)

i am actually suprised that there is such a big discussion on this.

in PC Gaming Resolution has always (Always!) been king. at any change, features are turned off to run to run at higher resolution.

This even all started back with the 16bit/32bit discussion. running games at 16bit color just so you could have a larger resolution.

then it moved into the realm of Antialiasing when 3dfx brought out their T-buffer.

turn off AA to run at a higher resolution.

when LCDs came out this became especially important as the native resolution is always what you want to run it at.

Eye Finity has taken the widescreen monitor and just increased its resolution 2 fold. (I guess matrox did it first really but EF is so much mroe elegant)

in gaming Resolution and FOV are still king, EF has just gotten over the hump of the 2 monitor problem , somethign that has held Multi monitor gaming back
 
Anyone know if BF2142 can take advantage of the Eyfinity increased viewing angle?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top