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Was Eyefinity/Surround a fad?

A

arachn1d

Gawd
Joined
Jan 7, 2005
Messages
836
Or is it still growing strong? I built an eyefinity setup and I realize I never really use it. I haven't used it lately (past 6 months). My biggest issues were not optimal framerates and or UI bugginess...

I have a 30" screen that I may replace with my eyefinity setup.

What are your thoughts on it? Do you use it? Is it a fad?
 
I love videos of great Eyefinity setups. And I love rig shots of the 3-4x high end video cards involved. However, with even the best setups, I don't think I could get past the black gaps. I currently have a 30 inch 1200p. My upgrade would be a 1600p in 30+inch, single monitor.
 
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I don't think it's a fad, but I do think it's temporary. Eyefinity/Surround will exist until the next technology comes out that takes that visual experience to the next level. Be that VR headsets or curved seamless monitors that are functional and consumer friendly or whatever that next phase looks like.

As far as getting past the black gaps (monitor bezels) your mind does begin to ignore them in a similar way that your mind ignores your nose. Even right now as your reading this post your big ass nose is sticking itself into your peripheral vision but you weren't noticing it until I pointed it out.
 
3d = fad

eyefinity = i use it every day

understandibly though it isn't for everyone but i love my eyefinity setup so much i even built one for my wife for her school and then gaming.

granted it still has some growing pains with some games, but for the most part i've come to see native eyefinity support in almost all games now.
 
I use my NVsurround everyday. A VM (or a couple) take over one side screen, the middle is usually a combination of webbrowsers, text editors, etc, and the other end is a system monitor, RSS feed, email, chat, utils, etc.

Couldn't imagine only have 1 screen now...shit, I'd probably have a hard time with only 2.
 
personally I would like a screen that I could wear instead of these monstrous monitors for color, look, definitiion, viewable screen space etc. Would probably work real well to be in your face sort of speak, though I guess it would take some wicked manufacturing to get it just right in regards to size, weight, cost, mobility etc.

I know quite a few folks running it, though for the most part its for productivity, or specific games.
 
I just made the switch, waiting on recommendations on new vid cards and will order. If a fad, well I'm in as everyone else is out :( typical for me
 
SilverSliver said:
I love videos of great Eyefinity setups. And I love rig shots of the 3-4x high end video cards involved. However, with even the best setups, I don't think I could get past the black gaps. I currently have a 30 inch 1200p. My upgrade would be a 1600p in 30+inch, single monitor.
Click to expand...

You haven't seen the best setups then :) I love my 3 projector rig. 3840x800 resolution, 120Hz, no black bars and individual pixels are .6mm x .6mm so at my viewing distance of 5ft it's pretty awesome. I think the only thing that I'd replace my setup with would be something like the Oculus Rift.
 
PhysX was a fad but not Eyefinity/Surround.
With the right hardware (video car(s)d an monitors) multiple monitors setting can be amazing!
 
PhysX is still being used to this day, sux it is propietary, there is other options for Physics, PhysX is only one of them, and belongs to Nvidia, so it does lock alot of folks out, and for the most part, does not seem to overly offer that much, kind of like DX11 these days, alot of very usefull graphical options among others, but alot of devs are not using it to its best advantage, if they are(PhysX as example) they get paid to use it, even sometimes cripple others performance when using it.

For multi-monitor type gaming, it truly depends on the game, apps, requirements, desired resolution will tell what kind of graphics card/cards you should go with, Nvidia does offer quite a few for this purpose, though generally speaking AMD does offer a somewhat more flexible approach over its entire product range(ones that can use/support it) Not saying ideal, just saying mre flexible.
 
Ive been using EF or Surround since the day it was available.
If anything, there are more games that natively support it, and more ways to use it.

It is the most striking advance in the desktop realm in a long while.
 
Love eyefinity and just decided to finally make the move towards the setup. Its awesome if you have the right equipment and i personally think it was a marketing ploy by both amd/nvidia to squeeze more cash out of us gamers. Its worth it if you are ever exposed to it for a breif amount of time.
 
rdqlus said:
You haven't seen the best setups then :) I love my 3 projector rig. 3840x800 resolution, 120Hz, no black bars and individual pixels are .6mm x .6mm so at my viewing distance of 5ft it's pretty awesome. I think the only thing that I'd replace my setup with would be something like the Oculus Rift.
Click to expand...

do you have pics of your setup?
 
rss33 said:
I just made the switch, waiting on recommendations on new vid cards and will order. If a fad, well I'm in as everyone else is out :( typical for me
Click to expand...

It's not a fad. I've been using it for over 2 years and there is no way in hell I'm going back. It just takes some time adjusting.

As to video cards, that depends on resolution of the monitors. I went from 3 24" 1200p monitors to 3 30" 1600p monitors. I'll be waiting on GK110 due to my resolution, but if you are at 3x1200p or less, you can get by with 670's or 680's just fine. I would steer clear of AMD personally. Don't get me wrong, they have great cards that kick ass in price performance ratio for single monitor, but I am wary of Crossfire Eyefinity.
 
I've been using eyefinity for a while now too. 3x27" PPP setup. It's great for gaming, and productivity!
 
been rocking eyefinity for awhile now with 5870, 6870 crossfire, and now a 7970

definitely couldn't go back to using 1 on my main anymore. just having 3 screens is so handy whether your playing games on all of them or not. sometimes i just run the game in a window on the middle monitor and leave chats/browsers/streams on the other 2. its pretty awesome
 
I agree, if i was playing say world of warcraft -- seeing the LCD bezels would really bother me. however if i was playing a simulator. flight sim x, mechwarrior, f1 racing. the blackbars could easily be forgiven as part of the frame of the vehicle, aircraft, etc.
 
I don't have my surround system hooked up properly at the moment.

My PC uses the middle+ left screen and work PC can use the middle+ right screen (I switch the center screen input as my mood dictates.

I'll hook it up for GW2 tomorrow, but I actually think 3 1080P panels is a bit overkill - it's too wide

A single panel that is equal to two 1080P monitors in landscape would be perfect. (double perfect it it ran at 120hz - or even 90hz for that matter)
 
I couldn't live without my eyefinity setup for productivity work. But I seldom use it for gaming...
 
Productivity and gaming at 7680X1600 here (3X30'' Eyefinity) and loving every minute of it! Couldn't live without it! :)

Photoshopping, editing videos, etc on 3 30'' screens is great. And gaming. Wow.
 
I never used Eyefinity. But I'll tell you this, if I was :D with a two monitor setup on an iMac while playing Race 07, and a crappy off resolution monitor at that, I could only imagine what Eyefinity would be like and for sim racers I don't see it being a fad at all. Every sim racer I know who has gone 3 screen has never looked back.

I just built a gaming rig that I use on my Pioneer Kuro Elite 50". I have 3 mis-matched monitors sitting on the side. I'm actually scared to hook them up because I know no matter how odd it looks and colors might not match , once screen may be a bit bigger than the other, all of them 4:3 aspect and the list goes on, if I get that taste of 3 screen I don't see myself going back and then I'll have to spend even more money to get 3 matching decent monitors. I don't want to tease myself like that, as I speak though I just tested to see if the official "Apple only 'Thunderbolt'" VGA adapter would work with my XFX 7870 and as I expected , displayport is displayport no matter what you call it. It works fine so now I have no excuse , and no expense, to do 3 screen now.
 
Until I get a good HMD (looking at you next-gen occulus rift) I'm sticking with eyefinity. Granted it doesn't do me a lot of good in Dota, but for Arma, DCS, Skyrim, etc. it's amazing. I've gotten a ton of enjoyment out of eyefinity over the past few years.

I've also never heard a single person who has spent more than a few hours playing games on an eyefinity/surround setup complain about bezels.
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
Until I get a good HMD (looking at you next-gen occulus rift) I'm sticking with eyefinity. Granted it doesn't do me a lot of good in Dota, but for Arma, DCS, Skyrim, etc. it's amazing. I've gotten a ton of enjoyment out of eyefinity over the past few years.

I've also never heard a single person who has spent more than a few hours playing games on an eyefinity/surround setup complain about bezels.
Click to expand...

dota1 or 2? i think dota 2 lets you ?

anyways i think ima get 2 more u2412m's and just portrait eyefinity it up. if i need to ill swoop on another 670 to make my machine able to perform still
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
I've also never heard a single person who has spent more than a few hours playing games on an eyefinity/surround setup complain about bezels.
Click to expand...

I have heard of plenty, including myself. I'll stick with my 30" 2560x1600 16:10 display quite happily. :) Once they come out with 4K 30" S-IPS displays... maybe those. I likely wouldn't even consider EyeFinity/nV Surround without going for 30" panels this time, and the desk, cost, and rig needed to run those for just gaming isn't worth it to me, especially with the bezel issues and low game support still.
 
My personal opinion....I like to keep it simple, one screen, game works smooth and looks good. It's all I need. Never went for the gimmicks of more than one screen or the whole 3D stuff. Personally I really don't want totally photorealistic games either. If I wanted that I would just play real life. It's escapism. I think games need to retain their entertainment value and artistic creativity. Just me though....
 
Absolutely. It's a nice start, but the bezels kill it IMO.

It's a nice stepping stone until true, single screen, super high resolution displays hit the market.
 
I've been hooked on the multi monitor goodness since eyefinity was introduced.... I switched over to surround due to v-sync issues with crossfire + eyefinity. I have done some gaming on a single display for a bit but then going back to 3 displays is just so... delicious.
 
The only Eyefinity setup that makes sense, for me, is one where your central monitor, serving your central vision, is your best one. It makes no sense, to me, to spend twice as much money on my peripheral vision as on my central, detail-perceiving vision. Especially if I then do something which doesn't have a use for the side monitors. Watching films for example. I end up with one smaller-than-it-might-otherwise-be central monitor displaying the video, and two expensive monitors sitting idle.

Yes, this is another whiner asking for someone to please sodding well implement portrait-Landscape-portrait (20-30-20) eyefinity properly. I am not interested in the arguments over whether it requires hardware or software support. Just frakking get on with it. I don't understand why neither NVIDIA nor AMD seem to want my money.

I won't go below a 30 inch 2560x1600 central monitor. Eyefinity, with its current limitations, only offers me a 3x30 inch setup. 3x30 is just too far off the deep end as far as requirements to keep games smooth at that resolution, for me. And too far off the deep end in the price of the monitors themselves just for the sake of peripheral vision. Two 20" monitors with 1600 "horizontal" resolution turned sideways, however, are cheap enough and provide about as much extra side view as I would want (the last half-a-monitor's worth of side viewing that the 3-identical-monitor setups provide is the least valuable, imo). And such a pLp setup only has the equivalent graphics hardware requirements of two 30 inch 2560x1600 monitors, not three.
 
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