Why Eyefinity is not for me.

O

ordovician

2[H]4U
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Dec 28, 2007
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Let me start off by saying that if you have Eyefinity and like it, that's great. I'm happy for you. However, I just purchased 3x 25" monitors to try Eyefinity... Yeah, it's kinda cool, but overall I think it's a gimmick. In my opinion it's totally not worth the money unless you also need 3 monitors for purposes other than gaming. Here are my reasons:

  • It's expensive, $570 all told.
  • I have no desk space left.
  • The main display has to be farther back than I like
  • Performance at 57whatever billion by 1080 is... bad, to say the least
  • Depending on the games engine, most games' 3D images get stretched on the two side monitors, making them not much more useful than for peripheral vision.
  • 3x more power draw, I blew a fuse and had to use another outlet.
  • 3x the chances of getting a monitor with dead/stuck pixels
  • 3x the chances of a monitor dying
  • Start ................................................ <---- is waaay over there <-----
  • -----> is waaaay over there ---> ............................................................. System tray, Clock
  • More driver glitches, akin to crossfire. E.g. "flickering" occasionally, etc.
 
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Good points. I think it's awesome but not terribly practical for a lot of people. The money spent on multiple lower-end displays is probably better spent on a nice high end display if you're not flush with cash for 3x 24, 27, or 30 inch IPS.
 
Well I'm about to find out, as I just won two more 22s on ebay to match mine. It winds up being cheaper for me then upgrading to a single 27/30". And then the 27/30" models input lag and AG coating had me worried as well. I also realize going in, I'm going to have to deal with switching between Portrait mode and Landscape a lot most likely. Since it seems half my games require one or the other. And then with Civ 5 I'm just going to have to deal with one monitor. I would have loved to just jump on 30" or 3x24", but with the money I just spent finishing up my water cooling loop with new fittings and such, just was like meh for now. I have a feeling all these new lovely screens we're all drooling over coming out will still position them selfs out of my range. I have a hard time spending the money going from a 22" only to a 24" . Back when I purchased the Dell 2209WA its price point and performance hit the sweet spot for me. Maybe a decently priced 27" LED TN/PA monitor will come out this year with decent colors and performance. I'll just stick it above the Tri setup.
 
While I agree with you, I think most people who consider going for Eyefinity already have some of those points like cost, space, performance...in minds. I don't think you have to buy it to figure out those things, in the end it just comes down to trying to get the most out of it. Some people are happy and say once going multi monitors you never go back but others say otherwise, to each his own. Plus this is [H] forum anyway so there's no such thing as overkill. :D
 
Periph. vision is what it was designed for and nothing else.

Its not for everyone. I think its the coolest thing since sliced bread and definitely cooler than the iPhone or i anything for that matter.
 
I generally have friends give my setups a try before they decide to take the plunge. Some love it and go out and get their own setup. Others like it but are turned off by the price of admission. Then there are those who prefer to have a single screen.

Unfortunately for me (and my wallet), I liked it enough to upgrade two of my setups. I couldn't decide between Landscape or Portrait so I did the only logical thing...get both. Between my 6 monitors, 4 graphics cards and 2 Ergo Tech Stands, I'm about ~$3500 in. There are some folks on here that are well over that with one setup, heh.

To each their own.
 
Lets not forget:
1) Bezels are annoying.
2) Requires display port adapter if you don't have a dp monitor which more often than not causes its own issues.
3) Maximizing windows spans three screens, and no more dragging to screen edge for W7 splitting.
4) In games that require mouseclicks like RPGs or strategy, the outside monitors are useless, and edge scrolling is for obvious reasons extremely tedious.
5) HUDs are out of your field of vision, and menus are on extreme corners.
6) crossfire operation is less reliable than on a single monitor

Does eyefinity work well on some games? Sure. But on so many titles its virtually unplayable.

5347212594_552da39632_z.jpg


Tried eyefinity on 3x 24" monitors, and in landscape at least it just plain sucks.

What would work much better IMO is a large center monitor, and then small periphery monitors in landscape, but alas eyefinity does not support PLP.

FAIL!

For now, a single larger monitor > 3 smaller in eyefinity. I upgraded from 3 x24" to 1x 30" and couldn't be happier. :)
 
Ducman69 said:
Lets not forget:
1) Bezels are annoying.
2) Requires display port adapter if you don't have a dp monitor which more often than not causes its own issues.
3) Maximizing windows spans three screens, and no more dragging to screen edge for W7 splitting.
4) In games that require mouseclicks like RPGs or strategy, the outside monitors are useless, and edge scrolling is for obvious reasons extremely tedious.
5) HUDs are out of your field of vision, and menus are on extreme corners.
6) crossfire operation is less reliable than on a single monitor

Does eyefinity work well on some games? Sure. But on so many titles its virtually unplayable.

5347212594_552da39632_z.jpg


Tried eyefinity on 3x 24" monitors, and in landscape at least it just plain sucks.

What would work much better IMO is a large center monitor, and then small periphery monitors in landscape, but alas eyefinity does not support PLP.

FAIL!

For now, a single larger monitor > 3 smaller in eyefinity. I upgraded from 3 x24" to 1x 30" and couldn't be happier. :)
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1)To some people
2) true
3) is only correct if you are doing it wrong. Set a profile for extended, and another for Eyefinity, and it is not an issue.
4) depends on game
5) depends on game and many games have fixes for them easily found at http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
6) I have not had an issue with 2x5870's that I did not have with a single 6970 as of yet. So that is only a maybe.

The side monitors are supposed to be in your peripheral vision.

It's all a matter of preference in the end.
 
I heavily debated whether I should go eyefinity or 30" 1600p. The constant head scratching and second guessing kept me up at nights. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with either setup, so I couldn't compare the two directly. Making the decision was agonizing, but in the end I decided to go for the single 30" monitor.

Was it the correct decision? I do not know, I can only hope and pray that it was. It is in God's hands now.
 
Only the OP's 5th and last points are valid. The rest are opinionated or have to do with your own system or money situation. I tried eyefinity myself and I didn't think it was that amazing. I do agree on the bezel situation though. AMD's bezel correction software can be a bit annoying sometimes as it does cut out a lot of pixels depending on what monitors you choose to buy. Bezels need to become smaller for this to be more adoptable imo. I did like multiple screens out of games though, too. If you set them as extended desktops it can be a lot easier to multitask. I found it a lot of fun to be able to watch a video full screen on one monitor and still be able to surf the web on another and maybe have some sort of chat window open on another screen. For now though, I traded my 3 screens for a Dell 3007. I may add 20" monitors later if I feel the need.
 
ordovician said:
  • Depending on the games engine, most games' 3D images get stretched on the two side monitors, making them not much more useful than for peripheral vision.
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Isn't that all that eyefinity is made for?
You are not supposed to look at the other two monitors, you are supposed to look at them with your peripheral vision. If you want to check something out to the left/right use your mouse (or whatever you use to navigate in the game) just as you would move your pupils in real life (you don't try to make something out of your peripheral vision, if it's something that seems to be interesting you move your focus to it).

Eyefinity is not about to give you an advantage (by having a larger field of view or something) it's about immersion and thats where the peripheral vision comes into play.
 
brumwald said:
Isn't that all that eyefinity is made for?
You are not supposed to look at the other two monitors, you are supposed to look at them with your peripheral vision. If you want to check something out to the left/right use your mouse (or whatever you use to navigate in the game) just as you would move your pupils in real life.
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That only applies in games that have cameras locked to mouse movement. There are various camera iterations where this does not work well. Civ5 for example is a disaster, as to get the camera to pan so you can see your unit or city active on the left monitor you have to center him which means moving the mouse WAY over to the edge of the left most screen and then WAY back to the center monitor to manipulate the unit/city.
brumwald said:
Eyefinity is not about to give you an advantage (by having a larger field of view or something) it's about immersion and thats where the peripheral vision comes into play.
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If ATI worked w/ more game developers, then you would have wider or multipoint FOVs so that objects on the side monitors wouldn't be distorted and you wouldn't need third party hacks for HUDs and the like.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case yet, and because PC gaming is only a fraction of the gaming market and people with three monitors and the latest ATI video cards that can do eyefinity is an even smaller part of that niche, I don't see it being much more than a quick afterthought for most developers in the near future. =/
 
Ducman69 said:
That only applies in games that have cameras locked to mouse movement. There are various camera iterations where this does not work well. Civ5 for example is a disaster, as to get the camera to pan so you can see your unit or city active on the left monitor you have to center him which means moving the mouse WAY over to the edge of the left most screen and then WAY back to the center monitor to manipulate the unit/city.
Click to expand...

Civ5 is a disaster if you play 3x1 eyefinity in landscape. It has small advantages in view distance, but you could achieve most of that with zooming out further, high mouse speed/acceleration or a well programmed g-13 keyboard can compensate for a lot of this, but I still don't like it.

Civ5 is amazing if your playing 3x1 in portrait.

Although Civ5 is also pretty good if you use three extended monitors and have one for civ, one for internet browsing and one for watching a video/playing another game that doesn't require 100% focus. So rpg/mmo/graphic adventure/turn based is good, fps or racing won't work so well. I've always loved the civ series for being a game that works well with multitasking.
 
Ducman69 said:
That only applies in games that have cameras locked to mouse movement. There are various camera iterations where this does not work well. Civ5 for example is a disaster, as to get the camera to pan so you can see your unit or city active on the left monitor you have to center him which means moving the mouse WAY over to the edge of the left most screen and then WAY back to the center monitor to manipulate the unit/city.
Click to expand...

Use the keyboard instead?
But not all types of games are suitable for eyefinity. I wouldn't play tetris on eyefinity even if I could...

I don't really see the point with games such as civ and eyefinity. At least not in landscape.
 
Well again Eyefinity (Surround Gaming) isn't for everyone. I got hooked a long time ago. Seeing video of the TH2Go back in the day made me get off my console riding posterior and build me a pc. Since then, there's no other way to play games for me.

I never understood why people got annoyed by bezels. In the center monitor you see what anyone using 1 monitor would see anyway. On the outside monitors, you see an extended view. Ignoring those bezels are easy because you ignore then when using one monitor. The side monitors are for peripherals vision anyways.

But I guess that's just being logical. Of course this also only refers to a 3x1 L setup. But if you're trying other setups, you're probably already hooked on multi-monitor.

The issues with HUDs, Stretching, and other software bugs aren't really eyefinity's fault. The fault solely rest on developers. If more people would adopt multi-monitor gaming setups, then there would be more reason for developers to support them. I think now that both major GPU manufacturers are now supporting these setups (in one way or another) we will see even more support. Actually I'm already seeing the amount of games support correct FOV and HUD elements increase by so much. I think it's wonderful actually.

When it comes to cost though, the cost of entry has gone down a lot. It's still not cheap, but you can do it fairly easily now. You don't need a TH2Go (was like $300), where now you can spend that money another gpu, or better monitors.
 
svalbard said:
I agree. After using a 3x U2311 set up for 100 days the thrill has worn off. I plan on getting a 32" 1080p IPS TV and selling my 3 dells. I know that a 30" Dell is better than a 32" Panasonic but honestly not 3 times better (but it is 3x the price) so the "bang for the buck" makes me go HDTV since I have used both and the TV is fine around 3 feet away. For some people the text would be unbearable. You have to try it so know for sure. I actually like the huge text. On a 30" Dell the thing that really bothers me is that a lot of webpages are like 2/3 whitespace LOL!!!
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Well sitting here using 3 30" monitors. I can tell you it works really well for me. I have 2 pages up (split down the middle on a monitor). I have my media player on the left, and on the right I have aim / network monitor / torrents / folders / etc.

EDIT: I'd like to note I didn't pay more than $1600 for all 3.
 
SeegsElite said:
Only the OP's 5th and last points are valid. The rest are opinionated or have to do with your own system or money situation. I tried eyefinity myself and I didn't think it was that amazing. I do agree on the bezel situation though. AMD's bezel correction software can be a bit annoying sometimes as it does cut out a lot of pixels depending on what monitors you choose to buy. Bezels need to become smaller for this to be more adoptable imo. I did like multiple screens out of games though, too. If you set them as extended desktops it can be a lot easier to multitask. I found it a lot of fun to be able to watch a video full screen on one monitor and still be able to surf the web on another and maybe have some sort of chat window open on another screen. For now though, I traded my 3 screens for a Dell 3007. I may add 20" monitors later if I feel the need.
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I agree. After using a 3x U2311 set up for 100 days the thrill has worn off. I plan on getting a 32" 1080p IPS TV and selling my 3 dells.

I know that a 30" Dell is better than a 32" Panasonic but honestly not 3 times better (but it is 3x the price) so the "bang for the buck" makes me go HDTV since I have used both and the TV is fine around 3 feet away. For some people the text would be unbearable. You have to try it to know for sure. I actually like the huge text (easier to read). On a 30" Dell the only thing that really bothered me was that a lot of webpages are like 2/3 whitespace LOL!!! And to run it, as smoothly as I like, you need a hardcore setup.

So if cost is no concern $1500 30" Dell + $500 GPU. $2000
But if you are a cheap bastard like I am: $450 32" IPS 1080p + $250 GPU. $700
 
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I'm just biding my time until I see monitors with tiny tiny bezels and larger resolution (2560 atleast) ...then I'll be forced to act. The only other thing I'd be interested in is one of those 3840x2400 displays from ibm or viewsonic. Getting sick of seeing this 1920x1080 crap.
 
Chops said:
Good points. I think it's awesome but not terribly practical for a lot of people. The money spent on multiple lower-end displays is probably better spent on a nice high end display if you're not flush with cash for 3x 24, 27, or 30 inch IPS.
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AFAIK, three high quality 23" IPS displays cost less ($265x3) than most decent 30" displays ($1K+)... And as far as the OP, most of his points don't seem like deal breakers to me, just seems like he wasn't willing to put much effort into accommodating his Eyefinity setup. No offense to him, it's certainly not for the faint of heart. I'm in the process of building my own setup and I find the desk space issue to be the biggest hurdle, I'm getting some $20 wall mounts from Monoprice rather than a larger desk. :D

For me it's basically spending an extra $230 for a 2nd 6950 and an extra $340 for a 2nd HP ZR24W (refurb)... Ok, I did splurge on an better PSU a while ago since I knew I'd be trying EF soon so I guess that counts, I'm using an AX750 in the SB build I'm putting together rather than the HX520 in sig (which was obviously not enough for CF). Personally I'd always have two screens regardless, so even if I end up not liking this much it'll be no big deal, I'll sell the 2nd video card and my oldest screen (the 24" TN in sig, I'm getting two 24" 1920x1200 HP ZR24W IPS screens to pair it with).

As far as the stretching, you could run portrait mode if you get decent screens (it's still wider than 16:9 and the ultra high res is still fun to have), or you can stay landscape and adjust the FOV setting in many games if it doesn't do it by default, to mitigate the stretching. The start menu thing shouldn't even be an issue, just set up some profiles and switch from Eyefinity mode to regular extended mode when you're on the desktop. :rolleyes:

Practical? Probably not, but then again, gaming at 1920x1200 wasn't practical for most people a few years ago; and it wasn't necessarily because displays weren't cheap enough, the GPU horsepower wasn't there or was far more costly. Although I'm not saying it'll ever be mainstream by any stretch...

The biggest issue going forward is increased support from devs. I don't know about other MMORPGs but the last one I played (DAOC) would let you move all UI elements wherever you pleased, it'd also let you resize them and tweak transparency. I'm betting that game would play beautifully with EF... I can't imagine it takes that much ingenuity to code UIs in such a way, DAOC/Mythic was hardly a paragon of gaming tech. RTS are probably gonna be the last genre to fully adopt EF, although doing it in portrait mode can mitigate many of the issues (keyboard shortcuts are your friend).
 
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Actually I take one thing back, the start menu/desktop layout would be an issue if you do NV Surround since NV still hasn't implemented desktop profiles. Really NV? Really?
 
Impulse said:
Actually I take one thing back, the start menu/desktop layout would be an issue if you do NV Surround since NV still hasn't implemented desktop profiles. Really NV? Really?
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Actually, with NVSurround and running the Matrox Powerdesk software, most of the maximize/monitor utilization issues are a non-issue. Maximizing to a single screen works great, etc...

I will agree tho, that nVidia needs to get profiles done properly so that it actually utilizes Win7s built-in functions more seemlessly...

I will say with using a 3x25.5" 1920x1200 setup it is GREAT for productivity and works excellent in certain games. Other games, you just run on a single monitor and all is good. The big benefit is for productivity.

One other complaint I have about NVSurround is that when you go to a single monitor for a game, it only turns off the output to the left-most monitor (ie, monitor goes to sleep), where-as the right-most monitor just goes blank but stays on (ie, they are still outputting a signal to the display not allowing it to go to sleep)... Annoying to say the least... I got around it by plugging my server into another input on the rightmost monitor and just switch to that input when it happens... Would be nice for it to go to sleep tho...
 
This is exactly why I run: (a) a 30" monitor *and* an Eyefinity group and (b) an Eyefinity group with a larger center monitor.

Eyefinity+1.jpg


Eyefinity offers amazing immersion in flight sims and FPS and huge convenience in games like Rift where you can customize the UI. I don't think it looks best with identically sized monitors, however, because the center monitor ends up looking smaller given the way you angle the group, which in turn makes the stretching on the side monitors too distracting. As long as there is a 3"+ difference between monitor size, I don't find the absence of bezel correction to bother me at all.

The 30" is best for games that don't support Eyefinity or don't look particularly good with it.

If you want your spanned display group to be usable in Surround/Eyefinity, use Matrox Power Desk utility. Works great to make sure your windows maximize within your physical monitors.
 
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"Tried eyefinity on 3x 24" monitors, and in landscape at least it just plain sucks."
hahaha...I think what he meant to say was "anyone who plays nothing but WOW will think it sucks"...hahaha

racing games in Eyefinity are the tits...FPS games benefit greatly...I am pretty sure I would see you first in a FPS multi-player game and it wouldn't be me laying on the ground waiting to spawn back in...hahaha
oh...I also have an Nvidia surround + 3D setup...Nvidia is behind on the surround stuff but hopefully driver updates are coming to clean it up...alot of scuttle butt is on how Nvidia renders the screens in 3d surround and they may need to address that first
 
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Would it be possible to run eyefinity with a 30" 2560x 1600 in the middle (landscape) flanked by two smaller 1600x1200 monitors flipped sideways in portrait?
 
Not officially. If I remember correctly you can sometimes do it if the game lets you resize the window in windowed mode, perhaps something to check out but PLP (portrait landscape portrait) setups are not supported by AMD.

So the short and official answer is (unfortunately): no.
 
When I got my third 24" monitor I thought it was going to be the most amazing experience ever, but I do agree on some of the points. I had to create two seperate CCC profiles, one with an extended desktop, and the other where the center monitor is my start button (which is the mode I use most of the time anyways).

I absolutely love racing games on all three monitors though. I may actually finish Dirt2 now because it is the shit spanned across all three and a single 6950 has no issues playing it maxed out. As for playing fps... I may have to try to play them again on it. I felt like when I turned my gun all three monitors looked like a wirlwind of fuck spinning around making it very difficult to focus on where I wanted to shoot. Yeah, standing there and driving the vehicles in bc2 was awesome looking. I don't know, I may try to play some more this weekend.

Another reason I do like having three monitors though, is I have always had two for school for easy multitasking rather then switching tabs every time I wanted to look at something, but with three monitors I can max out three separate propgrams (excel, word, pdf? or the internet) and it saves a bunch of time.

All in all though, if I was going to do it again, I would do the PLP with a center 30" display. Maybe by the time I can afford that AMD will support that set up.
 
NukeDukem said:
Would it be possible to run eyefinity with a 30" 2560x 1600 in the middle (landscape) flanked by two smaller 1600x1200 monitors flipped sideways in portrait?
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This Is what many want. But neither AMD or Nv support it. Not sure that they ever will.

I would love to have two 1600x1200 and a 2560x1600 all matching monitors. (same bezel style, same panel type, etc.) High quality 4:3 monitors are all but history these days, and the fraction that wants that out of the fraction of PC users that use Eyefinity/Nfinity is so small it is meaningless to display makers, and therefore has a really low ROI for AMD/Nv to try and support it.


t0asty said:
When I got my third 24" monitor I thought it was going to be the most amazing experience ever, but I do agree on some of the points. I had to create two seperate CCC profiles, one with an extended desktop, and the other where the center monitor is my start button (which is the mode I use most of the time anyways).

I absolutely love racing games on all three monitors though. I may actually finish Dirt2 now because it is the shit spanned across all three and a single 6950 has no issues playing it maxed out. As for playing fps... I may have to try to play them again on it. I felt like when I turned my gun all three monitors looked like a wirlwind of fuck spinning around making it very difficult to focus on where I wanted to shoot. Yeah, standing there and driving the vehicles in bc2 was awesome looking. I don't know, I may try to play some more this weekend.

Another reason I do like having three monitors though, is I have always had two for school for easy multitasking rather then switching tabs every time I wanted to look at something, but with three monitors I can max out three separate propgrams (excel, word, pdf? or the internet) and it saves a bunch of time.

All in all though, if I was going to do it again, I would do the PLP with a center 30" display. Maybe by the time I can afford that AMD will support that set up.
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Some games lend themselves to Eyefinity/Nfinity and others do not. For me, all racing and flight sim games are better in Eyefinity/Nfinity. FPS titles vary for me. L4D and FO3/Oblivion are great in Eyefinity/Nfinity, but faster paced games like Q3 are not imo. (Plus FOV hacks can get you punk busted) I did not care for Batman AA, Assasins Creed, or the Prince of Persia games in Eyefinity/Nfinity either.
 
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I'm still in my first 2 weeks with eyefinity at 3x1920x1080, so I could see how you might get tired of it. For me portrait is amazing for some games. Landscape is nice for a select few games to get a large FoV. Whats not nice is taking a minute to switch between the two, even if its not that hard. Outside of eyefinity though, multiple monitors are nice for the higher productivity.
 
# It's expensive, $570 all told.
# I have no desk space left.
# The main display has to be farther back than I like
# Performance at 57whatever billion by 1080 is... bad, to say the least
# Depending on the games engine, most games' 3D images get stretched on the two side monitors, making them not much more useful than for peripheral vision.
# 3x more power draw, I blew a fuse and had to use another outlet.
# 3x the chances of getting a monitor with dead/stuck pixels
# 3x the chances of a monitor dying
# Start ................................................ <---- is waaay over there <-----
# -----> is waaaay over there ---> ............................................................ . System tray, Clock
# More driver glitches, akin to crossfire. E.g. "flickering" occasionally, etc
Click to expand...


I want to preface this by saying I haven't even tried eyefinity yet. I have researched it quite a bit though by reading about it, getting into conversations about it on several threads, and watching some vids. I am going to try it once I upgrade my gpu (soon), with a few monitors I have at different desks (22", 23"), and borrowing someone else's 23". However I'm waiting awhile to buy into it - maybe until 27" 120hz led backlit TNs are out.. perhaps waiting even a bit longer until they come down in price a bit. For now I'm getting a 27" cinema display with a monitor on each side in portrait. Portrait - Landscape - Portrait setup, aka "PLP" which isn't supported by eyefinity.

I still want to reply to the OP's bullet-points like others have done, with both my opinion and what I have come to understand about those issues:

1. Expense. Its a luxury. Its absolutely not necessary at all. And it can be way more than $570. A single gpu alone can be $370 - $500.

2. No room on desk. Get a bigger desk, and if needed use a bigger room. If you can't get either, maybe its not for you. Its like saying your room isn't big enough for your big 7.1 surround system speakers, new big screen tv , and your new big couch so now you have no room to walk anymore. Or your garage is too small for your monster truck now that you bought it.

3. Display needs to be farther back - thats all a matter of perspective and screen size. Like others have said, you aren't supposed to be focused on the side monitors. Its not supposed to be one huge display or indeed it would have to be set back 6' I'm guessing. That said, I prefer a 28" (27.5" viewable) 1920x1200 screen 3' or more away personally - otherwise I'm looking up to the corners of the screen too much. That distance is even more suited for me when I'm using multiple monitors. Anyway, as I said, even a screen of that size (28") *singly* edges into periphery.. of course eyefinity is going to (thats the idea).

4. Requires a lot of GPU power to push very high resolutions. Of course it does, but that also depends on what games you are playing and if you are an AA whore (no offense AA snobs) :D. Many people feel that AA really isn't that necessary at very high resolutions, and it gives a considerable performance hit. "Edge smudging" isn't changing the game architecture as far as the engine is concerned, its just blurring the edges as you see them , and at very high resolutions the height of those 'stairs' on fine edges you are smudging is very small, and in most games you are moving pretty fast most of the time anyway. If you look up some eyefinty videos on google you will find some games running off a single (higher end) card with decent fps. Not everyone is trying to play crysis at all, and not at 128x AA+AF lol.

5. Not much more useful than peripheral due to fish-eye --- Thats the main use of the side monitors - Periphery to make you feel immersed.

6. Power draw. Big toys have big appetites. You should of course have a battery backup unit that can handle your pc btw, so if the circuit ever dies your pc won't. You also didn't mention what else is on that same circuit. Some people don't realize other parts of their house and other devices are on the same circuit - with big items like sound systems, kitchen items, people using hair dryers, power tools, etc. LCD's don't use much juice, and some single cards can play many popular games at decent framerates with the right settings. Unless you are using a 1200watt psu and quadruple crossfire I have to think your house wiring is weak or your load balancing across circuits is bad. Besides - I've had two single card gaming pc's going on the same circuit before , both with people playing on them and 3 monitors going overall -- and one was a 24" widescreen crt even. Also a 5.1 pc gaming surround system going with subwoofer lol.

7. & 8. Monitor dead pixels, dying risk increased. Well, I've never had a monitor die on me. TV's yes. Pixels most times are only an issue when you first purchase the monitor and try it out for 14 or 30 day return period. Buy monitors from somewhere that allows returns. Don't buy monitors from places with 6, 8, 12+ dead pixel policies. I'm actually buying my 27" cinema display from bestbuy because even after taxes its cheaper than online since the shipping is so much. I can return it to the store for a replacement, or 14 day return for store credit I believe. There is also a $60 4 yr warranty available. Squaretrade also warranties stuff cheaply - and you can usually find at least 20% off coupons online, sometimes more. Personally any fragile electronics (laptops, tv's, etc) that cost $1k or more I usually get a warranty because thats too much of a loss to digest comfortably.

9. Taskbar items too far away on ends of side monitors --- You can get a program called ultramon that intelligently utilizes multiple monitors. I have not tried it with eyefinity yet but it works awesome with desktop span mode across multiple monitors. I recommend you give it a shot. I use it all the time. It has an intelligent taskbar on the non primary monitors, with customizable settings. Also with regular monitor spanning, you can drag the taskbar around if you unlock it. This may or may not work with eyefinity, but works in desktop span mode just fine. You can drag your taskbar not only to the middle monitor, but if you prefer you can put it sideways on the side edge of a monitor, or even across the top of any monitor. There are also 3rd party toolbars available if you are into that kind of thing. They tend to emulate the mac sortof, using transparent backgrounds so the shortcuts are 'floating in space'.. or they use named tabs on edge of screens that pull out to 'drawers' full of custom shortcut icons.
..HUD and game engine elements too far away on ends of side monitors. That's the dev's fault, as others have said. Games like WoW and others have full featured scripting engines that support a robust mod community, and allows you to move any hud elements anywhere you want. Back in the day companies like id software would support mod communities and the 'community' in general, with dev kits and modeling tools, etc. The only other company I can think of that still echos back to that is probably valve (whose games seem to work great in eyefinity from what I've seen). If your game doesn't suit the community - complain. Don't accept pc games being treated like console games. btw I even hate when regular apps are missing easy standard coding 101 crap for stuff like changing font size, fonts, and background color. Lazy bastards. Pet peeve.. GrrrRRR!
.. Worst case, some games you play on central monitor, and use the side ones for other apps while you game. Another vote for medium to large monitors rather than small ones. Eyefinity is still pretty young. I can remember when higher resolutions weren't supported even on single monitors, though some devs patched that in later.

10. Glitches and flickering. Well stuttering can happen from not enough vram of course, but you are talking about flickering and other glitches. I'd say thats early adoption again. You should know what you are getting into before you make the leap. There seem to be a lot of happy people playing in eyefinity though, problems aside. Hopefully it will remain popular enough that the wrinkles get ironed out over time.
 
Display Fusion >>> UltraMon imo

Also, I can't stress enough how easy it should be to switch from extended/span mode to Eyefinity mode... It's literally one key press if configured properly, and you retain all of Win7's native window handling features... If you want extra functionality (extended taskbar, better wallpaper management, etc.) then look into one of the programs mentioned above.
 
Impulse said:
Display Fusion >>> UltraMon imo

Also, I can't stress enough how easy it should be to switch from extended/span mode to Eyefinity mode... It's literally one key press if configured properly, and you retain all of Win7's native window handling features... If you want extra functionality (extended taskbar, better wallpaper management, etc.) then look into one of the programs mentioned above.
Click to expand...

A lot of people have never used it and are guessing at cons. They don't know about hot keyed profiles or "presets" as they are calling them in the newer drivers. Nv surround also has similar. I set mine up like below.

ctrl + alt + 1 = standard extended left as primary (normal tasks)
ctrl + alt + 2 = standard extended center as primary (single monitor gaming)
ctrl + alt + 3 = eyefinity
ctrl + alt + 4 = eyefinity with bezel correction

One annoyance I have found, is that you really should plug the monitors in so that you have your left monitor be #1, center #2, and right #3 by default, and not just rearrange them inn CCC. It gets rid of certain annoyances with wallpaper and such when in extended desktop with the left as primary. There is prolly another way, but the annoyance persists over multiple driver sets on 3 different eyefinity setups.
 
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Best program, in fact, is Actual Multiple Monitors. Only program that creates a true duplicate taskbar.
 
Which was basically a homemade software directx hack that enabled triple monitor gaming, I bought 3 24" samsungs and did that for a while. It was interesting but I can't really say the distorted perspective helped me all that much.
I now have a 30" NEC (with incredible contrast/color compared to the samsung crap) and couldn't be happier with the screen real estate.
But yeah not sure how often it gets mentioned but softTH did it first.

http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/
 
ordovician said:
  • 3x the chances of getting a monitor with dead/stuck pixels
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I bought 3 Asus VE278Q (27" LED) this weekend and all 3 had stuck pixles. ><

In the day and a half I used it though, it was awesome. I returned them but they didnt have anymore, so now back at square one. =(
 
Wow that's a total bummer, hopefully you're able to get 'em replaced before too long. Did you try any of the solutions often recommended to fix stuck/dead pixels? Rubbing it, flashing certain patterns, etc.
 
Impulse said:
Wow that's a total bummer, hopefully you're able to get 'em replaced before too long. Did you try any of the solutions often recommended to fix stuck/dead pixels? Rubbing it, flashing certain patterns, etc.
Click to expand...

Yeah I tried the rubbing, tapping, pressure, the screen fixer applets and stuff. None of the 4 bad pixels (across 3 monitors) "fixed".

I actually could have avoided this total bummer, if I had called to check stock before I packed it all up and drove down there. I could have just kept them until the new ones came in and just swapped them then. ><

Really blows lol. I dont even want to fire up a game, and Im still on a 27" 1920x1200. I guess for now I am just going to wait and pick up 3 when Frys gets them in stock. I had just downloaded Dead Space 2 last night to play tonight, and now I am just gonna wait. Eff just gonna get off the computer for the night lol. =(
 
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