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AMD Multi-Display Tech Has Problems, Potential
EconolineCrush writes "While AMD's Eyefinity multi-display gaming tech is undeniably impressive at first glance, digging deeper reveals key limitations. Some games work well, others not at all, and many are simply better suited to specific screen configurations. A three-way setup looks to be ideal from a compatibility perspective, and given current LCD prices, it's really not all that expensive. But would you take that over a single high-resolution display or a giant HDTV?"
But would you take that over a single high-resolution display or a giant HDTV?"
If I'm sitting at my desk play, an HDTV at 1080p is going to look absolutely horrible. So is even a ridiculously expensive large format display. Even three low end 20 inch monitors will give a much higher resolution, and much, much higher DPI than I could get for the same amount of money spent on a single large display.
Even three low end 20 inch monitors will give a much higher resolution
With annoying gaps between the screens. Watch you not notice something because it's straddling a gap. But I bet you already realized this because you said three monitors, not two.
The problem with a big TV is only 1920x1080 max, and pixels the size of my fingernail. (There's a recent "obligatory" xkcd about this, I'll let some karmawhore who cares dig up the link...)
The problem with single high-resolution displays is that, while they keep the pixel density sane, they stop at only 30" (without going insanely expensive) and 2560x1600. Even these are way pricier than the same number of pixels in two or three smaller monitors.
Multiple monitors (30" if you can afford them, more likely 21-24") get loads of pixels, big display, and useful density. Who wouldn't want?
FWIW, though, this is nothing new -- nvidia has been offering multiscreen openGL forever. But it doesn't work with either generic X setup (XRANDR or multi-screen); you have to use their custom extension that does exactly what XRANDR1.2 does. Let's hope this _isn't_ like that.
What's not mentioned in the summary is that, if the game properly supports it, the screens on the right and left of your setup get tilted inwards a little and your field of view is increased by 3X (assuming a 3 display setup). This means that you get all the view you would normally get on the central screen and a massive amount of the peripheral vision that we all enjoy in real life by never get in gaming. Is there a gap from the screen bezels? Sure, but you barely notice it because you don't focus on the left and right wings. You just focus on the central display and use the other two to detect motion you wouldn't have otherwise seen (such as the enemy approaching you from your left).
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According to ATI, support for Eyefinity on Linux will be enabled by a 'future Catalyst release'. Three releases of the Catalyst driver have come and gone since I got my Radeon in February, and they still have zero support for Eyefinity on Linux. Which is irritating as hell, because the famed YouTube demo of Eyefinity running a flight sim on 24 screens was a Linux box.
Some days, it really sucks to be a Linux zealot. This is one of them.
I was excited for this (and still) for a digital signage setup, being that to drive 6 individual screens at native res from a PC source was a challenge without real expensive gear (like an NVidia QuadroPlex), so at $500 this would be a bargain for certain setups, but without DisplayPort the card can only drive 2 screens video DVI/HDMI, anything else you need active (not a dongle like for the MBP since the card only has 2 DACs) DisplayPort to DVI adapters, which run at $99 each and are in terribly short supply thanks to this card. So if you want to use 6 screens without DisplayPort tack on another $400.
Let me be the first to say it is absolutely worth it.
Having 3 x 22" 1680x1050 Dell monitors side by side playing Hawx or WoW or any other game is absolutely stunning.
The Catalyst interface is a bit quirky (profiles do not remember relative screen position so you have to specify each time you change profiles) but once you have it setup and get into a game, choose your insane 5040 x 1050 resolution, you will be blown away.
Bezel gap is not as much of a problem as you might think. Your brain kinda just adjusts and ignores the gap.
An actual high res monitor would be better than any of these supposedly "HD" screens kludged together using expensive GPU's.
I do have a 22.2" 3840x2400 IPS display (ViewSonic VP2290b), it's from 2003. It's driven by two DVI ports of a regular GeForce 8800GT in my Mac Pro. Additionally, I have two low-res (1920x1200) 24" screens connected to another GPU for video and games.
IBM sold their monitor factory to Sony around the same time they sold their ThinkPad business to Lenovo in 2005.
Since then, the meaning of "HD" has been just 1920x1080, just 22.5% of the resolution these 3840x2400 displays have.
Here's a wikipedia article about them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors
And Here I was thinking 1080 lines of vertical resolution should be enough for anybody.
obviously you've never owned a 30" lcd, 2560x1600 is a wonderful resolution. I've got one of those screens. It blows away anything you can buy in multi monitor.
A 3 monitor setup with 1920x1200 displays gives an effective resolution of 5760x1200. That's roughly 50% more pixels than your 30" 2560x1600 display. Nothing wrong with a huge monitor but it's not better for every purpose. Personally I find a multiple monitor setup more useful for the way I work. YMMV.
a 1995 Doom 1 edition supported multiple monitors (attached to multiple workstations). If one could use 3 PCs for a single player, if worked nicely and gave advantage of sideviews.
Here's the thing that all these multimonitor solutions (including matrox's triple head to go, etc.) Most games are written with one eyepoint. For dual head or triple head to work properly, you have to have multiple eyepoints. Each monitor is like a window into the virtual world. If you're wanting to get a straight ahead view and two side views, say at 45 degrees, you need 3 eyepoints, one looking straight ahead, one looking 45 deg to the left, one 45 deg to the right. Games don't do that. They think they're rendering to 1 display, one eyepoint. Then these multi-display solutions take that one image and spread it accross multiple monitors. That's why it never looks right. People have found good uses for the extra monitor space, say in a flight sim dragging your instrument panels to the other monitors, or in WoW using a viewport mod and putting all your addons on the other monitors, etc. It's nice that there are now 3 and 6 channel cards from ATI. Just need games to support them properly. But until games support multiple eyepoints it won't be working like what we want. Supreme Commander 1 does support 2 independent eyepoints in 2 monitor full screen mode, but it's an RTS.
Unfortunately, finding one of these magnificent monitors is damn hard and they still command rather high prices (although nowhere near the original ~$7500 price tag).
Dear monitor manufacturers, I just want a 200+dpi monitor, is that really so hard to understand? 100dpi is stone age technology compared to the massive leaps forward every single other piece of hardware has experienced.
Even the lowly computer mouse has gone from low-res two-button models hindered by the low update speed of the serial port to modern USB/wireless/bluetooth models with resolutions in the thousands of dpi, multiple hundreds of updates per second, plenty of buttons and scroll wheels and superb ergonomics to boot.
Not to mention the proliferation of multicore processors, ridiculously powerful graphics adapters (they're almost complete computers by themselves, now!), perpendicular recording on hard drives, solid state drives, the list goes on and on.
Why are we still stuck at 100dpi?
Eat the rich.