Widescreen Gaming Forum

I'm aware of this thread:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=17635

But I'm also pretty annoyed that Eyefinity only gives me 3 grouped resolutions to choose from: 5760x1200 (too much), 3840x1024 (wrong aspect ratio), and 2400x600 (looks horrible).

Notice that only the first (based on the 1920x1200 native res for my 24" monitors) is even the correct aspect ratio of 16:10. And this is despite the fact that the EDID's are correctly reporting all the proper resolutions that the monitors support. You can easily set all of them to 1680x1050, 1440x900, or 1280x800 - just not when grouped.

So the triplehead resolutions of 5040x1050, 4320x900 and 3840x800 which correspond to these individually selectable resolutions are - inexplicably - unavailable.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask: Was this tested at all? Even the relatively crude TH2go was better than this. I really need those lower resolutions because I'm running out of framebuffer at 5760x1200 in quite a few games - and you can forget about antialiasing. Being able to run 4320x900 would allow me to use MSAA and be fairly confident that it won't degenerate into a slideshow.

So frustrating...

There is issues with the way Windows enumerates devices and how the grouping works - we've found cases where, if we to enumerate all the potential Eyefinity display configurations it can take up to 5 minutes! Because of this, and the fact that there was no way around it, Eyefinity resolutions were restricted to 3 selections - max supported resolution on all panels in the group, a "safe mode" of 800x600 (x the number of panels), and a "middle mode" which can vary dependant on the panels in the Eyefinity setup.

We have, however, had some dicussions on how to make the "middle mode" user selectable. At this point in time the discussions are just discussions and not yet planned work, but we know this isn't ideal and its on our minds.

There is no possiblility to make a custom tab, where the user can wait 5 minutes and select the ones he/she wants to use/make our own 3 selections?

So far the discussions have centered around having a list of single panel resolutions in CCC that the user can select from and the "middle resolution" will be taken as a multiple of these.

I can understand the need to have a simplified method, but games will not be less demanding, so an option to have custom res where you can maintain framerate and eyecandy would be preferable. :)

I can understand the need to have a simplified method, but games will not be less demanding, so an option to have custom res where you can maintain framerate and eyecandy would be preferable. :)

Quite true. I am having a terrible experience trying to run games at 5760x1200. Some games (such as NFS: Shift) simply will not run smoothly at that res, no matter how far down you take the details (and look awful to boot). And it's not something that Crossfire will ever solve, since the defect is due to running out of framebuffer - not shader power.

Update: Well, I got my answer - don't hold your breath is pretty much the take-home. So I'll make one last appeal: is there any way to fool Eyefinity into thinking my monitors have a max res of 1680x1050 (5040x1050)? This is pretty much my last gasp before I give up on Eyefinity altogether.

I do have 3 19" 1680x1050 monitors that I could use, but the effect of 3x19" is less than impressive, to say the least. And there are no 24" monitors out there with a 1680x1050 res that I could find.

So I'll make one last appeal: is there any way to fool Eyefinity into thinking my monitors have a max res of 1680x1050 (5040x1050)?

Do the EDID mod from the other thread it takes 10 minutes to make the driver. You could have made it days ago and saved some time. ATI is well aware of the issue and making fixes but with a monthly driver refresh and them still in discussion about this were not going to see anything for a while. Early adopters are always going to have certain issues but this issue has a fix with instructions which is better than some other problems.

[quote]So I'll make one last appeal: is there any way to fool Eyefinity into thinking my monitors have a max res of 1680x1050 (5040x1050)?

Do the EDID mod from the other thread it takes 10 minutes to make the driver. You could have made it days ago and saved some time. ATI is well aware of the issue and making fixes but with a monthly driver refresh and them still in discussion about this were not going to see anything for a while. Early adopters are always going to have certain issues but this issue has a fix with instructions which is better than some other problems.
You're behaving as if this is a known working method, but the posts in your thread seems to indicate that only you have been successful thus far - which is not encouraging. No one is reporting actual success trying to reduce their max res down to 5040x1050. That's the reason I started this thread as a direct appeal to ATI - your method did not seem to work for others (or they're being inexplicably silent about it).

Can someone confirm they've been able to get 5040x1050 on a 3x1920x1200 setup?

This was never answered in the affirmative. Let's not pretend we have a solution until someone besides yourself is actually able to do it, shall we? I appreciate the effort you've put in, and I will try to get it working, but it's far from being an established fact until I do so. One possible wrinkle is that I am using 2 different monitor types (but both are 24", 1920x1200). I'll try to spend some more time on this tonight.

[quote]I can understand the need to have a simplified method, but games will not be less demanding, so an option to have custom res where you can maintain framerate and eyecandy would be preferable. :)

Quite true. I am having a terrible experience trying to run games at 5760x1200. Some games (such as NFS: Shift) simply will not run smoothly at that res, no matter how far down you take the details (and look awful to boot). And it's not something that Crossfire will ever solve, since the defect is due to running out of framebuffer - not shader power.

Update: Well, I got my answer - don't hold your breath is pretty much the take-home. So I'll make one last appeal: is there any way to fool Eyefinity into thinking my monitors have a max res of 1680x1050 (5040x1050)? This is pretty much my last gasp before I give up on Eyefinity altogether.

I do have 3 19" 1680x1050 monitors that I could use, but the effect of 3x19" is less than impressive, to say the least. And there are no 24" monitors out there with a 1680x1050 res that I could find.

No disrespect but if you have 3x1680x1050 monitors they will look alot better running natively then having 24 inch displays doing it. The main issues are when in extended mode just using the desktop the 1920x1200 is much nicer.

I took out my 24 inch 1920x1200 monitor and have it on my spare pc and now have that 1680x1050 22inch monitor is in my eyefinity setup. I was willing to give up the bigger res for desktop to run native res while gaming. I personally think 1680x1050 is the sweetspot for eyefinity. The bigger res do not have the framebuffer to handle it. These cards need 2gb per core like the 5870(6) that is coming out. I think that might be a faster card in eyefinity then my 5970.

I totally agree about the need for a 2gb framebuffer at 5760x1200. And your comments about running the 24 inchers at non-native res (1680) are well taken. But I'm willing to give up a bit of clarity in return for a larger image.

ARMA II is an interesting game. It allows you to choose 5040x1050 as the internal render target, even though the monitors are running at 5760x1200. And it runs quite well. If you run it at 5760, it craps out though - overrunning the framebuffer no doubt.

This supports the increasingly consensus opinion that 5040x1050 is the sweet spot for a single 5870.