[quote]I think it´s safe to say if AMD/ATI from the start had set out to make Eyefinity available to the masses (IE people with DVI/HDMI connections) the cost per card for doing this would have been almost negligable compared to the current $100 we have to fork up now for an active 3rd party adapter.
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To me Dave´s comments about ATI talking to 3rd party developers about active adapters now just confirms my thoughts about Eyefinity and the DP-solution being somewhat of an afterthought in the 5800 design process. If this was the plan from the start, shouldn´t they have started these "talks" waaay back and made sure there were active adapters available en masse at launch?
You will find that if anyone is the villain in all this, it is probably me.
We had a pretty strict budget for the cost of the product, a budget that I am responsible for setting and holding everyone accountable for. When we (mostly myself and one other guy) came up with the Eyefinity idea, the budget was oversubscribed, and I was pruning features. The only way I could get Eyefinity in at all was make it as close to zero cost as I could. The cost per chip is not negligible - additional timing sources were in all probability a complete deal-killer. While I have some latitude about what goes into a chip, in the end I have to justify everything I do. I had a choice, and you know which one I took
As for working with external sources for active adapters, it's a bit more complicated. Eyefinity was kept under very tight security, which made it very difficult to work with anyone outside of AMD. Who created and oversaw this security regime, and limited outside contacts? Ummm, that would be me again. AMD gave me quite a bit of freedom as an Eyefinity creator, and one of the things I insisted on was very tight security within the company and almost no-one outside the company knowing about it. I deliberately did not support external developments in the name of security. There were many other folks, including Rick Bergman, who wanted more public engagement. I was rather obstinate about not allowing that.
I was willing to take the risk that some supporting developments would come later in the interests of having a competitive surprise.
You can justifiably criticize me all you want for the results of the preceding. My prediction is however that most of these issues will be solved by market forces in relatively short order.
SunSp*t
I can definitely understand the need for non-disclosure. Really, it's a moot point now though. What is done is done and everyone has the reasoning for it. With that out of the way though I think it would be a good target goal to seek a third party that would be capable of making cost effective DP/mini-DP to Single-Link DVI active adapters. On the 6-port card, $400 in adapters is still a bit "out there" as far as enthusiast pricing. If the street price for a single-link active adapter could be out sourced for $30-35 all the controversy and issues are then gone. I am definitely looking forward to the 6-port card.
I set up my first 2 projectors yesterday and get the 3rd delivered tomorrow. The current 12x7 foot wall sized projection is mind blowing. I'm typing this message on the projection setup. Adding that third projector tomorrow will give me 180 degree 13x6.5 foot circular projection for my gaming room. All I'm waiting for now is the 6-port card and some cheap adapters. Simulator games are going to be great with this. I was playing World of Warcraft last night on the setup too. WoW can do 180 degree FOV, so it'll be ideal. :wink:
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