Widescreen Gaming Forum

I just got my new eyefinity setup and I have noticed that there is a little bit of tearing even with Vsync on. I have the three monitors connected like this:

DVI -> DVI
HDMI ->DVI adapter-> DVI
MiniDP -> active DVI adapter -> DVI

The adapters that I used came with the Sapphire card. Any ideas on how to solve the tearing issue? Am I using the wrong connectors?

MiniDP -> active DVI adapter -> DVI

This is probably where to look for flaws. Let me explain.

DVI/HDMI and (mini)Displayport are two different types of digital signals. When mixing those, your graphics card can not process those signals very well (in eyefinity mode) because of hardware limitations. Don't ask me why AMD still hasn't fixed this, because it has been an issue since the 5xxx series. V-sync has something to do with it. In some cases, enabling V-sync would result in tearing on all three monitors, while leaving it off only results in one monitor tearing.
There is a 'fix' for this however. Custom PCB's or Flex Edition cards. And by that I mean the Asus HD7970-DC2-3GD5 or any other card that has a minimal of three similar outputs. An HD6990, for example, has 6 displayports.

I hope this helped!

Moose

PS: You might be thinking, why do you have tearing issues on 5xxx or 6xxx series cards? They have two DVI and one HDMI, so that shouldn't be a problem right? Well, if you use two DVI ports the HDMI port would shut itself down because of a shortage of so called 'clock generators'. Yet another hardware limitation.

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

So there is no way to fix it apart from buying a flex or direct cu card? I thought that active adapters fixed the issues with tearing because they converted the signal?

Google as much as you want, there is not a fix for this. Active adapters only make sure that there is enough power (inactive adapters had the problem to turn of the screen etc). I've spent months trying to figure all this out, but the only thing you can do is buy a card with similar outputs. Or you could go for a surround setup from Nvidia, because they let you connect multiple monitors to multiple graphics cards. I'm sorry mate, but due to hardware limitations on the card itself there is no way this will be fixed any time soon. I hope I'm mistaken though, and that someone has actually found a fix, but not that I'm aware of (and half the internet).

Moose

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

Google as much as you want, there is not a fix for this. Active adapters only make sure that there is enough power (inactive adapters had the problem to turn of the screen etc). I've spent months trying to figure all this out, but the only thing you can do is buy a card with similar outputs. Or you could go for a surround setup from Nvidia, because they let you connect multiple monitors to multiple graphics cards. I'm sorry mate, but due to hardware limitations on the card itself there is no way this will be fixed any time soon. I hope I'm mistaken though, and that someone has actually found a fix, but not that I'm aware of (and half the internet).

Moose

Thanks a lot for the answer. I just can't believe this, eyefinity is a big selling point for me and I cannot believe that they still have this issue.

And after dropping 500 € for the 7970 I have no more money for other graphics card... Its a shame because I wasn't really bothered by the bezels, but this does bother me.

If anyone else has any ideas don't hesitate to say them... And thanks for the help.

Hold your horses sir. The Asus DCII will only cost a little over 500. I'm getting it the second it comes out, and I could give you some info on how the card performs and stuff. That way you can decide if you want to trade it in.
I've spent 3 months finding everything out about Eyefinity, that's why I didn't went to get a reference 7970. Research is the keyword here, you could've saved yourself a lot of trouble. Hope I can help you further.

Moose

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

It has been noticed that a mixture of connection/signal types can produce some tearing, this is not the always the cause of it.

I also have some questions for you...
Do you experience the tearing on windows desktop, in game or both?
Is it more gfx artifact tearing or is it more like a screen flicker?


Things you could try...

Use a mini-dp>VGA adaptor, these have proven to work very well.

Try using the mini-dp>DVI as the central & primary monitor, with the dvi/hdmi monitors flanking its side.

Dont enable AMD Overdrive / apply any overclocking, these usually cause some teraing when on the desktop as the card switches between mem and core speeds, although if you do use gpu overclocking then this can be resolved by following this guide.

_________________
| Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WiFi Skt2011 | i7 4820k @4.4GHz Watercooled (Ivy Bridge-E) | Corsair Vengence 32GB @2133MHz 11-11-11-27 2T Quad-Channel (8x4GB) | AMD R9-Fury-X 4GB @1140/505MHz + EKWB Watercooled | 256GB Crucial MX200 SSD | 8x 1TB Samsung F3 SATA-II | Corsair 850W TX PSU | 3x Dell S2209W 22"wide TFT's (5760x1080res) | Logitech Z-5400 5.1ch speakers | Win7 Ultimate x64 |

Use a mini-dp>VGA adaptor, these have proven to work very well.

I must warn you that if you use VGA, the actual color display is 12 million colors, instead of 16,7. The 4,7 colors it's missing will be produced using a technique called dithering. However, if it works fine it's your choice to use it or not.

Moose

_________________
Music is my life. You are my music.

It has been noticed that a mixture of connection/signal types can produce some tearing, this is not the always the cause of it.

I also have some questions for you...
Do you experience the tearing on windows desktop, in game or both?
Is it more gfx artifact tearing or is it more like a screen flicker?


Things you could try...

Use a mini-dp>VGA adaptor, these have proven to work very well.

Try using the mini-dp>DVI as the central & primary monitor, with the dvi/hdmi monitors flanking its side.

Dont enable AMD Overdrive / apply any overclocking, these usually cause some teraing when on the desktop as the card switches between mem and core speeds, although if you do use gpu overclocking then this can be resolved by following this guide.

I have tearing more like gfx artifact, and I have tearing across all 3 screens both in game and in windows. You can see the tearing moving the CCC arround. I do have the card overclocked. I have to go eat now, but later I will try miniDP as central and see what happens.

Try also without overclocking the card.

_________________
| Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WiFi Skt2011 | i7 4820k @4.4GHz Watercooled (Ivy Bridge-E) | Corsair Vengence 32GB @2133MHz 11-11-11-27 2T Quad-Channel (8x4GB) | AMD R9-Fury-X 4GB @1140/505MHz + EKWB Watercooled | 256GB Crucial MX200 SSD | 8x 1TB Samsung F3 SATA-II | Corsair 850W TX PSU | 3x Dell S2209W 22"wide TFT's (5760x1080res) | Logitech Z-5400 5.1ch speakers | Win7 Ultimate x64 |