EyeFinity on older cards?

Post by **BHawthorne** » 01 Oct 2009, 23:16

This is another question that has been glossed over...does using Catalyst 9.10 enable EyeFinity on older cards in some form? Anyone with the last few series of cards care to try and see if at least 2 displays will be able to do EyeFinity? Also do any of the older cards also have that 3rd DP port, or is that a new thing also? Looking on Newegg it looks like some 4000-series cards have a similar port out that is like the 5000-series but replaces one of the DVI with VGA. Wonder if they're engineered differently on the port out clock allocations. Maybe someone could try 1 DVI, 1 VGA and 1 DP (active adapter). This test would probably only be limited to someone who already upgraded to a 5870 and has an old 4890 laying around. Would be interesting to know the answer though as to give people more potential EyeFinity options.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 02 Oct 2009, 11:40

IIRC Dave said no, it's 5000 series exclusive.

Whether that means it's 5000 series exclusive due to software limitations or hardware limitations, I do not know.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 02 Oct 2009, 17:47

IIRC Dave said no, it's 5000 series exclusive.

Whether that means it's 5000 series exclusive due to software limitations or hardware limitations, I do not know.

Sort of silly imho. Any old Raedon card should be perfectly capable of 2-port EyeFinity. Not that I doubt him, but will someone try 2 screen EyeFinity on an older card anyways to see if it does work? :wink:

geniv2 · Post by **geniv2** » 02 Oct 2009, 18:00

IIRC Dave said no, it's 5000 series exclusive.

Whether that means it's 5000 series exclusive due to software limitations or hardware limitations, I do not know.

I think it's more software then hardware.

business wise i can understand why they would not put eyefinity on the 4xxx cards.

Post by **Mach1.9pants** » 02 Oct 2009, 18:31

[quote]IIRC Dave said no, it's 5000 series exclusive.

Whether that means it's 5000 series exclusive due to software limitations or hardware limitations, I do not know.

I think it's more software then hardware.

business wise i can understand why they would not put eyefinity on the 4xxx cards.Yeah this, why make it available to older cards when they can sell you a new one? Dave Baumann seems adamant that DP is and enabler of this, so maybe the lack of DP on older cards is a problem....?

Post by **BHawthorne** » 02 Oct 2009, 19:32

Dave Baumann seems adamant that DP is and enabler of this, so maybe the lack of DP on older cards is a problem....?

What he's adamant over is 3+ ports working...and truth be told, he is correct that if you want more then 2 ports working this DP port method works.

I see no reason why they should exclude 2 screen EyeFinity from -- to borrow a term from him -- "legacy" cards. To borrow another term from him, it could be done as "value added" for free. There is no extra hardware needed to pull it off. Just need for Catalyst drivers to see the 2 available screens in use and use them. :wink:

Post by **Mach1.9pants** » 02 Oct 2009, 19:39

yeah I wasn't thinking of dual head, I'd rather single screen than that!

geniv2 · Post by **geniv2** » 02 Oct 2009, 20:59

[quote]Dave Baumann seems adamant that DP is and enabler of this, so maybe the lack of DP on older cards is a problem....?

What he's adamant over is 3+ ports working...and truth be told, he is correct that if you want more then 2 ports working this DP port method works.

I see no reason why they should exclude 2 screen EyeFinity from -- to borrow a term from him -- "legacy" cards. To borrow another term from him, it could be done as "value added" for free. There is no extra hardware needed to pull it off. Just need for Catalyst drivers to see the 2 available screens in use and use them. :wink:

I don't see why Dual screen shouldn't work on legacy cards.
(are there any pre 5xxx ATI cards that support 3 monitors at once? ) or even triple screens on legacy cards.

if SofTH can get triplehead working why can't ATI (or Nvidia) do that for the matter.

SofTH do it through the PCIe bus I wonder of ATI/NVidia can do it internally through the card.

I KNOW it's possible but they won't do it for cost vs profit reason.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 02 Oct 2009, 21:37

if SofTH can get triplehead working why can't ATI (or Nvidia) do that for the matter.

SofTH do it through the PCIe bus I wonder of ATI/NVidia can do it internally through the card.

I KNOW it's possible but they won't do it for cost vs profit reason.

The simple answer to that is "where is the profit in it?" If they would have seen profit in it, it would have been done by now. Historically, ATI and nVidia have had their blinders on focused on multi-GPU to single display. It took all this time for ATI to even see marginal profit in it...enough to offer it finally on a driver level.

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 03 Oct 2009, 07:38

FWIW, I was told at the launch event that legacy hardware cannot support EF technology. What does that mean specifically? I don't know. The answer I got did come across to me with an "it will never happen" tone of finality, though.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 03 Oct 2009, 12:40

Which would suggest that there is some sort of hardware element to it in the ATi solution...

Post by **BHawthorne** » 03 Oct 2009, 18:39

Which would suggest that there is some sort of hardware element to it in the ATi solution...

I'm more inclined to believe it has more to do with certifying all those old card for just 2 displays would be more trouble than it's worth for them. From a hardware standpoint there is nothing different than old nVidia XP span modes happening here. It's just that the single GPU/single card now has more port outs.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 03 Oct 2009, 21:43

Hm. Didn't look at it like that. Good point.

Dave Baumann · Post by **Dave Baumann** » 04 Oct 2009, 05:12

Actually, we internalised that the very definition of Eyefinity means >2 panels (i.e. greater than what we've supported for many generations), so, by definition, will previous gen support Eyefinity? No! ;) :lol:

To be more precise, will we support Display Grouping on two panels on older boards, then answer is that there is no plan to. As suggested, going back and qualifying these would not give the ROI. Evergreen has had this capability out of the gate and the qualification, validitaion and disagnostic suites have been there from the off - we cannot go back and re-qual all the partner variants of the HD 4000 series as there are so many variants that have been done prior to these capabilities being available.

SunSp*t · Post by **SunSp*t** » 05 Oct 2009, 09:06

To add to DaveB's comments in the interests of complete communication:

I originally defined EF as the technical capability to support HD visual field immersion from a single GPU and further specified that meeting this definition required more than the resolution capacity possible in two DP outputs. By definition, EF is not possible for generations prior to the Evergreen family.

The definition wasn't arbitrary - if I thought I could get a good HD visual field immersion result using existing technology, I would have specified that as a requirement for preceding generations such as the 7xx family. I didn't see how it was possible. A small leap forward was required. DP made the leap possible.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 05 Oct 2009, 10:39

To add to DaveB's comments in the interests of complete communication:

I originally defined EF as the technical capability to support HD visual field immersion from a single GPU and further specified that meeting this definition required more than the resolution capacity possible in two DP outputs. By definition, EF is not possible for generations prior to the Evergreen family.

The definition wasn't arbitrary - if I thought I could get a good HD visual field immersion result using existing technology, I would have specified that as a requirement for preceding generations such as the 7xx family. I didn't see how it was possible. A small leap forward was required. DP made the leap possible.

Makes sense. Would be quite handy for 4k HD projection using 4 consumer 1080p projectors without breaking the bank. ATM, 4k HD projection is ungodly expensive for a single projector, but enable spanning on a single card to 4 projectors and you brought that accessibility to the home theater enthusiast market.

The only issue I have is that you can't use the driver to edge blend yet. Edge blending is the only roadblock I can see keeping 4k HD as another potential goal of EyeFinity. I would suggest looking into ImmersiView's Sol7 pre-warping software for a few advanced ideas on some options relating to projection utilities, edge blending and pre-warping.

Keep in mind while EyeFinity has a solid focus on LCD display at the moment, that another logical use is also accommodating projection settings into the drivers later on.

SunSp*t · Post by **SunSp*t** » 08 Oct 2009, 07:49

Mersive has done it using a Six. It was demoed on the Hornet.

http://www.mersive.com/

It would be cool if the driver had the hooks to allow anyone to do that. I will add it to the list. Be aware the list is growing much faster than the resource base.

SunSp*t

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