Widescreen Gaming Forum

Thinking of going with ati when they get their six port card or/if the 5870x2 supports eyefinity. Can you use eyefinity and the CURRENT 5870 with three monitors and use the fourth port for a extended monitor. For example: When I play games I use the second monitor to have my teamspeak channel and my pc temps on. Can you use the two dvi and the dp for the three monitors to play the game and the hdmi port for the 4th extended monitor?? Thanks

Unfortunately no. The HDMI port is shared with one of the DVI's, so you can either use HDMI+DVI+Display port, or DVI+DVI+Displayport. The 6 edition is supposed to allow you to use all 6 ports at once. :)

I hope that would be available with the six port. I would really really miss not having that stuff available to me on a extended monitor. I have 3 1680x1050 one 1920 x1200 and one 1440x900 screen ready for eyefinity but will wait for the 6 port and the 5870x2 to support crossfir eyefinity before plunging in. I have a 280gtx and a 9600 gt using 4 displays now.

currently you cant span across different resolutions like you have, but you can run them seperately without using eyefinity.

I will have three matching monitors for eyefinity and then I want one extended for other progs like teamspeak etc. I would need to get the "six then. Cannot wait for this. It will need to be a 2 gig per core and crossfire compatible. I hope its under $600 bucks. I will have to get one maybe 2 active dp adapters depending if the extended monitors need one. I have wanted to go multimonitor for awhile and was going to get a dp matrox but wanted to see what eyefinity came up with.

The 6 will still only allow a maximum of 2 dvi/hdmi connections at a time like the 3. It doesn matter if they are running in sls or just plain desktop extension, you wil still need 2 active adapters for 4 screens, if none of them has a displayport.

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah no 4 monitors at the same time, you can atleast hook up and use all 4 monitors with the card and just select the one monitor you do not want to use. This was good enough for me.

Its kinda a pain to do that though, but today I plan to try to save my monitor selections and setup to a profile and see if I can toggle them on the fly and if I can I will be 100% happy.

Back in the day with TS and Vent I always just used them running in the background so no need for them to have a screen. I can see how that would be handy though to see who is on there or to configure things without tabbing out of the game.

When you have it on its own screen doesnt that allow you to mouse out of the game though. Thats what happens to me and it always messed me up.

I cant wait to see the power/price of the 5870X2 and if it works with eyefinity I may have to ugprade to it. A single 5870 is running pretty much any game at full 5760x1200 res with no issues and thats amazing but its no 60fps and it wont hold up long if newer games increase the system demand.

Just to check an example setup with regards the '6' card...

Assuming I had three DP monitors connected, leaving three DP outputs free, can I connect three dvi connections (accepting that two could use passive adaptors but the other would need to be an active adaptor)...?

I.e. could the '6' card theoretically drive 6 DVI/HDMI displays (assuming appropriate adaptors) or does a DVI connection tie together two tmds units, even for single link DVI resolutions?

With an active adapter the card thinks its driving a displayport panel anyway.

The problem is not the tmd's or or single/duallink connections.
The problem is the amount clock generators.

There are 2 "legacy" clock generators on the card for dvi/hdmi and 1 that can drive all the displayports.

Every dvi/hdmi connection needs a separate "legacy" clock generator, because there are only 2, you only can have 2 dvi/hdmi connections max. everything else needs to run over displayport with an active adapter (which has its own clock generator).

Correct me if I am wrong, but thats how I understood the info from the 40 pages long thread.


So for 6 dvi displays to work at the same time you need 2 passive and 4 active adapters.

And for 3 dp + 3 dvi you need 2 passive and 1 active adapter, as you wrote in your post.

The above is correct based on my understanding as well.

I thought that the legacy clock generators were for analog signals?

I thought that the legacy clock generators were for analog signals?

ChainSOV is right

the whole story is that, DVI & HDMI both need a separate clock source, 2 clock generators makes 2 separate sources & so only 2 DVI/HDMI panels
whereas DP can use a shared clock source

edit: dug back the post for you ;)

While there are Six TMDS/DP transmitters, there are only 2 clock sources on the ASIC. The issue with legacy display is that they all need their own clock generator - as soon as you plug in two DVI/VGA/HDMI you run out of clock sources. DP can time multiple outputs from a single clock generator.

What we do with these boards is add an additional clock source externally from the ASIC that is good for driving DP timing, but unfotunatly not others (the clock source is actually shared for another use, so we can't just arbitarily have any timing).

If you plug in a passive adapter to the DVI+DVI+HDMI+DP design then you it will use an internal clock source, up until you start plugging in other panels.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/11099t=450

Thanks. :D

I must be missing something then! I was looking at the Ati tech brief on eyefinity and on page 5 it lists the usage scenarios. Listed is 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, 3x2 landscape display for 6 monitor gaming. Then it lists a 3x1 display group plus 1 extended. What would this be? I understand I will need the six port card with proper display port monitors or active adaptors. I just would want to game on 3 monitors with eyefinity but also have my teamspeak channels and hamachi stuff etc on the 4 extended monitor. doesn't 3x1 display group plus one extended mean exactly what I am trying to do?? Here is the link if you have not seen it. Thanks.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

I must be missing something then! I was looking at the Ati tech brief on eyefinity and on page 5 it lists the usage scenarios. Listed is 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, 3x2 landscape display for 6 monitor gaming. Then it lists a 3x1 display group plus 1 extended. What would this be? I understand I will need the six port card with proper display port monitors or active adaptors. I just would want to game on 3 monitors with eyefinity but also have my teamspeak channels and hamachi stuff etc on the 4 extended monitor. doesn't 3x1 display group plus one extended mean exactly what I am trying to do?? Here is the link if you have not seen it. Thanks.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

Part of the problem is that people are mixing examples in this thread between the standard 3 port card and the unreleased 6 port card. 3x1 SLS +1 extra will work just fne on the 6 port card. To run any more than 3 displays on the desktop at once you'll need the 6 port card (or a second video card).

Also, I think it is only the "group" that requires monitors to have the same resolution and orientation. The "extended" monitors can differ. I'm just speculating, however, but this makes sense based on ATI's suggested usage scenarios.

[quote]I must be missing something then! I was looking at the Ati tech brief on eyefinity and on page 5 it lists the usage scenarios. Listed is 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, 3x2 landscape display for 6 monitor gaming. Then it lists a 3x1 display group plus 1 extended. What would this be? I understand I will need the six port card with proper display port monitors or active adaptors. I just would want to game on 3 monitors with eyefinity but also have my teamspeak channels and hamachi stuff etc on the 4 extended monitor. doesn't 3x1 display group plus one extended mean exactly what I am trying to do?? Here is the link if you have not seen it. Thanks.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

Part of the problem is that people are mixing examples in this thread between the standard 3 port card and the unreleased 6 port card. 3x1 SLS +1 extra will work just fne on the 6 port card. To run any more than 3 displays on the desktop at once you'll need the 6 port card (or a second video card).

Thanks for the feedback. I am waiting for the 5870x2 with the 4 gig memory (2 per core). I will get this if crossfire supports eyefinity.

[quote][quote]I must be missing something then! I was looking at the Ati tech brief on eyefinity and on page 5 it lists the usage scenarios. Listed is 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, 3x2 landscape display for 6 monitor gaming. Then it lists a 3x1 display group plus 1 extended. What would this be? I understand I will need the six port card with proper display port monitors or active adaptors. I just would want to game on 3 monitors with eyefinity but also have my teamspeak channels and hamachi stuff etc on the 4 extended monitor. doesn't 3x1 display group plus one extended mean exactly what I am trying to do?? Here is the link if you have not seen it. Thanks.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

Part of the problem is that people are mixing examples in this thread between the standard 3 port card and the unreleased 6 port card. 3x1 SLS +1 extra will work just fne on the 6 port card. To run any more than 3 displays on the desktop at once you'll need the 6 port card (or a second video card).

Thanks for the feedback. I am waiting for the 5870x2 with the 4 gig memory (2 per core). I will get this if crossfire supports eyefinity.

From what I've seen, the x2 will have 2 DVI and 1 DisplayPort out. So, only 3 displays max for it.

[quote][quote][quote]I must be missing something then! I was looking at the Ati tech brief on eyefinity and on page 5 it lists the usage scenarios. Listed is 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, 3x2 landscape display for 6 monitor gaming. Then it lists a 3x1 display group plus 1 extended. What would this be? I understand I will need the six port card with proper display port monitors or active adaptors. I just would want to game on 3 monitors with eyefinity but also have my teamspeak channels and hamachi stuff etc on the 4 extended monitor. doesn't 3x1 display group plus one extended mean exactly what I am trying to do?? Here is the link if you have not seen it. Thanks.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

Part of the problem is that people are mixing examples in this thread between the standard 3 port card and the unreleased 6 port card. 3x1 SLS +1 extra will work just fne on the 6 port card. To run any more than 3 displays on the desktop at once you'll need the 6 port card (or a second video card).

Thanks for the feedback. I am waiting for the 5870x2 with the 4 gig memory (2 per core). I will get this if crossfire supports eyefinity.

From what I've seen, the x2 will have 2 DVI and 1 DisplayPort out. So, only 3 displays max for it.

That would suck, and unless the drivers change I had no luck running an 4000 series card with a 5870 at the same time to use more monitors. The 5870 driver did not work with the 4850 I had forcing me to take the 4850 out of the computer for proper operation or use the 4850 drivers and not get the functions of the 5870.