Widescreen Gaming Forum

ok, i just ordered a HD5770.

i am disappointed with the fact that the windows architechture in vista and windows 7 does not allow horizontal and vertical span feature like in windows XP.

GETTING TO THE POINT..

can I use Eye-finity to span the desktop properly?

for games like FSX and DCS black shark, i want to be able to run these program in FULLSCREEN and NOT in WINDOWED MODE....

comments? suggestions? i would like to have a special configuration other than triplehead, (because the desktop spans fine with TH2G).. maybe even to go to four monitors using TH2G in conjunction with eye-finity...

You can setup your desktop in any one of numerous ways.

Eyefinity itself is a SLS technology, single large surface.

It makes all of your monitors 1 big monitor, no matter what OS you use its going to act like one giant monitor, that means start menu and stuff on the far left and things on the far right that would be on the right.

To alleviate this dont use SLS for your desktop stuff only for games, instead use a extended desktop. Disable all but one monitor in your ATI control panel and then when you re-enable a monitor that you disabled you will see the option of "clone" or "extend" use the extend option.

When you have it all setup, create a profile for it so you can toggle back to it quickly and easily.

I use 3x24" use the center monitor as the primary and use Display Fusion program to add task bars to the side monitors.

thank you for the explanation..

i really hope this will be the answer to the windows 7 desktop taskbar problem.

now i have something to play with..although i have to get a displayport monitor...

[...]
When you have it all setup, create a profile for it so you can toggle back to it quickly and easily.
[...]

I tought as much and tried but looks like every time i recall a stored profile it is NEVER what i saved, sometimes it only turns on 2 out of 3 monitors and often changes the position i assigned to them with the result of an UNUSABLE profile feature, i use W7 Ultimate...

I was also disappointed that i can't maximize a window inside one single monitor rather then across all three when i'm in surround....

Assign a hotkey to each profile. You usually have to hit the keys 2 to 3 times to get the correct settings.

If you're in Eyefinity mode, Windows just sees your 3 monitors as one single large monitor. I don't see how you can maximize a window into just one monitor in Single large surface mode. But you can do that if you're just using good old Windows "extended" mode.

Yes, EyeFinity is the answer to XP span modes in Vista and Win 7.

[quote]
[...]
When you have it all setup, create a profile for it so you can toggle back to it quickly and easily.
[...]

I tought as much and tried but looks like every time i recall a stored profile it is NEVER what i saved, sometimes it only turns on 2 out of 3 monitors and often changes the position i assigned to them with the result of an UNUSABLE profile feature, i use W7 Ultimate...

I was also disappointed that i can't maximize a window inside one single monitor rather then across all three when i'm in surround....

As said just above me some of the profiles take 2 or 3 times in a row to fully activate.

Its a but explained to us by an ATI rep due to how windows has to first move to clone mode, then to this and then to that, the process cant be done in just one move so you have to use the profile 3x in a row for eyefinity.

Also for me for some reason I cant get the profile to work usually if I use the tray icon and activate it I have to use the desktop shortcut or a hotkey.

Even if you do it full manual each time it takes me about 30 seconds to change to any mode or setup I want so I consider it a small annoyance at worst but nothing major.

If you're in Eyefinity mode, Windows just sees your 3 monitors as one single large monitor. I don't see how you can maximize a window into just one monitor in Single large surface mode. But you can do that if you're just using good old Windows "extended" mode.

Matrox TH2GO drivers allowed to do that even if they were buggy and sometimes required to reconfigure it...

Btw profiles do not work for me even with that method, it will just create 3 clones...
Crappy ATI drivers....

Boy I am struggling to get this to work.

Failed Attempts
I can make an Eyefinity 3-monitor desktop, no problems. Save as a profile, assign a hotkey, job done. So I thought.

Went out of the CCC to make a singlescreen setup. Using Windows, set the resolution to 1680x1050. This produced the single screen duplicated on the outside monitors. Disabled 'Extend desktop to this display' on the two outside monitors and ended up with a singlescreen in the centre. Sweet!

Went back into CCC, saved profile as Singlescreen. Assigned a hotkey. Quit out of CCC. Activated hotkey to go from Single to Triple, heard the sound of Windows hardware disconnect, screen blanked, and returned still in Singlescreen.

Tried the hotkey multiple times as suggested - nothing.

Tried the hotkey back to Singlescreen even though I was still in Singlescreen, screen blanked, then returned still in Singlescreen.

I tried creating shortcuts - nothing.

Halfway There Attempt
I can create a Triplescreen Profile and a Singlescreen profile and can toggle between the two ok, but only if I leave the outside two monitors on (ie 3 x single screens). It boggles the eyes. As soon as I disable the other two monitors, that's when it all goes to tears and refuses to return to Triplescreen.

I've tried a variety of other ways but doesn't seem to matter what I do, I can't get this to work with just one centre screen on.

Very frustrating, any tips? Which monitors do people use for singlescreen, the DP monitor or a DVI monitor? I just want to be able to toggle between single and triplescreens!


The other thing I don't understand is when you create a group, it asks you if the order of the monitors is correct. I chose no, then proceed to click in the blue monitors etc, and the first time it always stuffs it up! Second time always seems to work doing the same thing tho!

I am running 9-11 with a 5850 on Windows 7 64bit.

Help!?


UPDATE:

Ok so I got it working, sort of.

If I use the DP monitor as the singlescreen, so the DP monitor never gets disabled, it works. If the DP monitor gets disabled at any stage, it's game over. I do need to click on the shortcut 3 times to get it to return to Eyefinity mode, as posted above. From Eyefinity to the single desktop just takes the one go.

Maybe if I make a macro to run the hotkey three times it might not seem so silly? I understand this is a known problem.

UPDATE 2:
If I shut the PC down in singlescreen mode and then restart it later, it restarts in singlescreen mode. However, I cannot return to the 3 screen profile from here anymore via Hotkey. It returns to clone mode, but then fails to continue to the single large display. I can do it via Shortcut, however. And after I do it via Shortcut, I can do it via hotkey again.

Alternatively, if I hotkey to Triplescreen so it goes to 3 screens cloned, hotkey it back to singlescreen, then hotkey it back to Triplescreen three times, it works.

Weird!

Yeah kudos go to ATI coders....... :evil:
One reason i always tried to stay out of ATI grasp was their inability to produce quality drivers...still this card was too good...got it for free just selling out my old matrox TH2GO.

Yeah kudos go to ATI coders....... :evil:
One reason i always tried to stay out of ATI grasp was their inability to produce quality drivers...still this card was too good...got it for free just selling out my old matrox TH2GO.

EF is still too new
in a couple of month if it's still unstable one might blame the coders but for now, it's pretty normal behavior

edit: as an example nvidia had its share of driver issues when the GTX280 came out

AussieTimmeh, same problems here. Every time I want to switch between my expanded desktop and Eyefinity, I have to manually disable and re-enable the two non-DP screens.

At this point, it's a complete crapshoot on what resolution the computer will boot into each time I get to the desktop. But what's really enjoyable, is when all three screens get kicked into 640x480 on bootup - you know, the resolution where you can't see the bottom of the Catalyst Control Center screens, where one might normally find and click on the Apply button. I really enjoy that one.

A friend stopped over this evening, took me nearly ten minutes of fooling to finally get 3-screen Eyefinity working. He was really impressed.

[quote]Yeah kudos go to ATI coders....... :evil:
One reason i always tried to stay out of ATI grasp was their inability to produce quality drivers...still this card was too good...got it for free just selling out my old matrox TH2GO.

EF is still too new
in a couple of month if it's still unstable one might blame the coders but for now, it's pretty normal behavior

edit: as an example nvidia had its share of driver issues when the GTX280 came out

Strictly speaking, as a quality control issue, AMD should have never allowed the drivers they bundled to go out retail. To say that nVidia does that kind of thing to does not explain off that both nVidia and AMD have been rather bad with thier driver quality control in the last year timeframe. To explain away this stuff as the status quo on either side of the fence is a cop out.

Strictly speaking, as a quality control issue, AMD should have never allowed the drivers they bundled to go out retail. To say that nVidia does that kind of thing to does not explain off that both nVidia and AMD have been rather bad with thier driver quality control in the last year timeframe. To explain away this stuff as the status quo on either side of the fence is a cop out.

new stuff in computers whether hardware or software will very frequently have some problems. testing things in house can only go so far...
plus it's costly as hell

so sure sometimes there ain't a single problem on a recently released product, but that's absolutely not the general case.

Intel Pentium 60 anyone ? :wink:

If ati publish of how they test drivers I bet people would be suprised.

Let's be serious, we are talking about a godamn profile manager that's worth crap...how hard can it be to test it and make it right?

Strictly speaking, as a quality control issue, AMD should have never allowed the drivers they bundled to go out retail. To say that nVidia does that kind of thing to does not explain off that both nVidia and AMD have been rather bad with thier driver quality control in the last year timeframe. To explain away this stuff as the status quo on either side of the fence is a cop out.

You can't cover all eventualities when making a change like this - Eyefinity caused an entire re-write of the diaply driver and requires pretty massive UI changes as well; significant amounts of that has to be done in the few months that.

The profile manager not being compatible with Eyefinity may well have been an oversight, but as I've already stated this is a bug and a report has been filed. The profile manager is essentially a script, however the setup of Eyefinity has some time dependancies when enabling it so they aren't playing nice with each other at the moment.

What else are we talking about here?

Well I don't want to get on-board and start slamming the ATI team, but the fact that if the DisplayPort monitor ever gets turned off, the driver goes to poo and I have never gotten it to recover thru anything other than pulling the plug out of the back of the PC and restarting from scratch. Even a note about it would be gold. Many hours of my life wasted trying to work out that you need to leave the DP monitor on at all times.

To alleviate this dont use SLS for your desktop stuff only for games, instead use a extended desktop. Disable all but one monitor in your ATI control panel and then when you re-enable a monitor that you disabled you will see the option of "clone" or "extend" use the extend option.

Hi could you clarify this for me? If I dont use SLS for desktop stuff, and just use Extended Desktop, can I run each monitor at a different resolution?

I have two VGA 19" LCDs and one 24" widescreen DVI/HDMI LCD that I want to connect (probably to an 5770). I dont actually care too much for running games via all 3 monitors, just want to use them as an extended desktop.

I read that Eyefinity can only run with all monitors at identical resolution, but wasnt sure if this refers to SLS only or also Extended Desktop. As I have one 24" widescreen, and two 19", I would like the 24" at diff res to the other two. Is that possible?

Cheers,
Menno

Hi could you clarify this for me? If I dont use SLS for desktop stuff, and just use Extended Desktop, can I run each monitor at a different resolution?
I have two VGA 19" LCDs and one 24" widescreen DVI/HDMI LCD that I want to connect (probably to an 5770). I dont actually care too much for running games via all 3 monitors, just want to use them as an extended desktop.
I read that Eyefinity can only run with all monitors at identical resolution, but wasnt sure if this refers to SLS only or also Extended Desktop. As I have one 24" widescreen, and two 19", I would like the 24" at diff res to the other two. Is that possible?

eyefinity is assumed to be equal to SLS in general...

extended desktop should work like it always had, which means different res allowed