Widescreen Gaming Forum

I thought I'd post the fix for my issues. The horizontal sparkles and occasional flicker was due to a defective DVI to DVI cable. I replaced cable and that issue is gone. When the monitor and GPU were not able to communicate well over DVI the CCC would adjust the desktop which caused bouncing between Windows and Fullscreen mode.

I can now play BF3 and Crysis2 smooth with no issues (unless GPU goes over 87C then it locks up but that's a cooling issue I found while testing various stuff).

Hi,
I'm new to wide screen gaming and new to ATI (been using NVidia for many years). I have three Dell E2311H monitors and dual XFX Double D FX-785A-CDFC Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 cards. Two monitors are using DVI and one is using active miniDP to DVI. The monitor that is connected to active miniDP to DVI will sometimes flicker, shake, or have sparkle looking things moving horitzontally. This behavior only occurs in Windows 7 desktop. I have not noticed this behavior while playing Battlefield 3, Civ V, Crysis 2, or even while watching Netflix full screen. Window mode this happens. The other two monitors do not have this behavior.

Running resolution at 5760 x 1080, 60 Hz refresh. I have not tweaked or messed with any Catalyst settings. Pretty much setup a Eyefinity Display Group and nothing else. Catalyst Version 12.8

I bought two active miniDP to DVI adapters and both have the same issue. The miniDP are "HIS Mini DisplayPort to Single Link-DVI Eyefinity Adapter HMDPSDVIEYE Mini DisplayPort to DVI Interface" from NewEgg.

Any assistance is appreciated.

I had a very similar issue using an active displayport adapter for one of my monitors. I actually just tracked the issue down to the adapter yesterday. Before that I was worried that there was something wrong with my GPU. I'm beginning to wonder if a few other bit of instability (driver crashes etc) are because of the adapter too, as opposed to being the result of overclocking.

Strangely enough, I took the adapter out and blew in the connectors to clear out any dust or other detritus, and I haven't seen the glitching since. I have a feeling these adapters are very finicky.

Thanks for the tips. I opened a tech support ticket with XFX. We've been going back and forth with some suggestions. I ended up buying a fourth monitor to troubleshoot and have a spare downstairs. Last night now BF3 and Crysis2 bounce between Fullscreen and Window mode within 60 seconds of starting to play a game. I hear a Windows notification sound (same sound if you unplug / plug in USB devices) but I can't see desktop to know what just "notified". This occurs with Eyefinity enabled or disabled.

I disabled CrossFireX, unplugged one GPU, then ran only 1 GPU for an hour no issues. Then I unplugged that GPU, enabled other one, then played 1 hour and same, no issues.

I swapped GPU1 GPU2 PCI-E express slots, put CrossFire connector back on, powered up both GPUs, now I just enabled Eyefinity and CrossFireX. I'm off to try BF3 now.

I think my monitor sparkles and flicker are a different issue. Just wanted to update everyone on my adventures.

I continue to get bounced between Windowed and Fullscreen mode. I've spent four hours testing this setup and I'm close to giving up. In a few more hours I'll simply build a new system based on NVidia GPUs.

This is a known issue with ATI cards using different ports - DVI+DVI+DP.

I recently did some googleing myself on this. I will try my best to sum it up.

The bottom line is this:

If all ports on the ATI cards were DVI there would be no tearing.

Conversly, if all the ports on the ATI cards were DP there would likewise be no tearing.

The problem is, ATI is forcing us comsumers to combine two DVI plus one DP in order to use triplehead and this combination somehow produces the tearing.

From what I learned ATI/AMD is aware of the problem, but is unlikely to ever fix it.

Also, from what I read, ATI could probably fix the issue with a driver update.

Now a few more details:

There are 3 possible combinations of tearing -

If your primary monitor is running off your DP, then both side monitors will produce tearing.

If either of the side monitors is DP, then only one side or the other will display tearing.

Some experts on threads I read mentioned some technical proof on the how and why is does this, but I cannot remember the details at this moment...

So, until ATI gets off their tushies and deals with it, you will always get some tearing with a multi-head video card with two types of video ports.

I am no expert, and my memory sucks, but that's the best I can recall. If I can find the forums I found this info on, I will try to update this post later.

Thanks for the information Ra'Kaan. Would it help if I did all three monitors on a single DP and two miniDPs and avoid using the DVI? I might try that anyway, right now I'll pretty much try a lot. I'm opening a new thread with a picture of my GPU-Z data to see if others have the same.