Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi Everyone, I am new to the forum and I am dealing with a video wall setup. All the system needs to run is 5760x1080 video created in adobe aftereffects and will run at 30fps. I need to use some kind of bezel correction so eyefinity was recommended. Here is my current setup which was recommended by people who I now know did not really understand how eyefinity works.

3 Sony 55" Pro Display with LED Backlight 450 http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-FWD55B2/
Dell optiplex
I5-3570 processor (6MB, 3.4GHz)
4 GB ram
Dual Radeon HD7470
Windows 7

The system has dual cards because each only has 2 outs a dvi and a dp so the thinking was I would have 4 outs and everything would be fine. These cards do run an extended desktop fine. I would like to confirm with you guys that eyefinity will not work across 2 separate cards and all the outs for eyefinity must come from the same card.

The Club Multi stream transport hub was then recommended as a fix but I have run into the same problem that others have had with the screens blinking on and off.

The new recommended solution is a new video card and the 2 that have been recommended are an HD 7350 and a HD 5570. I don’t really trust the expertise of the salesman who recommended these. Both of these say they will run eyefinity but I am now on a very hard deadline and the next solution has to work. I have also read about screen tearing on this forum so I don’t want to get eyefinity to work and then end up with a whole new problem.

As this forum seems to be one of the only places in the world which deals with these kind of issues any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Eric

Hi

elemme wrote:I would like to confirm with you guys that eyefinity will not work across 2 separate cards and all the outs for eyefinity must come from the same card.

This is correct, the eyefinity group must be created on a single card, additional cards can be used in crossfire mode to boost performance, but all displays must be connected to the same card to be able to create a group from them.

elemme wrote:The Club Multi stream transport hub was then recommended as a fix but I have run into the same problem that others have had with the screens blinking on and off.

According to http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 4&start=40 other users whom have used the Club3D MSt hub have also had issues, that have also been resolved by firmware upgrades to the device.

An alternative device is the Datapath X4 device, we use a series of these to create a 25 monitor video wall at my work place that I look after.
These devices also have their limitations due to the single DVI-D dual link input that has limited bandwidth meaning 5760x1080 @ 50hz would run but only just.
A bezel corrected resolution (using the X4's built in bezel comp) will equate to a larger resolution being driven by the pc and thus a further drop in refresh rate may be required.
The beauty of the X4's is that you can input a 30hz video signal from the pc while each output from the X4 is synced to 50 or 60hz.
More info about X4's

elemme wrote:The new recommended solution is a new video card and the 2 that have been recommended are an HD 7350 and a HD 5570. I don’t really trust the expertise of the salesman who recommended these. Both of these say they will run eyefinity but I am now on a very hard deadline and the next solution has to work.

The vast majority of 7350 and 5570 lack a DP output and are limited again to just 2 displays unless they have 2 outputs + a DP output.

Is there a limitation on GPU size ie low profile and power draw, perhaps we can seek an alternative card out?

FYI Nvidia x600 and x700 series both support "Nvidia Surround" with 3 displays from a single card which is nvidia's equivalent to AMD's Eyefinity.
It will support 3 displays just fine, without flicker and also provides bezel compensation, however using a single card appears to be reserved for the higher end cards in each series with the lower cards in the series being able to run nvidia surround with outputs from multiple cards when they are run in SLI mode.
Source: http://www.nvidia.in/object/3d-vision-s ... ts-in.html

elemme wrote:I have also read about screen tearing on this forum so I don’t want to get eyefinity to work and then end up with a whole new problem.

This seems to be a bit hit and miss in my experience, I have been very fortunate to not experience this when running wth the following cards AMD5870E6, 2x AMD5870E6-CFX, or on my
AMD7970, where as I have heard that others have suffered from this, personally my experience has been pretty good although I tend to use a USB powered DP > dual-link DVI adaptor where as others have reported using a DP powered DP>single-link DVI adaptor, not sure if this helps or not.

From my 7970 I have 4 outputs form the card:-
1x DVI
1x HDMI
2x mDP

I connect my displays like thus...

[______] [DVI] -------------------------------> DVI to DVI cable --------------------------------------------> [monitor 1]
[_GPU_] [mDP] --> mDP Passive DVI single-link adaptor -------> DVI to DVI cable --------------> [monitor 2]
[______] [mDP] --> mDP Active USB powered DVI dual-link adaptor --> DVI to DVI cable --> [monitor 3]

elemme wrote:As this forum seems to be one of the only places in the world which deals with these kind of issues any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Eric

Hope this helps.