Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello all, first I want to say I'm new here, and new to multi monitor setups, and I'm not a computer genius, but willing to learn.

I just bought 2 new monitors, so now I have 3 set up with eyefinity. I had no problem setting it all up and getting it to run on the few games I regularly play. The problem is, on 2 games, when running in eyefinity, my frame rates are taking a huge nosedive!

My system:
CPU- AMD FX-6200 @3.8 Ghz (not overclocked)
GPU- Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC 1 gb
RAM- 8gb Kingston hyper-X
Windows 7 64 bit

1x Samsung Syncmaster S24B350 (HDMI)
1x BenQ GL2450 (DVI)
1x Philips Brilliance 23IP (Displayport)

Euro Truck Simulator 2- without eyefinity- average 50 fps, with eyefinity- 10-20 fps
Battlefield 3- without eyefinity- average 40-50 fps, with eyefinity- 4 fps
iRacing is the only one that is actually still getting really good fps.

The weird thing is that for the first 2 days that I had eyefinity set up, ETS2 ran great. (I didn't play BF3 before, just today to check the performance)
I think my system should have absolutely no trouble with ETS2 on ultra settings, which it doesn't with only one monitor, but like I said, I'm new to multi monitors.
I have made sure all drivers are updated, and I ran a virus scan, and defragged.
Please help!? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Chris

Use msi afterburner to check how much vram you are using. 1 gig on your video card will not be enough for most games in eyefinity. Drop settings till you are not hitting the limit and see if your framerate improves.

Now there could be a few other problems going on here. But generally you lose up to 50% you of your FPS cause you are rendering 3 screens instead of 1, but also usually you will also require at least 2gb of ram on the GPU as well to compensate for these other monitors as well. That is why most times people found improvements when crossfire when games supported it, as it off set the 2gb of ram+ they didn't have before, it was not a fix as only some times works, but more of a bandage.

The rig you have is good, its just cause of the low ram is mainly the problem in Eyefinity setup, for max setting or high resolution. Best bet to bring that up is to drop your Res to at least 720p and don't go higher then Medium setting while in Eyefinity setup.

Reasons for the big differences in FPS on though games is that the simulator cause even though there is allot of stuff going on in it, its not vary fast moving and lower detail. iRacing is similar in this manner, but Battlefield is fast pace, lost of things moving on screen including tracking bullets and explosions, along with high detail every where.

I suspected the good deal on the 1 gb GPU would come back to bite me some day! lol

Seriously thank you guys so much for the replies and the info. It really is much appreciated. Take care,

Chris

The Vram Limit is a Topic on its own.
Most game engines just fill the Vram till it full.
That does not mean you have a Vram Limit! Even if afterburner shows 1024/1024mb
There are 2 kinds of Vram limit.
The Absolute Vram Limit:
You need around 1-2gb for the actual scenery to display. But you only have 1gb therefore getting 0.5-1FPS

The loading Vram Limit
You need around 900-950mb of From for the actual scenery, and more than 50-100mb for new objects that keep coming. (Endless worlds, not closed levels)
But this one is kinda hard to proof, because the performance drop /stutter that might come from the Vram loading new items could also be from a bigger resolution or different settings (AA)

Ah I think I'm tracking. Thank you too Haldi.