eyefinity

newirishshogun

Bought a radeon 5850, coming soon I have a 32 tv (hdmi) that I never use so I was going to hook it up to the card along with the 2 monitors I do use. both use dvi. Will this work or will I need an active adaptor
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Displayport-male-HDMI-female-converter/dp/B003TTJHV2/ref=sr_1_44?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1282387808&sr=8-44

Thanks

PogMoThoin

Whats the card got? It should mention it in the specs.

newirishshogun

Sorry, yeah its this one :
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=321


2 x Dual-Link DVI
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
from what I read only two are active you need to use the Displayport for a third screen, so I'm assuming that my 2 dvi and a straight hdmi to hdmi wont work?

ED E

PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard.
500 Watt Power Supply is required.
600 Watt Power Supply is recommended for CrossFireX™ System.
2 X 75Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required.
4 X 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required for CrossFireX™ system.
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products.
1024 MB Minimum of system memory.
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive.
DVD playback requires DVD drive.
Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive.
For an ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second same ATI Radeon™ graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (optional) are required.
To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort.

You're outta luck.

Icyseanfitz

no i was looking into this around a week ago for hooking 3 24 inch monitors up (btw what are the size of your monitors as it might be a bit wonky trying to set up two 20ish inch screens to a 32 inch) to a hd 5970 and the way it works is that you can hook any two of your three screens up normally through DVI etc. but on your third screen you have to make a displayport connection and if your screen doesnt have one you need an active displayport adapter like this, the passive adapters wont work so you need an active one (which is usually powered by a usb)
hope this helps and isnt too confusing

newirishshogun

Thanks Lads, yeah thats what I thought, but its €80 and the passive ones are only a tenner. its 2 20" lcds and the 32" Tv. so even if I get the adaptor there could still be probs?

Overheal

To do Eyefinity you can use 2 DVI Monitors, but the Third Screen Must be Displayport. If your third screen doesn't support Displayport you Must use an Active Displayport Adapter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYorUpN4PQo

uberpixie

OP: please clear something up.

1) Do you intend using eyefinity EG: have a game playing n x3 screens at a time

or

2) Have x3 displays running at the same time for windows and use the telly to play movies etc...?

Because if it is just for displaying windows, you should get away with x2 dvi monitors and x1 telly running on hdmi.

Only thing to remember to make sure any program you are using on the telly, if you want sound coming from the telly, you need to set the sound out device as the ATI HDMI output.

Hope this helps.

newirishshogun

uberpixie wrote: »

OP: please clear something up.

1) Do you intend using eyefinity EG: have a game playing n x3 screens at a time

or

2) Have x3 displays running at the same time for windows and use the telly to play movies etc...?

Because if it is just for displaying windows, you should get away with x2 dvi monitors and x1 telly running on hdmi.

Only thing to remember to make sure any program you are using on the telly, if you want sound coming from the telly, you need to set the sound out device as the ATI HDMI output.

Hope this helps.

Ah! good news, yeah the TV was for watching movies, webstuff, the other two for games or video editing. I wont be stretching a game across the three of them, they are different sizes so I suspect it wouldnt look good. maybe if the tv was in the middle, either way cant afford the dongle after splurging on the GFX card. The passive connectors are much cheaper about a tenner I was going to chance it but it seems a waste of time and money after your responses.

Thansk for the replies

Edit: I had a look at the tv it has both a pc in VGA and HDMI connectors, HDMI is the way to go I suspect?

newirishshogun

Overheal wrote: »

To do Eyefinity you can use 2 DVI Monitors, but the Third Screen Must be Displayport. If your third screen doesn't support Displayport you Must use an Active Displayport Adapter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYorUpN4PQo

Thansk for the link, very usefull

uberpixie

newirishshogun wrote: »

Edit: I had a look at the tv it has both a pc in VGA and HDMI connectors, HDMI is the way to go I suspect?

HDMI is the way to go. Much better image quality and you can pipe sound to the telly and have it play through the telly's speakers.

EDIT: Looks like I am wrong. Not looking good mate, you will need a display port adpater of some sort to x2 dvi and a hmdi running at the same time :-(

"However, DisplayPort offers some unique advantages. For our three display setup, the primary advantage is its ability to use an external timing source. Right now, the Radeon HD 5870 (and most dual display graphics cards) have two internal timing sources for DVI/VGA. The 5870 has an HDMI port and a DisplayPort connection in addition to two DVI-I ports.

What this means is that you can have three displays connected, but to do that, you need to have either something called an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter or a true DisplayPort monitor. The two internal timing sources autoswitch between HDMI and DVI, but you can only use two of those ports at the same time. At this point in time, active DP to DVI adapters seem to be as scarce as hen’s teeth."

http://www.improbableinsights.com/2009/10/05/ati-eyefinity-and-three-displays/2/

newirishshogun

uberpixie wrote: »

What this means is that you can have three displays connected, but to do that, you need to have either something called an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter or a true DisplayPort monitor. The two internal timing sources autoswitch between HDMI and DVI, but you can only use two of those ports at the same time. At this point in time, active DP to DVI adapters seem to be as scarce as hen’s teeth."

http://www.improbableinsights.com/2009/10/05/ati-eyefinity-and-three-displays/2/

Dell have em, but crap!

lmimmfn

I have an active adapter but loads over on the widescreen gaming forum have used passive ones successfully( for the sake of a tenner its worth getting one and trying ).

I just wanted something that definately worked so i paid the premium, thing is those Sapphire adapters are getting rarer and rarer to find, back in January i said feck it ill get one at some point in the future. Then in May/June i couldnt find one anywhere, saw them available on pixmania so i got one asap.

Moral of the story - you'll still be able to flog it later and get a decent price for it if you end up that you dont want it or whatever

newirishshogun

lmimmfn wrote: »

I have an active adapter but loads over on the widescreen gaming forum have used passive ones successfully( for the sake of a tenner its worth getting one and trying ).

I just wanted something that definately worked so i paid the premium, thing is those Sapphire adapters are getting rarer and rarer to find, back in January i said feck it ill get one at some point in the future. Then in May/June i couldnt find one anywhere, saw them available on pixmania so i got one asap.

Moral of the story - you'll still be able to flog it later and get a decent price for it if you end up that you dont want it or whatever

True, I know the dell ones work as they're all the same model just rebranded,€80 tho, I'll try the tenner one first

lmimmfn

newirishshogun wrote: »

True, I know the dell ones work as they're all the same model just rebranded,€80 tho, I'll try the tenner one first

definately go for it, a 3 screen setup is absolutely fecking fantastic, i could never go back to 1 screen unless it was the same width and height and didnt cost 5000euro+. Its surprising the amount of games that support eyefinity out of the box. I just bought TrackIR so bought Wings Of Prey and even with 3 screens it looks stunning with a 5850.

WORDS OF WARNING:
1. The lowest common denominator is used for the screen resolution across all screens, so e.g. if you play with a 22" 1680x1050 res screen and the 19" screebs are only 1280x1024 then you MUST use 1280x1024 across all screens.
2. When you start playing it you will want more, i.e. all the same screens
3. In some games you'll have to reduce your settings, i run at 3840x1024, i had to reduce my GTA IV settings over single screen also Crysis Warhead and Bad Company 2, tbh as the 5850 is a damn powerful card in 90% of games ive tested so far i can max them out, might have to reduce AA though
4. You have no bevel management when the 3 screens arent the exact same. Theres a way around this but it means low level tricking OS into thinking theyre all the same, im going to do this sometime, but seems like too much hassle at the moment

newirishshogun

Thanks lmimmfn,
Yeah I'm looking forward to it havent updated my card in a while Nvidea Geforce 8800gts, good in its day but I'm expecting a pretty big jump

OmegaRed

Can I just say that I got my Radeon Toxic HD 5850 - 1 GB yesterday and it is amazing. I have never seen Crysis run so well. I haven't played the game in almost 18 months and I played the first few level last night and it was like playing a new game again! I played inside the ailen ship level and the snow levels and they looked AWESOME!

Would love to give the eyfinity stuff a go but sinking that much moeny into multiple monitos is a bit much... (i'd also want all the exact same monitos)

I'm currently on a 24" monitor with Max res of 1900X1200. Might look into getting a bigger monitor....

Icyseanfitz

OmegaRed wrote: »

Can I just say that I got my Radeon Toxic HD 5850 - 1 GB yesterday and it is amazing. I have never seen Crysis run so well. I haven't played the game in almost 18 months and I played the first few level last night and it was like playing a new game again! I played inside the ailen ship level and the snow levels and they looked AWESOME!

Would love to give the eyfinity stuff a go but sinking that much moeny into multiple monitos is a bit much... (i'd also want all the exact same monitos)

I'm currently on a 24" monitor with Max res of 1900X1200. Might look into getting a bigger monitor....

that monitor is pretty big already good res too i would definitely go with an multi monitor setup as opposed to getting a massive screen as you get a much greater resolution and it is truly immersive, also two 24 inch monitors will probably cost you a lot less than a big fully hd lcd. damn im looking forward to getting my new hd 5970 rig going come on laptop sell god damn it