Eyefinity COD MW2 +L4D2

[Oakenfold]

Didn't see anything posted here about the above two games.
Does anyone have some FPS to share running a 5870 or 5850 @ 5760x1200?
I've watched a few of the youtube video's and read @ 3dguru and some other sites but thought I'd ask a fellow at'er.

 

[cbn]

Didn't see anything posted here about the above two games.
Does anyone have some FPS to share running a 5870 or 5850 @ 5760x1200?
I've watched a few of the youtube video's and read @ 3dguru and some other sites but thought I'd ask a fellow at'er.

I would like to see this tested myself.

Maybe a tech site will be able to do cpu scaling tests in the future also?

 

[Caerid]

Not exactly the same resolution but i've tried eyefinity at 5040x1050 in L4D2 with a 5850 and it hardly ever dips below 60fps usually hovering around in the 80-100 area. It seems the performance hit is pretty linear, in single screen I'm usually seeing 200-300's

 

[Oakenfold]

Not exactly the same resolution but i've tried eyefinity at 5040x1050 in L4D2 with a 5850 and it hardly ever dips below 60fps usually hovering around in the 80-100 area. It seems the performance hit is pretty linear, in single screen I'm usually seeing 200-300's

Thanks for the response. I couldn't hold out any longer and went for a 5870 (hopefully it will be worth the cash, if it is playable it's a win in my book), when I get it I'll post an update if I can tear myself away from my computer, should be here on Thursday.

 

[Caerid]

No problem. Yea you won't regret it, unless you run into the headaches involved with the displayport if you don't have a monitor that does not support it natively.

I'm one of those people that prefer playing fps games with a 100+fps if I can. (I currently have the 2233rz monitor that supports 120hz refresh) But I find myself not minding the lower fps because of the extra immersion I gain from the extra fov the other two monitors provide.

Oh and keep us updated on your impressions when you finally get your card. I had a choice between the 5850 and 5870 but decided on the 5850 because of price and did not think gaming at my resolution would really warrant the 5870, though now that I think I'll be using eyefinity alot more I may have to consider upgrading to the 5870 or 5970

 

[Oakenfold]

No problem. Yea you won't regret it, unless you run into the headaches involved with the displayport if you don't have a monitor that does not support it natively.

I'm one of those people that prefer playing fps games with a 100+fps if I can. (I currently have the 2233rz monitor that supports 120hz refresh) But I find myself not minding the lower fps because of the extra immersion I gain from the extra fov the other two monitors provide.

Oh and keep us updated on your impressions when you finally get your card. I had a choice between the 5850 and 5870 but decided on the 5850 because of price and did not think gaming at my resolution would really warrant the 5870, though now that I think I'll be using eyefinity alot more I may have to consider upgrading to the 5870 or 5970

I should be good on the monitors, I'm going to be using 2x Dell 2408, 1x2410. To be on the safe side I also ordered a displayport cable from Monoprice after reading about some problems with the bundled Dell displayport cables.

I don't seem to be bothered with FPS unless of course it starts dropping below 30-35 fps, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

UPS tracking shows both packages enroute for delivery today, kudos to Monoprice and Newegg for having super customer service!

Will keep you updated.

 

[Oakenfold]

I got around to installing the card today. The specs for my rig are:
AMD 550 XII Black running @ 3100 mhz.
AMX RX780 Chipset motherboard (budget board here folks!) M4A78+
8GB DDRII 800 Corsair XMS
XFX Radeon 5870 running catalyst 9.12
2x 2408
1x 2410
2 DVI cables and 1 displayport cable from Monoprice

Configuring 3 monitors
I highly suggest anyone walking through this to read through the ATI briefing on eyefinity as it is basically a walkthrough on how to setup the displays using the Catalyst Control Center. Being a Nvidia user since the Radeon 9700 I am not familiar with the ATI Graphic Suite. The briefing document will help quite a bit if you take a minute to read it prior to fooling with the software.

http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/ATI_Eyefinity_Technology_Brief.pdf

For some reason my group does not stay in it's arranged position permanently, I've had to change the setting a few times already as for some reason it changes on it's own which is rather frustrating (user error somehow?). No clue but hey that's not why you are reading this post.

Running games @ 5760x1200, using FRAPS to record FPS:
Left4dead 2- everything on high, first level played through (the smoky escape map) Min FPS 33, Max FPS 64, Avg 57.21.

Crysis- settings on high, really took a hit here, avg is 21FPS and only played the first 5-10 minutes. I can only imagine the later part of the game is brutal at this resolution.

Stalker Call of Pripyat Benchmark, high settings. Fraps not used on this one. Avg FPS on Day, Night , Rain and Sun Shafts: 40, 35, 36, 4.2 (not sure about this last one, min is 23 and max is 31).

Note: I have had one lockup with the card so far.

Initial impression: not enough time spent yet with gaming, pleased with the framerates so far, main concerns are motion sickness (I'm normally not with videogames, but when you have an immersive environment like this it changes the whole meaning, took a dramamine to continue gaming....). I think what's amazing here is like Guru3d mentions is that you can game on a budget setup, my rig is the definition of that minus the videocard of course...

I will update the thread when I spend some more time trying out the card on some different levels in l4d2, MW2, and Crysis.

Impressions after 2 or more hours gaming:
I'm finding some games like l4d2 to make me more prone to motion sickness, haven't played it that much to be honest so maybe it will be better after I spend more time with it. I got hooked playing Mechwarrior Living Legends the mod for Crysis. I'm finding it easier to focus on the center screen, after a while I don't notice the monitor bezels.

I've gamed with HDTV's and I have to say this experience far surpasses using an HDTV due to the immersive feeling from using 3 24" monitors. If you are looking for a surreal gaming experience this is it. If it means I have to take a motion sickness pill to enjoy certain games then I'm all for it as I can't see going back to 1920x1200 after running this beauty.

I still have yet to play MW2, I'm holding out for a patch from IW as I really don't want to risk my steam account. Now I just need more time to play games!

To anyone that is considering running eyefinity I would say to go for it. I'd do it again. The only change I would make would be to swap my 2408's for 2410's to have a matching set of three but I'm really picky so take that for what it's worth (just my .02).

 

[Caerid]

Thanks for the update.

I seemed to have had the same teething problems you have with eyefinity. I know a few of them are driver related. The arrangement switching is annoying, especially if you're swapping between extended modes and grouped. In my case it seems it would default to a certain arrangement so I just ended up swapping the cables around to fit that setup that its always wanting to default to.

I actually had a few headaches when I first started messing around with the eyefinity in fps games. There's just a lot more to take in. After a while though I've gotten used to it. Seems to have changed the way I play in general as well, not having to mouse around to look at areas as much as I used to was something that came gradually, and probably what helped with the slight motion sickness.

Eyefinity to me is like a silent feature, something you don't notice till it's gone. It's sorta like AA for me, I'm not one who gets annoyed at jaggies and I honestly don't really notice them at the res I play at. But if I were to turn that feature on and play with it for an extended period of time and then have it turned off those jagged edges will appear to be alot worse than I remembered. I actually only intended to see what eyefinity was like and go back to my single monitor for games but it gets abit harder to do so now.

Btw if you plan on playing mw2 you'll need that widescreen fixer program to have it work. There seems to be some debate whether it's ok to use but I've been using it with no problems so far.

I'm pretty sure they won't fix any problems you've had but have you applied that hotfix as well?

 

[Oakenfold]

Thanks for the update.

I seemed to have had the same teething problems you have with eyefinity. I know a few of them are driver related. The arrangement switching is annoying, especially if you're swapping between extended modes and grouped. In my case it seems it would default to a certain arrangement so I just ended up swapping the cables around to fit that setup that its always wanting to default to.

I actually had a few headaches when I first started messing around with the eyefinity in fps games. There's just a lot more to take in. After a while though I've gotten used to it. Seems to have changed the way I play in general as well, not having to mouse around to look at areas as much as I used to was something that came gradually, and probably what helped with the slight motion sickness.

Eyefinity to me is like a silent feature, something you don't notice till it's gone. It's sorta like AA for me, I'm not one who gets annoyed at jaggies and I honestly don't really notice them at the res I play at. But if I were to turn that feature on and play with it for an extended period of time and then have it turned off those jagged edges will appear to be alot worse than I remembered. I actually only intended to see what eyefinity was like and go back to my single monitor for games but it gets abit harder to do so now.

Btw if you plan on playing mw2 you'll need that widescreen fixer program to have it work. There seems to be some debate whether it's ok to use but I've been using it with no problems so far.

I'm pretty sure they won't fix any problems you've had but have you applied that hotfix as well?

I'm glad to hear the motion sickness and headaches have decreased for you, I'm hoping they will go away in time as well.

Edit-
No idea what happened to my text there, just got around to trying MW2, have been debating the hotfix since it's not from IW (I'm only concerned about my Steam account). Updated post with Crysis info.

 

[Oakenfold]

Updated post with Stalker CoP benchmark and additional comments after gaming for a few hours. If you haven't tried Mechwarrior Living Legends go download it now!
http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/

 

[Tempered81]

Yes, you will need the Widescreen fixer tool to use with MW2 to give the correct aspect ratio.

 

[Rebel44]

..., just got around to trying MW2, have been debating the hotfix since it's not from IW (I'm only concerned about my Steam account). Updated post with Crysis info.

VAC shouldnt be problem because VAC bans only for changes in core files. You can also try to ask Steam support to be sure.

 

[soccerballtux]

Can you take a picture of your setup with game/s running? Thanks.