Eyefinity setup

[thiko]

Hi,

I have a three monitor setup using a AMD Radeon 7900 series card.


For normal use, I have set the monitors to extended so they all are independent of one another, ie 1, 2, 3, each monitor can display a different screen. I have one for Firefox, one for ie10 and the third for anything else. The cursor travels across all the screens as it should.
This is my problem, when I try to set up for eyefinity (gaming) the monitors are not in the right order. I follow the instructions and click on the highlighted blue screens etc.. But! when it all is set up the cursor does not work from left to right or vice versa, the monitors are not arranged properly. I did manage to set it up once and it was great playing need for speed so I know it can be done. I have followed the utube videos read setup instructions all without success. I have the latest CCC which is not shown in the utube demos
Any help most welcome Mike

 

[BrightCandle]

One thing you can do is change the order of the monitors by just switching around the plugs into the card. AMD's drivers don't do well with switching back and forth from eyefinity, they forget the ordering. 24 months ago that wasn't the case, it worked great but somewhere around December 2011 they messed it up and its been broken ever since. So instead change the order you plug them in so that eyefinity gets it right first time and then extended should also get it right first time and all should be well.

Seems like a daft way to fix it and in many ways I agree, but you work with what you have.

 

[KingFatty]

Agreed. I think there is a chance that the physical ports on the card are tied to the "order" that each monitor is treated by Windows.

So, do the windows settings option to "identify" your monitors where you see each monitor will flash a number.

That number is the order of the ports. So, find monitor 1, see which port it's plugged into, then label that physical port as number 1. Do the same for 2 and 3.

Then, figure out what order you need to have the monitors. I'm thinking the left-most should be 1, middle is 2, right-most is 3. Then, plug the left monitor into the video card's physical port for 1, etc. That should do it.

But, if you can figure out a way to change the number that Windows shows for a physical port, that would be amazing. To my knowledge there is no way to do this, the number identifying a display is tied to the physical port of the video card.

 

[digitaldurandal]

You need to DRAG the screens into order unless they changed something in the drivers. You do not have to use certain physical ports for certain order, the drivers will still get the order incorrect anyways.

You are going to have to fix it every time you switch unfortunately. NV is the same way.

 

[Final8ty]

Agreed. I think there is a chance that the physical ports on the card are tied to the "order" that each monitor is treated by Windows.

So, do the windows settings option to "identify" your monitors where you see each monitor will flash a number.

That number is the order of the ports. So, find monitor 1, see which port it's plugged into, then label that physical port as number 1. Do the same for 2 and 3.

Then, figure out what order you need to have the monitors. I'm thinking the left-most should be 1, middle is 2, right-most is 3. Then, plug the left monitor into the video card's physical port for 1, etc. That should do it.

But, if you can figure out a way to change the number that Windows shows for a physical port, that would be amazing. To my knowledge there is no way to do this, the number identifying a display is tied to the physical port of the video card.

There is a way to get Eyefinity setup to remember the correct order when changing back and forth with Profiles.

My is order 2-1-3.

 

[BrightCandle]

The modern dance I found was that what you needed to do was set save your extended profile. Then switch the settings to eyefinity, save it. Then click the extended, it wouldn't work so fix it and save it, then switch to surround, that too wouldn't work but fix it and save it and then when you next switch to extended it would work and switching back to eyefinity would now also remember the settings.

Its a bug that was introduced back nearly 1.5 years ago as I said and you can sometimes coax it into working but on some of the driver releases last year that procedure didn't work for me and I had to resort to physical cable changes. Because you will basically end up doing this silly profile setup everytime AMD release a driver (which is like every other day at the moment because their drivers are pretty broken) you will want to do the physical port change in preference if you can do.

The software dance often works but its not fun on every driver change to have to do each profile twice, its bad enough having to do it once.

 

[Final8ty]

The modern dance I found was that what you needed to do was set save your extended profile. Then switch the settings to eyefinity, save it. Then click the extended, it wouldn't work so fix it and save it, then switch to surround, that too wouldn't work but fix it and save it and then when you next switch to extended it would work and switching back to eyefinity would now also remember the settings.

Its a bug that was introduced back nearly 1.5 years ago as I said and you can sometimes coax it into working but on some of the driver releases last year that procedure didn't work for me and I had to resort to physical cable changes. Because you will basically end up doing this silly profile setup everytime AMD release a driver (which is like every other day at the moment because their drivers are pretty broken) you will want to do the physical port change in preference if you can do.

The software dance often works but its not fun on every driver change to have to do each profile twice, its bad enough having to do it once.

It remembers mine on driver updates.

 

[BrightCandle]

It remembers mine on driver updates.

Doesn't work for the OP, doesn't work for the other responder and it certainly never worked for me. The inconsistency with AMD's driver is itself a concern but the fact it works for you really doesn't help the OP at all.

Do you have something constructive to say that helps the OP or are you just here as part of the AMD fan crowd to say everything is perfect when it clearly isn't?!

 

[Final8ty]

Doesn't work for the OP, doesn't work for the other responder and it certainly never worked for me. The inconsistency with AMD's driver is itself a concern but the fact it works for you really doesn't help the OP at all.

Do you have something constructive to say that helps the OP or are you just here as part of the AMD fan crowd to say everything is perfect when it clearly isn't?!

Im only pointing out that it's not the same for everyone, but you always seem to post as if it is, ofcorse a problem thread is going to attract people with similar issues.

 

[KingFatty]

The way I handle it is to use the Windows+P hotkey. So set up extended under one hotkey (extended), toggle to another one (duplicate) and set up eyefinity there. Then just switch back and forth that way. You don't have to even mess around with the eyefinity settings after setting it up, just the built-in windows hotkey.

 

[thiko]

Thanks for all replies, it has given much food for thought.

KingFatty I tried the windows+p keys and got up a small screen with the 4 windows.
That's as far as I got, could you explain in further (simple) detail how to go from from there, this looks like it could be the answer.
Thanks Mike

 

[p_monks33]

I always had issues with this, the profiles would either forget the monitor order, or would require a restart to apply them. Thats the glory of CCC being somewhat flaky for multi-monitor solutions. Add a 2nd card into the mix and things get even dicier, don't really know of any solutions for it 100%. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[thiko]

I have been looking into the monitor order set-up arrangements as suggested.

Going into CCC Common display tasks/detect displays I get
2-1-3.

Then I go to CCC Desktop manag/creating and arranging desktops. It shows a three display set-up 1-2-3 with the centre (2) showing a star as primary display. In the 'Please select a display' box I see three monitors arranged as
2-3-1

If I left click on any of the black arrows on the three display to identify all I get 1-3-2

I am getting more and more confused, most probably most of you will be too after reading this.
What is the true order given the above details,, the more I think about it the more I think about changing the leads around, to do this it would help to know the actual order they are in now.

Hope this all makes sense. Mike

 

[KingFatty]

Thanks for all replies, it has given much food for thought.

KingFatty I tried the windows+p keys and got up a small screen with the 4 windows.
That's as far as I got, could you explain in further (simple) detail how to go from from there, this looks like it could be the answer.
Thanks Mike

Pressing win+p once brings up the menu. You can hold down the windows key and press p repeatedly to cycle through the options. Or release both keys, and press win+p again, to cycle. When you stop cycling, that option will be selected.

Or, press win+p to bring up the menu option, then use the mouse to click one of the options.

All I know is that I could use that menu to switch seamlessly between extended mode, with all 3 monitors being separate displays for desktop use, and eyefinity mode where all 3 monitors behave like one big monitor for widescreen gaming.

Maybe try using win+p to select "computer only" then right click desktop and go to screen resolution properties to activate all your screens. Then go to the eyefinity control panel to set that up.

Do you ever get to the screen where it makes one screen blue and you have to click to select which screen it is? Keep in mind I'm not using a 7XXX series card so maybe your experience is different. But that's the part that tells eyefinity which display is positioned where.

 

[thiko]

It's all sorted. I followed the advice of changing the plugs to the monitors. From there on it was all plain sailing. I keep the displays in eyefinity mode, when I want to use the displays as a 'normal' setup I open for example Firefox, shrink it and drag it to the center display, I then adjust it's size to fill the screen. Then I open ie9 as my second browser shrink it and drag it to the left display, adjust to fit the screen. If I want to open say Google earth, I open it and drag it to the right display. So I have three independent displays but still in eyefinity mode for gaming. When I want to play 'need for speed, rail works or FSX I just open as normal and they automatically get displayed in eyefinity. Need for Speed and Railworks are awesome, cant quite get used to FSX though.
Anyway thanks for all your inputs, got there in the end . Mike