Widescreen Gaming Forum

Ok so with alittle reading I think I will settle with the 5870 Eyefinity6, does anyone have a release date for this yet?

[quote]Hi, I did exactly what you are planning to do recently. I had a PLP setup with a Dell 3007 and upgraded by adding two Dell 3008. I also switched from SoftTH to Eyefinity with the 5970. The new setup is impressive when everthing works, but it is still hit and miss for me. Games like Call of Duty: WaW, GRID and the Source titles run totally smooth at high settings, but I haven't had luck others like CoD4 or the Crysis games yet, which I got to run better with SoftTH and a GTX285. I must say it is still early days and I have a lot more experimenting to do.

The 1Gb framebuffer also worries me a bit. FarCry 2, for example, runs smooth as silk but occasionally freezes for a split second when I run or drive. Lowering the detail settings doesn't seem to help. This never happened with my GTX285 with 2Gb VRAM, although it is not as fast. For this reason I think that crossfiring a 5970 would be a suboptimal solution, and I'll wait for cards with more VRAM before I would upgrade again.

Overall I'm very happy with this setup and I certainly recommend it, as you can expect the drivers to improve.

I would think the 2GB frame buffer explains why Crysis ran better on your GTX 285 at that res, since I've heard the game is fairly tough on the graphics memory.

When you say PLP setup, I assume you're talking 4960X1600 with a 30 inch and two 20s? What did you have to do to get Crysis to run on that with a GTX 285?
Although I'm surprised a GTX 285 had enough power to run the game well on a PLP setup
Yes that was a 4960x1600 setup and Crysis was playable on medium settings using SoftTH v1.07 and a GTX 285. With my Eyefinity setup it is currently a slideshow. Maybe it has to do with the larger framebuffer but I've also read that Crysis is friendlier to Nvidia cards.

I've been testing a bunch of games and it is still a mixed bag. Many run perfectly on high settings, but others get totally stuck. You get the feeling that the Eyefinity hardware can definitely drive 7680x1600 with ease, but that the software is often holding it back. I sure hope ATI keeps working hard on those drivers and Crossfire profiles.

Ok so with alittle reading I think I will settle with the 5870 Eyefinity6, does anyone have a release date for this yet?

I saw it previewed early November already I also wonder what is holding it up. Maybe they want to launch it together with those thin-bezel Sammies. If you have the patience, apparently a 5890 is coming early next year that could be even more interesting.

Ok so with alittle reading I think I will settle with the 5870 Eyefinity6, does anyone have a release date for this yet?

I do. :lol: :wink:

Next question:

Can you share it? :mrgreen:

Edit: Retracted.

I do. :lol: :wink:

:doh

:nudgenudge

Next question:

Can you share it? :mrgreen:

Edit: Retracted

Oh please don't do this...

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OK. ;)

Update: after reading that NFS Shift runs better without Crossfire, I disabled Catalyst AI and tried the Crysis games again. They now run fine on medium settings at 7680x1600, impressive for a single GPU. I don't know how Crysis and Crysis Warhead got on the 5970 White list though as Crossfire obviously does not work in Eyefinity mode, at least not at this resolution. Most other games I tried run fine in Crossfire now, which is great.

Dave if you read this maybe you can highlight this issue to your people; I would love to engage the other GPU in Crysis so I can switch on some more eye candy. Thanks in advance!

Edit:
After some research it seems that Crossfire has always been an issue with Crysis so not just a problem with Eyefinity.

Some good news too though: the brief freezes that I experienced with FarCry 2 have disappeared after overclocking my 5970. The frame rate stays above 50 FPS while driving, this is with settings on Very High and no AA. I also do not experience any freezing with other games except for Stalker, which does that without Eyefinity too.

So it seems the 1Gb frame buffer is not that restrictive for gaming at this resolution, although I would love to see some comparison benchmarks at 7680x1600 once the 2Gb cards come out.

I have a 3x30" too, using SoftTh + 285gtx + 8800u, and after some testing it´s true that most games doesn´t need more than 1GB (notable exception is GTA4, and FC2/CRYSIS in the edge of 1GB). That´s of course, without any AA.

But, if you want AA in some games, maybe you need larger framebuffer. For me, GPU power is the bottleneck, not vram. In your case, a 5970 (or better 2x5870) maybe has the raw power needed to move native res + AA in more games with good framerates.


Could you test some games at max res no AA, like Dead Space, Trine and CoD4?

AA is often not not worth the performance hit at 7680x1600 as it doesn't make much difference visually to me. I use AA if the framerate does not drop below around 40FPS, so it very much depends on how easy it is to drive the game in the first place. For example, the Source-based games run fine with high AA.

Of the ones you mention, I play Dead Space with everything maxed out including AA at 40-70 FPS. Trine on the other hand is not entirely smooth with AA so I don't use it, but everything else is maxed out including 8xAF at a very constant framerate in the higher 30s. CoD4 I play at 2xAA and everything else maxed out at 40-60FPS.

I guess I don't have to tell you that with 3x30" Eyefinity is a no-brainer. I used your setup for about a month but found that the number of games you can play comfortably at full res is fairly limited.