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Rocky_53

Anyone using eyefinity + 3 screens?

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I'm in the process of getting info and specs on a 3 monitoir setup and am looking at dropping my GTX580 in favour for the ATI 6970 2gb + Eyefinity, to run on 3 x 1920x1200 24" screens. If there is anyone who has got that setup and can offer some advice I'd be grateful. I am particularly interested in the kind of performance hit (if any) I am likely to get if I run this setup in VC. The other option for me is to go SLI with another 580 or use TH2go, and either way the costs begin to get unrealistic for me. Selling the 580, which is only four months old, would allow me to get the cheaper ATI comparible card and go with eyfinity... what do you guys think?


Howard
MSI Mag B650 Tomahawk MB, Ryzen7-7800X3D CPU@5ghz, Arctic AIO II 360 cooler, Nvidia RTX3090 GPU, 32gb DDR5@6000Mhz, SSD/2Tb+SSD/500Gb+OS, Corsair 1000W PSU, Philips BDM4350UC 43" 4K IPS, MFG Crosswinds, TQ6 Throttle, Fulcrum One Yoke
My FlightSim YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@skyhigh776

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I dont think the TH2GO will drive those three monitors at their native resolution (maybe be wrong) and not in portratit mode either.Personally Ive spent a lot of money on an ATI card for FSX and been disappointed. Bought a GTX285 instead. That it not to say they aren't considerably better now but I decided not to risk it.The GTX580's in SLI certainly drive them in portrait or landscape although it is still a bit of a struggle with everything maxed and on a 2600K at 4.9Ghz.Regards from another Howard.

Edited by DescendDescend

Regards

 

Howard

 

H D Isaacs

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I dont think the TH2GO will drive those three monitors at their native resolution (maybe be wrong) and not in portratit mode either.Personally Ive spent a lot of money on an ATI card for FSX and been disappointed. Bought a GTX285 instead. That it not to say they aren't considerably better now but I decided not to risk it.The GTX580's in SLI certainly drive them in portrait or landscape although it is still a bit of a struggle with everything maxed and on a 2600K at 4.9Ghz.Regards from another Howard.
Why are you at such a high voltage? I am @ 1.376 running @ 4.8GHZ.You are 100MHZ higher with WAY higher voltage.... I just find that kind of odd

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Guest jahman
Personally Ive spent a lot of money on an ATI card for FSX and been disappointed
Are you running with Bojote's SM3 mod?Cheers,- jahman.

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Regarding 3 sceens...... FPS are a joke... I hated it and sold 2 of 'em and now only have 1 23inch Acer.

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When using 3 screens and display a seperate FSX view at each one, the frame rate drop will be huge.With TH2go you just display one image across three screens. So you only get a bigger image size, the view angle isn't extended however. Frame rate isn't effected in this situation.When using eyefinity, the same reasoning can be applied. If you display several different views (for example one forward and two sidewards) the frame rate drop will be huge again.

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Wow fellas, some great advice there and sounds like you may all have saved me not an insignificant amount of anguish, not to mention cash! so where do i go from here? What do I have to do to run three monitors in VC and get 25frames?


Howard
MSI Mag B650 Tomahawk MB, Ryzen7-7800X3D CPU@5ghz, Arctic AIO II 360 cooler, Nvidia RTX3090 GPU, 32gb DDR5@6000Mhz, SSD/2Tb+SSD/500Gb+OS, Corsair 1000W PSU, Philips BDM4350UC 43" 4K IPS, MFG Crosswinds, TQ6 Throttle, Fulcrum One Yoke
My FlightSim YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@skyhigh776

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Guest jahman
Wow fellas, some great advice there and sounds like you may all have saved me not an insignificant amount of anguish, not to mention cash! so where do i go from here? What do I have to do to run three monitors in VC and get 25frames?
Not so fast!There are a number of folks out there getting great results from their Matrox TH2Go (Digital Edition, Displayv Port version). Now the TH2Go is fairly expensive and has been obsoleted by AMD Eyefinity and nVidia 3D Surround (used in 2D mode) multimonitor technologies that achieve the same task (including bezel hiding) at no additional cost.The key issue with multimonitor is how you use the monitors. Each set-up has advantages and disadvantages.A. Multiple Monitors as a Single Monitor:Advantage: Great for VC use, especially with TrackIR, and only a mild drop in FPS,Disadvantage: Bezel fighting, i.e. monitor bezels interfere visually with flightdeck windscreen columns (especially the center one on a 3-screen setup).B. Multiple Monitors as Individual Monitors:Advantage: Can have a large single monitor for VC use (the largest you can afford with the highest possible resolution) and the smaller monitors for undocked instrument panels.Disadvantage: Spanning the VC over two or three monitors drmatically impacts FPS.This is the set-up finally decided on.Cheers,- jahman. Edited by jahman

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Why are you at such a high voltage? I am @ 1.376 running @ 4.8GHZ.You are 100MHZ higher with WAY higher voltage.... I just find that kind of odd
!) I dont think my voltage is particularly high for 4.9 with HT on. My chip will run at 1.368 volts 4.73Ghz with HT on which compares favourably with your 4.8 HT off. In fact maybe your 2700K should clock a bit better.2) 4.7+ is where the 'wall' starts to get steep for my chip. So 4.8 HT on is 1.4V and 4.9 HT on is as quoted. 5Ghz is only reasonable with HT off at about 1.48 volts. Too much for me.3) I'm not too concerned about degradation now as Ivy Bridge is out soon.With respect to the frame drop, it is of course significant because I am poking around 4.56 + million pixels. I prefer to suffer the lower frame rates and excellent field of view and would not use a single monitor again. Frame rates generally are around 15fps with everything maxed at UK2000 Gatwick Extreme or FtX Melbourne with the NGX. The other thing that drags it down would be AS2012 overcast. 'Normal' flight is in th 20-30 range.Bojote's Tweaks are applied with BP=0Edit:Just following up TH2GO info, it will run at 5760 x1080 but you would have 5760 x 1200 monitors (same as me in theory) so they would not run at their native resolution. Also no portrait mode is available. I changed from landscape to portrait in the VC as landscape was too wide and narrow. Having a large (1920) vertical view is much better to me. Edited by DescendDescend

Regards

 

Howard

 

H D Isaacs

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!) I dont think my voltage is particularly high for 4.9 with HT on. My chip will run at 1.368 volts 4.73Ghz with HT on which compares favourably with your 4.8 HT off. In fact maybe your 2700K should clock a bit better.2) 4.7+ is where the 'wall' starts to get steep for my chip. So 4.8 HT on is 1.4V and 4.9 HT on is as quoted. 5Ghz is only reasonable with HT off at about 1.48 volts. Too much for me.3) I'm not too concerned about degradation now as Ivy Bridge is out soon.With respect to the frame drop, it is of course significant because I am poking around 4.56 + million pixels. I prefer to sufferthe lower frame rates and excellent field of view and would not use a single monitor again. Frame rates generally are around 15fps with everything maxed at UK2000 Gatwick Extreme or FtX Melbourne with the NGX. The other thing that drags it down would be AS2012 overcast. 'Normal' flight is in th 20-30 range.Bojote's Tweaks are applied with BP=0
Didn't see that HT was on....... That explains alot *FACEPALM*

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Not so fast!There are a number of folks out there getting great results from their Matrox TH2Go (Digital Edition, Displayv Port version). Now the TH2Go is fairly expensive and has been obsoleted by AMD Eyefinity and nVidia 3D Surround (used in 2D mode) multimonitor technologies that achieve the same task (including bezel hiding) at no additional cost.The key issue with multimonitor is how you use the monitors. Each set-up has advantages and disadvantages.A. Multiple Monitors as a Single Monitor:Advantage: Great for VC use, especially with TrackIR, and only a mild drop in FPS,Disadvantage: Bezel fighting, i.e. monitor bezels interfere visually with flightdeck windscreen columns (especially the center one on a 3-screen setup).B. Multiple Monitors as Individual Monitors:Advantage: Can have a large single monitor for VC use (the largest you can afford with the highest possible resolution) and the smaller monitors for undocked instrument panels.Disadvantage: Spanning the VC over two or three monitors drmatically impacts FPS.This is the set-up finally decided on.Cheers,- jahman.
Thanks Jahman, there is so much to consider, I need to get a long drink and spend quite some time looking at my options.
Frame rates generally are around 15fps with everything maxed at UK2000 Gatwick Extreme or FtX Melbourne with the NGX.
:Shocked: 15 frames? That ain't no good for me

Howard
MSI Mag B650 Tomahawk MB, Ryzen7-7800X3D CPU@5ghz, Arctic AIO II 360 cooler, Nvidia RTX3090 GPU, 32gb DDR5@6000Mhz, SSD/2Tb+SSD/500Gb+OS, Corsair 1000W PSU, Philips BDM4350UC 43" 4K IPS, MFG Crosswinds, TQ6 Throttle, Fulcrum One Yoke
My FlightSim YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@skyhigh776

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This is what it looks like with VC on 3 screens. Apologies for dodgy camera work and rollout. Not enough hands. FPS was in the 20+ zone in this example but not too many clouds.

Edited by DescendDescend

Regards

 

Howard

 

H D Isaacs

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Thanks for the post Howard (great name) I see you have 2 x GTX580s.Mmmm.. yet again more food for thought.


Howard
MSI Mag B650 Tomahawk MB, Ryzen7-7800X3D CPU@5ghz, Arctic AIO II 360 cooler, Nvidia RTX3090 GPU, 32gb DDR5@6000Mhz, SSD/2Tb+SSD/500Gb+OS, Corsair 1000W PSU, Philips BDM4350UC 43" 4K IPS, MFG Crosswinds, TQ6 Throttle, Fulcrum One Yoke
My FlightSim YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@skyhigh776

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I sometimes run Eyefinity, but on my 2.5 year old 5870 1GB VRAM it does hit my FPS, so I normally prefer to use the second monitors to display the kneeboard or GPS windows.I am however considering a video card upgrade either to two 580s in surround mode or one of the new 7970s in Eyefinity.The 7970 perf tests I have seen show it has a ~90% performance increase compared to my current 5870 the only thing is I haven't seen any reports of how the 7970 does specifically in FSX (I assume it will be best with SuperSampling on like past ATI cards)Just for reference I ran the FSXMark11 benchmark on my normal FSX config with REX+UT2 plus 4X SuperSampling and 16AF enabled, locked at 30FPS, so this is my normal FSX config and not comparable to the sanitary normal FSXMark11 bench settings, but you can compare how my normal flying FSX config performs at Eyefinity settings:3 monitors at 1920x1080 fullscreen (left and right monitors are available for FSX windows like kneeboard or GPS) 30FPS internal locked.Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 8958, 300000, 23, 31, 29.8603 monitors as one 4800x900 Eyefinity fullscreen 30 FPS internal locked.Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 7601, 300000, 14, 31, 25.3373 monitors as one 5760x1080 Eyefinity fullscreen window 30 FPS internal locked.Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 6123, 300000, 13, 27, 20.410I am hoping that the 7970's 90% perf increase over my 5870 and also it's 3GB VRAM increase over my current 1GB VRAM will improve the Eyefinity performance in Eyefinity 5760x1080 resolution especially since I use SSAA and that tends to use up the 1GB VRAM pretty easily at high resolutions.Anyhow hope the info helps (keep in mind my 5870 is 3 generations old now) and I will post results if/when I do make the move to either the two 580s or the one 7970 (more likely), for me even when not using the Eyefinity, the left and right monitors are useful in FSX for having GPS and Kneeboard open when needed without taking up the main cockpit view, not to mention when not in FSX and just having more screenspace for work/browsing/streaming video.

Edited by kludger

--John near KPAE

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Guest jahman
This is what it looks like with VC on 3 screens. Apologies for dodgy camera work and rollout. Not enough hands. FPS was in the 20+ zone in this example but not too many clouds.
Your setup does look nice!I see though you are not using TrackIR?Also the monitor bezels seem to get in the way regardless of bezel hiding: If you enable bezel hiding, then the physcal bezels hide parts of the instrument panel and you have to move your head sideways to see what's behind. But if you disable bezel hiding, then your screen visuals don't line up. So have you thought of removing the bezels? Is that even possible?I ask these questions because I would also prefer a 2 or 3 screen VC, but the bezels seem to keep getting in the way.Cheers,- jahman.

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