Gaming with Eyefinity
When you contemplate the idea of gaming at 5,040x2,100, you'll probably imagine a gorgeous ultra-wide image that looks a lot like this:
That's a nice, high-res, seamless gaming screenshot with a wide field of view. Click for the full 10 megapixel image.
The theory's a good one, but the actual result, sadly, isn't seamless at all.
Whilst gaming, it's very, very difficult to ignore the bezels - whether they've been compensated for or not. We should point out that this isn't a fault of AMD's, Eyefinity itself works a treat, but until display manufacturers introduce monitors with ultra-thin bezels, the Eyefinity effect will remain compromised.
Take for example the Crysis Warhead options panels, it's almost impossible to see or change certain settings as a result of bezel compensation.
The same problem becomes immediately obvious in first-person shooters, too. Can anybody see where the centred crosshair is?
There are clearly drawbacks for the end user when gaming with a 3x2 display configuration. So much so that we found ourselves preferring a 3x1 setup, eliminating the horizontal bezel across the middle of our image.
For developers, however, Eyefinity 6 configurations can open the door to a whole new world of possibilities. For a racing title, there's nothing stopping a developer creating a title in which whole monitors could be used as rear-view mirrors.
Trouble is, with Eyefinity 6 destined to remain a niche product - at least for the foreseeable future - how many developers are likely to embrace the technology? The answer, it seems, is not many. At present, only 16 titles are validated for an "optimal" Eyefinity experience, whilst a further 20 that may contain visual imperfections are deemed to be Eyefinity "ready". AMD's official software support list has a useful mix of compatible games, but a number of big name titles aren't supported - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 being a prime example.
There's plenty of work to be done on improving the Eyefinity package - both in terms of hardware (monitors with thin bezels) and software (support for more games) - but the immediate question is this; can AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition deliver acceptable frame rates whilst pushing six displays at a resolution of 5,040x2,100?