need help from ati guru

[pnico]

hi,
I just got eyefinity running across 3 lcd's that vary slightly in size. One is 24", the other 23' and the other 22. So eyefinity saw that the common res across all 3 was 1680x1050..and the eyefinity combined res is 5040x1050..

problem are as follows:

1. In alien vs predator..I run the game at the max size of eyefnity monitors 5040x1050..and it runs well until I crank up the aa from 2-4..then its unplayable..
ati rep tells me its a possible driver issue..

it gets so shoppy I move the marine forward and it takes a good 30 seconds for him to actually move..

HOWEVER when i set the game down a bit to a smaller eyefinity display, like 2400x600 the games runs REALLY fast..all details max and 4xaa
so going between 5040x1050 and 2400x600 the performance with 4xaa drops..
im running a single 5970 form sapphire..

my second problem is ..
flickering...

I cant overclock my card in ccc to anything above the default value or the card will flicker so bad, I often even lose the display and am forced to restart..

any ideas on this?

Does it make sense to get a second 5970 or wait for the 5970's from asus or sapphire that are supposed to be overclocked to a higher gpu speed?

thanks for any feedback

 

[mister g]

The flickering is an issue with the graphics card that ATI hasn't fixed yet. The AA problem is really the fault of AA. AA is really intense on a graphics card especially if your running a game between three monitors, as the card isn't already stressed enough. As for the cads their really expensive and are very power hungry, such that ATI had to lower the clock speeds to stay within the ATX standard of 300W per card tops.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Spooky, I was talking to a friend yesterday who was saying that he had something like that going on as well but he's using an SLi set up, he was saying that it seems to freeze for a couple of seconds then run butter smooth and it had nothing to do with SLi as the game only uses one card.

 

[pnico]

im looking for the best in graphics performance..
I have the eyefinity setup and have a single 5970.
Do i get another 5970 and run them in quadfire or wait and get a 5970 xfx or sapphire with the extra ram (6 gigs)

will the extra memory help?

Im able to run alien vs predator and bad company 2 at 5040x1050..the max I get on my lcd's but when I get to that higher 4xaa (in avp) or 8xaa (in bad company 2) the card struggles.. on a lower aa is runs FAST!

I know ati resellers are releasing the 5970 with more memory.. is it worth getting another 5970?

thanks

 

[pnico]

also is it better to have 3 23" lcd or one 35+ " lcd?

 

[shadow187]

If you want, and your pockets are deep, return your HD5970 and grab the ASUS ARES 5970. Or the HD5990 that's coming out real soon.

As for monitor size, I'd go with 3x monitors. A single monitor will have more blurred edges, which you'll want AA to fix.

 

[pnico]

what is the 5990? and the ares 5970? pockets are faily deep yes

Id want the best cards available.. is this 5990 a dual gpu card? how is it better than the 5970?

 

[mister g]

The 5990 doesn't exist, the 5970 is currently AMD's only dual-pcb 5 series card. Though it may come out in the future there has been no mention of it by AMD, we don't even know if it exist.

 

[jyjjy]

I believe the HD5990 is an HD5970 that is overclocked slightly and has twice as much ram. It's not an official ATI card but rather a special version of the HD5970 made only by Sapphire.
The thing to keep in mind is that your performance should be directly related to resolution. So when you say you dropped down from 5040x1050 to 2400x600 that is a huge amount. 5040x1050 is 5.3 million pixels while 2400x600 is only 1.44 million pixels. The 35" inch LCD you mentioned is most likely actually an HDTV with a resolution of only 1080p(1920x1080.) The highest resolution monitors are 2560x1600, they are usually $1000+ and around 30".
If I remember properly you can get 3 1920x1080 monitors and place them on their sides for a 3240x1920 overall resolution which always sounded like it would be a more optimal aspect ratio to me.