Eyefinity Ubuntu Lucid

[rohcQaH]

1) To use Eyefinity you need to have at least 1 "native" displayport device, this can be a monitor with displayport, or native adapter.

no, the limitation is "maximum of two outputs with DVI/HDMI or VGA signals". Those formats require another bit of hardware for each output, and ATI didn't want to include 6 of those.

I don't know if those VGA adapters are active, but I haven't heard about tunneling VGA over DP, either. Buying one to test before spending bucks on GPU + 4 adapters might be wise. That way you'll also see if their VGA signal is as good as you like it.

[koshcu]

The problem with that is that I have no devices that use displayport. So the only way I have to test if one of those works is to actually get the card. It sure has been hard actually getting information from amd or any of the vendors about these cards or what works with them.

They make a card with 6 mini-displayport interfaces which is pretty much not used anywhere. If they had 6 mini-hdmi or mini-dvi then it would have been trivial to make this stuff work with any monitor out there. If they had done 6 mini dp+ instead of 4 mini dp and 2 dp+ then this would also not be a problem since you could use 6 passive hdmi/dvi adapters.

For such a nice card it seems like the choice of outputs really screws things up. I went and looked through the active displayport to dvi/hdmi adaptors and it seems like most of them overheat and shut off after a while. Lots of problems where reported for darn near all of them. Based on the forums the VGA ones where a little complex to get windows to recognize the right monitor resolution on the ones that didn't send the EDID information. However I have run into those issues on windows before and on linux it was never an issue since I just put the resolution in the config file. So from everything I read the VGA ones are more reliable in actually working but knowing for sure that they work is so hard to actually find the information on.

I could get two passive mini-displayport to hdmi and two active mini-displayport to hdmi and the active ones will cost about $100 each but it seems like they are even more likely to have problems. I could also replace all 4 of my monitors with newer displayport interface monitors but to get PVA or better panel quality would run about $500-$800 each and that is pretty silly considering the current monitors work flawlessly just not with the port that amd chose which almost no monitors support. I know that TN panels are cheaper but I don't consider a TN panel an option.

[rohcQaH]

It sure has been hard actually getting information from amd or any of the vendors about these cards or what works with them.

you did see this page?
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/...y-dongles.aspx

first google hit for "amd displayport adapters".

For such a nice card it seems like the choice of outputs really screws things up.

yeah, thankfully all the competition has a whopping two outputs! Why can't ATI do better? Stupid ATI

[koshcu]

Yeah I have seen that page. All the VGA adaptors shown on that page are the same kind of design as the ones I found they say they are active in their descriptions on the manufacturer page. However most of the ones on that page are not actually shipping yet. These other ones I found are actually shipping right now.

[fluxion]

If you look up http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...+to+vga+active From what I could see on widescreengaming, stores sites and others the vga adapters are all active.

interesting....really hope this is the case. will try to update to 10.04 tonight (not sure how well that'll go given how slow the repo hosts are right now), but i'll try to provide an update on whether or not i can get 3 displays (1 dvi, 1 vga via displayport, 1 hdmi)

[fluxion]

no, the limitation is "maximum of two outputs with DVI/HDMI or VGA signals". Those formats require another bit of hardware for each output, and ATI didn't want to include 6 of those.

true, sorry, i was thinking specifically about my card which is a bit weird as far as outputs (1 dvi, 1 dp, 1 hdmi, i.e. you need 1 active displayport device for 3)

I don't know if those VGA adapters are active, but I haven't heard about tunneling VGA over DP, either. Buying one to test before spending bucks on GPU + 4 adapters might be wise. That way you'll also see if their VGA signal is as good as you like it.

agreed...even if i get lucky its still quite possible the adapters won't work on the eyefinity 6 card. sucks being guinea pigs but i guess that's the price we pay for buying shiny new things

[fluxion]

interesting....really hope this is the case. will try to update to 10.04 tonight (not sure how well that'll go given how slow the repo hosts are right now), but i'll try to provide an update on whether or not i can get 3 displays (1 dvi, 1 vga via displayport, 1 hdmi)

no luck guys, need to disable 1 of the displays before i get the option to enable the 3rd display in CCC

[koshcu]

What card with what cables? I thought that some of the 5000 series can only do 2 monitors but have 3 outputs on the card and some can do 3 but have 4 outputs on the card and then there are the 6 ones that can do 6 monitors.

[fluxion]

What card with what cables? I thought that some of the 5000 series can only do 2 monitors but have 3 outputs on the card and some can do 3 but have 4 outputs on the card and then there are the 6 ones that can do 6 monitors.

5770 (MSI R5770)

displayport -> vga adapter -> vga cable
hdmi -> hdmi cable
dvi -> dvi cable

does only have 3 outputs but i was pretty sure all the 5770s could do 3 displays at once with the right setup, else i'll need to be returning this bad boy

[koshcu]

5770 (MSI R5770)

displayport -> vga adapter -> vga cable
hdmi -> hdmi cable
dvi -> dvi cable

does only have 3 outputs but i was pretty sure all the 5770s could do 3 displays at once with the right setup, else i'll need to be returning this bad boy

My guess is that card should support 3 displays at the same time. So you can get it working with any two outputs but not the 3rd? What kind of vga adapter do you have?