I've been running the Eyefinity 6 on the Dell T7500 for a few weeks. Mostly it's been great to compare bugs we find with M9188. I'm sure the EyeFinity 6 kicks ass in gaming and is a high-performing card, but I still find it highly annoying for running in 6 displays. I was going to use the word "performant" but apparently it's not an English word. [It's a perfectly good French word however]
Other then the issues I've already complained about, the fact it requires active displayport to DVI adapters on 4 of it's 6 heads when you use DVI, it has other really annoying behaviors.
Lets say you trip over a cable and one of your monitors get unplugged. Then all your monitors go black while it and Windows 7 decides how it's going to reconfigure your displays. So if you had display 1 on a particular monitor, now it might be display 5. Because 1 and 5 are really the same to windows, I mean who cares if monitor 5 is at the other end of the bench far away from your mouse and keyboard. Unplugging and replugging to get the layout you want might be a waste of time because each time you change something around it also changes things around for you.
With M9188 if I unplug 1 monitor, that monitor goes black. It doesn't matter if I was using displayport, dvi or analog. I can even swap between the 3 and it will not affect the config of any of the other outputs. They will continue to display and the monitors will stay exactly how you configured them.
Each time anyone of us touches anything with the Eyefinity 6 it takes 2 of us to figure out how to get it back in the config we want again.Their drivers aren't particularly intuitive to install or to uninstall for that matter, and the features they offer aren't as useful as the features offered on M9188 to manage the desktops. Ati's idea of desktop management is where you put your displays. M9188's idea of desktop management is to help you manage your applications on layouts with more then 2 screens.
Anyone who uses an M9188 who complains about how to configure it has never used an Eyefinity 6. Sure the M9188 does not have great 3D performance, but this isn't it's market. However the M9188 is highly configurable and very user friendly. The features offered are aimed at making a multiple monitor layout a pleasant experience and offers features to help in that respect.
Part of ATI's mistake is letting Windows 7 handle most of the work. You'd think Microsoft would realize that no one runs with 1 display anymore, and in fact if there is a gaming card out with 6 displays it means it's client base wants good support for multiple monitors. However this is not the case. It was obvious the first time I put a pair of ATI FireMV 2400 PCIe x1 card in a system, attached a monitor to each of the 8 heads and let Windows 7 load the driver that was already in the OS. The screens flashed on and off for over 15 minutes. By the time it finished the third head of one of the two cards was the primary display. I had to reboot 3 more times to get a usable layout.
Showing posts with label M9188. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M9188. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Eyefinity 6 - Not User friendly - the continuation
I got to understand the Eyefinity 6 a bit better today. If I had used 6 Displayport LCD's I would not have had the issue I ran into when using 6 DVI LCD's. As it went I ended using 2 Displayport LCD's, and 4 DVI. I had to use my Bizlink Dual-Link to displayport active adapters on 2 of the heads to get them going. I originally tried my Apple DL to mini displayport adapters since those are also active and while they lit the monitors in windows, they were enabled at 640x480 and no other mode was available. Overall M-series displayport products work with most adapters out there. They ship with Bizlink adapters because they overall worked the best with the product and they don't officially support anything else, but they work with all the apple adapters, though the analog apple adapter is bitchy in my opinion. You're better off with monoprice then apple any day.
On M9188 we can use adapters that are 'passive' I guess. At least single link DVI to displayport. The Analog to displayport have to be active since they have to convert digital signal from card to analog and the Dual link DVI to displayport is active. I just found an article that kind explains/highlights the problems I was having with the Eyefinity. Slowly I am adding displayport monitors in my team. Most of my employees have anywhere between 4 and 8 displayport LCD's at this point. The bBench where I happened to setup the Eyefinity has no displayport LCD's. I had to put 10ft cables on 2 on the bench next to it. The bench where I test 16 heads has 16 LCD's all DVI/Analog and nothing else.
Connections problems aside their interface to configure monitors in windows is non-intuitive. Instead of helping client make a desktop it lets mostly Windows arrange monitors. So while you boot on the first/second head of the card, these became heads 5 & 6 in windows and then the monitor layout I got in the only 6 headed stretch mode offered was just strange. I'll have to play with it some more, but I find it hard to configure. The Powerdesk interface to configure one or two M9188 is quite friendly and reasonably intuitive. I've never had newbies using it who have a hard time using the interface to get where they want to be. The questions I get usually are on the stranger features for niche markets, like edge overlap.
The Eyefinity offers a limited number of configurations with their 6 heads. The merge options are 2x1, 1x2, 3x1, 4x1, 2x2 and 3x2 and then I believe the choice of modes for those configs are also limited. I only had 3 resolution choices with the 3x2 .
With a M9188, you can do just about every permutation of a rectangular/square shape that windows supports with 8 heads. So things like 2x1, 1x2, 3x1, 1x3, 1x4, 2x2, 4x1, 1x5, 5x1, 6x1, 3x2, 2x3, 1x6, 7x1,1x7, 8x1, 4x2, 2x4, 1x8 can all be done with our interface. additionally I could do 2 x 2x2's or 2 x 4x1's or 1x4's or even a 2x2 plus 2 independent displays plus 2 displays cloned if that was the layout I wanted. We also offer standard resolutions which most monitors support today, as well as all the resolutions supported by the monitors connected.
So assuming I'm using 1680x1050 monitors for each of those layouts listed above I will have a minimum of 8 resolutions offered for those layouts and I can mix and match. Well stretched surfaces all have to be of the same resolution, but if I had a stretched surface it could be a different resolution then independent surfaces and clone surfaces. As well if you have 2 M9188's you can do the same types of configs up to 16 heads. Including setups like 3x3, 4x3, 3x4, 5x3, 3x5 and 4x4. Additionally if you cabled your 4x4 wall all wrong you can just move the display for it to work in your layout without having to recable it. There is flexibility as to where which input of the card is in comparison to the other.
This is probably not the last time I rant about the Eyefinity 6, I'll get a chance to play with it some more and see if there is anything I like about it. I suppose it might be fun to game on it in 6 heads. I'm so outside the gaming loop I would have no idea what game would use it.
The one thing the other co-worker who tried the Eyefinity 6 before me did was to try it with several Triple heads to go displayport edition. Sadly he wasn't able to find 6 to try to get 18 heads, but he thinks it's doable :) That's just cool. I would have no use for the config, but I love that it can be done.
Disclaimer: The opinions on hardware/software on this blog and the other related to the Eyefinity are mine alone and not related to the company I work for.
To see my later rant on the EyeFinity 6 click here.
On M9188 we can use adapters that are 'passive' I guess. At least single link DVI to displayport. The Analog to displayport have to be active since they have to convert digital signal from card to analog and the Dual link DVI to displayport is active. I just found an article that kind explains/highlights the problems I was having with the Eyefinity. Slowly I am adding displayport monitors in my team. Most of my employees have anywhere between 4 and 8 displayport LCD's at this point. The bBench where I happened to setup the Eyefinity has no displayport LCD's. I had to put 10ft cables on 2 on the bench next to it. The bench where I test 16 heads has 16 LCD's all DVI/Analog and nothing else.
Connections problems aside their interface to configure monitors in windows is non-intuitive. Instead of helping client make a desktop it lets mostly Windows arrange monitors. So while you boot on the first/second head of the card, these became heads 5 & 6 in windows and then the monitor layout I got in the only 6 headed stretch mode offered was just strange. I'll have to play with it some more, but I find it hard to configure. The Powerdesk interface to configure one or two M9188 is quite friendly and reasonably intuitive. I've never had newbies using it who have a hard time using the interface to get where they want to be. The questions I get usually are on the stranger features for niche markets, like edge overlap.
The Eyefinity offers a limited number of configurations with their 6 heads. The merge options are 2x1, 1x2, 3x1, 4x1, 2x2 and 3x2 and then I believe the choice of modes for those configs are also limited. I only had 3 resolution choices with the 3x2 .
With a M9188, you can do just about every permutation of a rectangular/square shape that windows supports with 8 heads. So things like 2x1, 1x2, 3x1, 1x3, 1x4, 2x2, 4x1, 1x5, 5x1, 6x1, 3x2, 2x3, 1x6, 7x1,1x7, 8x1, 4x2, 2x4, 1x8 can all be done with our interface. additionally I could do 2 x 2x2's or 2 x 4x1's or 1x4's or even a 2x2 plus 2 independent displays plus 2 displays cloned if that was the layout I wanted. We also offer standard resolutions which most monitors support today, as well as all the resolutions supported by the monitors connected.
So assuming I'm using 1680x1050 monitors for each of those layouts listed above I will have a minimum of 8 resolutions offered for those layouts and I can mix and match. Well stretched surfaces all have to be of the same resolution, but if I had a stretched surface it could be a different resolution then independent surfaces and clone surfaces. As well if you have 2 M9188's you can do the same types of configs up to 16 heads. Including setups like 3x3, 4x3, 3x4, 5x3, 3x5 and 4x4. Additionally if you cabled your 4x4 wall all wrong you can just move the display for it to work in your layout without having to recable it. There is flexibility as to where which input of the card is in comparison to the other.
This is probably not the last time I rant about the Eyefinity 6, I'll get a chance to play with it some more and see if there is anything I like about it. I suppose it might be fun to game on it in 6 heads. I'm so outside the gaming loop I would have no idea what game would use it.
The one thing the other co-worker who tried the Eyefinity 6 before me did was to try it with several Triple heads to go displayport edition. Sadly he wasn't able to find 6 to try to get 18 heads, but he thinks it's doable :) That's just cool. I would have no use for the config, but I love that it can be done.
Disclaimer: The opinions on hardware/software on this blog and the other related to the Eyefinity are mine alone and not related to the company I work for.
To see my later rant on the EyeFinity 6 click here.
EyeFinity 6 - not very user friendly.
We got the Eyefinity 6 a couple of months ago, after waiting for it for close to 4 months. Originally the purchaser just saw ATI HD 5870 and not additionally the Eyefinity 6, so we ended up with a Matrix 3. That had to be sent back and the right one ordered. When it arrived I tried to use it in a couple of my systems but they didn't have enough power to handle it. I had a co-worker test it in his system to ensure it was functional, and was too busy to try it out until now. We had purchased a 750W power supply for a team member and never put it in a system, so I put it in the GA-EX58-Extreme with 12Gb that I use most often to test 16 monitor configs. We even changed the casing, because I was having issues putting a pair of M9188's into the system and I figured I might want to put 2 Eyefinity's so I can use it to compare to the 2 M9188's. Compare is a big word. I'm not comparing performance but seeing how certain things behave in Windows.
Generally I know more about multiple monitor behaviours in Windows then most people, with the exception of the engineers I work/ed with. I know it from NT 4.0 to Windows 7... But there are issues I've stumbled across in our WDDM drivers in 'stretched' desktop that I have no basis in comparison with anything else out there in the field.
To get back to the EyeFinity, I put it in a Dell T7500. It was the only free system I could think of that could handle the power hungry requirements of this card and it's size. I used the same displayport to minidisplayport adapters I use on the M9188 and the same DVI to displayport adapters since I was using all DVI LCD's. Part of the reason for this is that the Eyefinity 6 comes with 5 adapters. So I figured I'd just use the ones we use. They are pretty standard, or so I thought. They have worked on other displayport ATI and Nvidia products.
I installed drivers and for the life of me I could not enable more then 2 heads at a time. I tried more then one driver package. I looked for threads talking about it. I just found something about passive and active adapters so I think that's my problem. I may not have had that problem had I used the adapters it came with I suppose but the fact it came with 5 when I want to connect 6 already means I need to use at least one other. They provide 2 mini displayport to displayport , 2 DVI to mini displayport and 1 HDMI to mini displayport. So unless you have those exact connections, you have to go out and buy adapters. Does not make it an intuitive product.
The M9188 comes with 8 mini DP to DP adapters and 8 DVI to displayport adapters. When you connect them to whatever LCD you have they work. The M9188 is NOT power-hungry. If you had 4 PCIe x16 slots like in a Dell T7500, and there were drivers that supported it you could put 4 x M9188 and it would boot. You don't even need extra power connectors. You'd have 32 heads. But I digress.
I'll continue my experiences with the EyeFinity 6 later today.
Generally I know more about multiple monitor behaviours in Windows then most people, with the exception of the engineers I work/ed with. I know it from NT 4.0 to Windows 7... But there are issues I've stumbled across in our WDDM drivers in 'stretched' desktop that I have no basis in comparison with anything else out there in the field.
To get back to the EyeFinity, I put it in a Dell T7500. It was the only free system I could think of that could handle the power hungry requirements of this card and it's size. I used the same displayport to minidisplayport adapters I use on the M9188 and the same DVI to displayport adapters since I was using all DVI LCD's. Part of the reason for this is that the Eyefinity 6 comes with 5 adapters. So I figured I'd just use the ones we use. They are pretty standard, or so I thought. They have worked on other displayport ATI and Nvidia products.
I installed drivers and for the life of me I could not enable more then 2 heads at a time. I tried more then one driver package. I looked for threads talking about it. I just found something about passive and active adapters so I think that's my problem. I may not have had that problem had I used the adapters it came with I suppose but the fact it came with 5 when I want to connect 6 already means I need to use at least one other. They provide 2 mini displayport to displayport , 2 DVI to mini displayport and 1 HDMI to mini displayport. So unless you have those exact connections, you have to go out and buy adapters. Does not make it an intuitive product.
The M9188 comes with 8 mini DP to DP adapters and 8 DVI to displayport adapters. When you connect them to whatever LCD you have they work. The M9188 is NOT power-hungry. If you had 4 PCIe x16 slots like in a Dell T7500, and there were drivers that supported it you could put 4 x M9188 and it would boot. You don't even need extra power connectors. You'd have 32 heads. But I digress.
I'll continue my experiences with the EyeFinity 6 later today.
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