When ATI Launched its 5000 series graphics cards back in September 2009, it was more than just a performance marvel, it ushered in a new technology that promised PC gamers an experience unlike no other: true, no compromise, multi-monitor gaming.

Sure, some ambitious PC-centric titles such as Supreme Commander had dabbled with multiple display support in the past, but these limited attempts offered little more than a convenient way to separate the mini map from the action. Eyefinity, by comparison, promised to bring multi-display gaming to hundreds of titles that were never optimized to support it. This would turn out to be both its biggest strength, and its greatest obstacle. It was an ambitious and somewhat buggy undertaking when it was revealed back in 2009, but has over a year and a half of driver releases improved the situation?

Having lived with an Eyefinity setup now for the past twelve months, I feel uniquely qualified to talk about not just how the technology has evolved, but if it was worth the cost.

Does multi-monitor gaming in 2011 finally live up to all the marketing hype? Hit the jump to find out.

Eyefinity in 2011. What’s Improved, What’s Hasn’t.

AMD fans may not care to admit it, but the Catalyst driver suite hasn’t always been the industries golden boy when it comes to reliability. ATI has a proud history of impressive hardware under its belt, but the software team has had a lot to prove over the past few years. If you're one of the few still holding a grudge, let me reassure you. Despite the odd hiccup here and there, I can now comfortably state that a modern release of the Catalyst Control Center feels every bit as stable, and capable, as its ForceWare competitor.

Eyefinity support was added with the launch of the 5000 series GPUs in Catalyst 9.9, but most of the caveats that existed back then have been fully smoothed out today. Of the three biggest obstacles we saw at launch, all but one of these have been addressed by the driver team.

CROSSFIRE SUPPORT

When AMD launched Eyefinity without native support for Crossfire, we were left scratching our heads. Considering that older titles such as Crysis still have the ability to make our graphics cards weep, how would a single GPU hold up while being forced to pump out 3 times as many pixels as before? The answer is not very well. Performance was acceptable in source engine games, but let's face it, 15fps in Crysis just doesn’t cut it. 

Luckily, with the release of Catalyst 9.12 in December 2009 this obstacle was not just overcome, but has improved dramatically ever since. Practically every subsequent driver release has brought improved Crossfire scaling to the table, and nobody benefits from this more than an Eyefinity gamer. A 15% improvement in your favorite game might go unnoticed on a single display, but makes all the difference in the world when you're trying to push over 6 million pixels at once.

BEZEL COMPENSATION

The single most common complaint about Eyefinity setups is usually in reference to the thick plastic frames that house a modern day LCD. The thickness of the bezel was never much of a concern for display makers before Eyefinity came along, and unfortunately not much has changed. Eyefinity users are still very much in the minority, and simply don’t buy enough screens to influence the market. AMD has worked with Samsung to release the best bezel offering we’ve seen so far, but at $1,900 for a 3 monitor configuration, and $3,100 for six, the vast majority of Eyefinity hopefuls will still need to look at thicker bezel alternatives.

AMD, aware that this was a sticking point for many users, introduced a pretty innovative fix in Catalyst 10.3 to help address the issue. Driver level bezel correction allows you compensate for the dead space between your LCDs and converts this area into a blind spot, rather than a hard stop. Prior to introduction of bezel correction, textures would end on one monitor and abruptly start on the second, creating a very disjointed image. The bezel correction works by creating a custom resolution for your configuration and broadcasting this as the native setting for all your apps.

Bezel correction is an optional step when setting up a new Eyefinity group in the Catalyst control center, so make sure you don’t miss it. You might not notice it in a racing game when looking at the grass or sky, but it will stick out like a sore thumb when you’re looking at a face that has been incorrectly split in two by a 4-inch bezel.

DISPLAY PORT BLUES

When Eyefinity initially launched, the requirement for one monitor to be DisplayPort ready dramatically limited your options. In 2011 DisplayPort monitors still command a slight premium, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was. With a little effort I was able to find several options starting at just $250. They may not be the best panels on the market, but it’s a great way to get your feet wet. The alternative is to use an active DisplayPort adapter, and luckily, these too have seen a considerable drop in price. Back in 2009 these dongles could run you $100 or more; now perfectly acceptable options are in the $25-$30 range.

The Nvidia solution for 2D surround requires users to purchase two graphics card in SLI. It’s not as elegant a solution to be sure, but if you were going to buy two cards either way, it certainly isn’t a deal breaker.

Do I Really Need a Multi-Monitor Gaming Setup?

Eyefinity really is luxury gaming taken to excess. Does anyone really need to run their favorite games at a resolution 12 times higher than an Xbox 360? Probably not. Is it worth every penny if you have the money to burn? Well that really depends on your favorite genre.

FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS

Have you ever considered buying a $60 mouse pad because a fancy display ad told you it would improve your accuracy? If you answered yes, and you haven’t considered Eyefinity yet, you’ve been looking in all the wrong places. By increasing the number of pixels you can see at any given time, your advantage on the battlefield increases exponentially. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen foes blindly run past me in the distance, completely unaware of what’s going on directly beside them.

Aside from the obvious competitive advantages, Eyefinity also creates a sense of immersion that is simply unmatched. Having so much additional screen space to monitor can be a bit unnerving at first, particularly for single display veterans, but over time you will eventually train your eyes to scan these monitors effortlessly using your peripheral vision. It takes a healthy dose of both patience and practice, but once you get the hang of it you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

On the down side, some FPS titles suffer from an uncorrectable phenomena often called Fisheye, but we’ll touch more on that later.

Portrait or Landscape?  LANDSCAPE
Best Examples: Battlefield Bad Company 2, Dead Space, Source Engine Games Including: Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Left for Dead 2.

THIRD PERSON ACTION GAMES & MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE RPGS

Most of the advantages I listed above for the first person shooter junkies also apply here, but with one key exception. The third person viewpoint is ideally suited for Eyefinity, without exception. Rather than the extra displays being a source of distraction, it just works. Open world games such as Just Cause 2 offer a slightly better experience over indoor titles such as Batman Arkham Asylum - but only because the walls of a high security prison are somewhat less captivating than a tropical wonderland.

The vast majority of MMOs I tested also looked great in Eyefinity. The extra screen real estate comes in super handy if you prefer to leave your status windows open. Eve Online, for example, is a gorgeous game, but on a single monitor it’s sometimes hard to even find your ship under the sea of required scanner windows.

Portrait or Landscape? LANDSCAPE
Best Examples (Action): Assassin’s Creed II & Brotherhood, Batman Arkham Asylum, Just Cause 2, Splinter Cell Conviction
Best Examples (RPG/MMOs): World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Rift, Dragon Age

TOP DOWN STRATEGY GAMES

Any decent strategy gamer will tell you that awareness of your surroundings should always be priority #1, so using this logic, more pixels should offer a decisive advantage, right? The answer is an undeniably yes; some developers know this, and have gone to great lengths to even the playing field.

The latest releases of big budget games such as Dawn of War, Shogun, and even Civilization work flawlessly with Eyefinity, while others such as Starcraft II have gone out of their way to disable it. Some resourceful gamers have found ways to mod Eyefinity support back in, but you won’t catch me logging into a multiplayer lobby with a modified client. Blizzard isn’t known for having much patience in that regard.

Blizzard aside, I would describe the strategy genres embrace of wide screen gaming as mixed at best. When it works, the extra screen real estate can be invaluable for providing early warning of an incoming enemy attack, but since most strategy games use some variation on fog of war, this isn’t always an advantage, even if the game natively supports it.

Another key example would be Civilization V. While the game looks simply fantastic in Eyefinity, multiple-monitors really don’t add much to the experience beyond the wow factor. Since the vast majority of your attention is focused on the center of the screen, multiple-monitors can actually be somewhat annoying since you need to turn your head to view the controls locked on the far left, and far right monitors respectively. If you love strategy games, you’re probably better off spending your hard earned cash on a single 30” screen with a native 2560 x 1600 resolution. If you do use Eyefinity however, I would highly recommend looking at a portrait configuration. Unless you make a habit out of building your bases out in the middle of the map, you typically don’t need to see as far east or west. Worse yet, if you end up building on the edge of a map, you could end up wasting an entire monitor that gets stuck looking into a black abyss. Portrait-mode Eyefinity also somewhat addresses the Civilization problem mentioned above with controls being placed so far out of your normal visual spectrum.

Portrait or Landscape?  PORTRAIT
Best Examples: Dawn of War II & Retribution, Total War Shogun 2, Civilization V

RACING & SIMULATION GAMES

If you find AMD showing off Eyefinity in the field, more often than not, you’re probably going to see them demonstrating a racing or flight sim. The reason for this is simple. People who drive cars are used to being able to look out side windows and see the landscape whipping by.

Some might argue that Eyefinity was designed with simulation games in mind, but it’s also the one genre that gains next to no advantage from the extra real estate. Eyefinity can turn almost any racing sim into an immersive experience that you have to see to believe, but the advantages end there. At the end of the day the road ahead is all that matters, making an Eyefinity setup less helpful to your game than a set of fancy rims. It sure adds alot of bling, but don’t expect it to help you win the race.

Portrait or Landscape? LANDSCAPE
Best Examples: Need for Speed Shift, Burnout Paradise, Dirt 2, H.A.W.X 1 & 2