Looks like ATI (now owned by AMD) is finally overtaking nVidia in terms of best graphics chips. They’re now capable of supporting the resolution of 6 monitors combined! I was just at maximumpc and the specs are insane!
EyeFinity in action
I didn’t want to check my current specs because I was afraid of how pitifully low the numbers might be – but I did it anyways, and here they are:
I can’t believe how puny my card’s specs are…
I don’t have time for new games right now; I’m waiting for them to get so ridiculously out of control that I’m overcome with disbelief and force myself to upgrade.
For now I’m happy with my current setup: PS3 only on a 105″ 720p projection screen. The projector + screen only cost $1.2k in 2006, while a 50″ LCD was $2k. So I got plenty of screen space for super cheap. That’s one reason why I seriously doubt that 6x or even 3x screens will be popular in 5 years, and I’ll explain the other one after these two EyeFinity demo videos.
EyeFinity is not a new technology, it’s a temporary hack. The GPUs are doing the same job as before, they’ve just improved far faster than LCD technology has been able to. Splitting a rendered image to 6 monitors can’t be that complicated! But no matter how badly AMD or anyone else wants it to, Moore’s law works for making things smaller, not larger; it doesn’t apply to display size like it does to GPU’s, so it’s impossible for displays to catch up. I think eventually there will be 50″ monitors with the same pixel density of the current 30″ models, but until that happens I will consider displays to be lagging.
Back to the screen topic: I’ve played single player Halo on a 105″ screen, larger than any 6 monitor setup out there, and it’s definitely more immersive, but there’s no edge whatsoever playing on a bigger screen. It actually made me play worse, because it was so much slower turning my head to react to things.
Conclusion: The advantage of being able to scan the entire screen in one eye movement is huge in fast games. I don’t care how much information I can pack on 6 screens, if I don’t have time to use it in the heat of battle then it’s completely useless.
I think a lot of other people like me are playing to win, not just for eye candy. Will game makers ever make using multiple monitors advantageous enough to be worth the cost?