AMD Eyefinity
AMD Eyefinity is the brand name of AMD's on-die multi-monitor-display controllers which support to drive at least three and up to six simultaneous displays off of a single graphics card.[1] AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 Series in September 2009. AMD Eyefinity is available on more than 45 consumer as well as AMD FirePro professional-grade products.[2]
All AMD GPUs newer the the Evergreen support maximum of 2 non-DisplayPort displays and a maximum of 6 DisplayPort displays.[3]
Overview
The 5000-series designs host two internal clocks and one external clock. Displays connected over VGA, DVI, or HDMI each require their own internal clock. But all displays connected over DisplayPort can be driven from only one external clock. This external clock is what allows Eyefinity to fuel up to six monitors from a single card.
The entire HD 5000 series products have Eyefinity capabilities supporting three outputs. The Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity Edition, however, supports six mini DisplayPort outputs, all of which can be simultaneously active.[4]
The display controller has two RAMDACs which are used to drive the VGA or the DVI ports in analog mode (for example, when a DVI-to-VGA converter is attached to a DVI port), a maximum of six digital transmitters that can output either a DisplayPort signal or a TMDS signal which is used for either DVI or HDMI, and two clock signal generators needed to drive the digital outputs in TMDS mode. Dual-link DVI displays use two of the TMDS/DisplayPort transmitters and one clock signal each. Single-link DVI displays and HDMI displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and one clock signal each. DisplayPort displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and no clock signal.
An active DisplayPort adapter can be used to convert a DisplayPort signal to another type of signal like VGA, single-link DVI or dual-link DVI, or HDMI if more than two non-DisplayPort displays need to be connected to a Radeon HD 5000 series graphics card.[4]
DisplayPort 1.2 added the possibility to drive multiple displays on single DisplayPort connector, called Multi-Stream Transport (MST). AMD graphics solutions equipped with DisplayPort 1.2 outputs can run multiple monitors from a single port.
Availability
| Unified Video Decoder | — | — | — | — | UVD, UVD+, UDV 2 | UVD 2.2 | UVD 3 | UVD 4 | UVD 4.2 | TBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video Codec Engine | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | VCE 1.0 | VCE 2.0 | TBA |
| TrueAudio | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Some | TBA |
| Max. № of displays | 1–2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2–6 | 4–6 | 2–6 | 2–6 | TBA |
| R100 | R200 | R300 R400 |
R500 | R600 R650 R700 |
Evergreen | Northern Islands | Southern Islands Sea Islands |
Volcanic Islands | Pirates Islands | |
| Released | Apr 2000 | Aug 2001 | Oct 2002 | Oct 2005 | May 2006 | Sep 2009 | Oct 2010 | Jan 2012 | Sept 2013 | TBA |
| Linux KMS driver[5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | — |
| FYI | Fixed pipeline | Unified shader model | ||||||||
| various | TeraScale | Graphics Core Next (Mantle) | TBA | |||||||
All AMD GPUs starting with the Evergreen series support a maximum of 2 non-DisplayPort displays and a maximum of 6 DisplayPort displays.[3] AMD Eyefinity is also available in AMDs APU branded product line, as this Civilization V running in 3x1 portrait mode multi-monitor on a Eyefinity-enabled AMD A10-7850K "Kaveri" proves. The A10-7850K is said up to four displays.[6]
Software support
AMD Catalyst supports Eyefinity and enables the user to independently configure and run each attached displays. It facilitates the configuration of "cloned mode", i.e. to copy one desktop onto multiple screens or "extended mode", i.e. to span the workspace across multiple screens and combine the resolutions of all of those displays into one big resolution. AMD calls the extended modes Single Large Surface (SLS) and Catalyst support of certain range of display group configurations. For example 5x1 landscape and 5x1 portrait are supported since AMD Catalyst version 11.10 from October 2011.[2][7]
Starting in Catalyst 14.6 AMD has enabled mixed resolution support, allowing for a single Eyefinity display group to be created while each monitor runs at a different resolution. This feature is made possible through the addition of two new Eyefinity display modes, Fit and Expand, which join the traditional Fill mode. In both Fit an Expand mode AMD is compensating for the mismatched resolutions by creating a virtual desktop that is of a different resolution than the monitors, and then either padding it out or cropping it as is necessary.[8]
AMD validated some video games to support Eyefinity. The short list include titles such as Age of Conan, ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Serious Sam 3: BFE, Singularity (video game), Sleeping Dogs, Assassin's Creed II, Sniper Elite V2, Soldier of Fortune Online, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, R.U.S.E., Supreme Commander 2 among others.[9] However, game not on this short list seem to work as well, e.g. Dirt 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
See also
- AMD FireMV – pre-Eyefinity products for multi-monitor set-ups
- Nvidia Surround – competing technology
References
- ^ "AMD's Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Reviewed". AnandTech. 2010-03-31. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ a b "AMD Eyefinity: FAQ". AMD. 2011-05-17. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ a b "Radeon feature matrix". freedesktop.org.
- ^ a b "AMD Eyefinity on AMD Radeon HD 5870". Tom's Hardware. 2009-09-23. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ Airlie, David (2009-11-26). "DisplayPort supported by KMS driver mainlined into Linux kernel 2.6.33". Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ "Multi-monitor: Civilization V on A10-7850K "Kaveri"".
- ^ "AMD's Eyefinity Technology Explained". Tom's Hardware. 2010-02-28. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ "AMD Catalyst 14.6 beta adds new Eyefinity functionality". AnandTech. 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
- ^ "AMD Eyefinity Validated and Ready Software".