ADL_SDK_V10.2

Gaming With ATI Eyefinity Technology: A Primer

Introduction

With the launch of the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 series graphics cards and the introduction of ATI Eyefinity

technology, AMD has enabled a new level of immersion for Direct3D and OpenGL games.

1

At launch, the

majority of games worked well “out of the box” with ATI Eyefinity and were showcased at various

events, in presentations and in reviews. Other games may have issues dealing with the new aspect ratios

and distortion caused by the monitor bezels which may impact the presentation of the game. All games

and/or gaming engines can benefit from being made “ATI Eyefinity Ready” and AMD wants to help the

gaming stage to both account for and take advantage of ATI Eyefinity.

A high end ATI Eyefinity graphics card capable of driving up to 6 displays at up to 2560x1600 per display

can deliver a jaw dropping 7680x3200 pixels or almost 25 million pixels per frame.

2

Even the more

typical 3x1 landscape configuration can display over 12 million pixels with an extremely wide aspect

ratio of 48x9 (5.33:1). These new aspect ratios means game developers should consider rendering the

peripheral view and/or using edges of the outer displays for less-frequently used HUDs, etc.

The most common groupings we expect to see are the 3x1 landscape configuration mentioned earlier

(for games where peripheral vision is a benefit) and the 3x1 portrait configuration with an aspect ratio

of essentially 16x9.5 which provides a high resolution at a fairly typical aspect ratio. The 4x1

Note: Currently ATI Eyefinity display modes currently force the individual displays to be in the same

resolution, color depth and rotation angle.

Letting the User Select the Mode

Many modern games provide set-up options to control various game rendering settings, including the

display mode, quality settings, etc. In some cases, the games include filters that allow the user to filter

the available display modes based on typical aspect ratios (4:3, 16:10 and 16:9). We recommend “ATI

Eyefinity Ready” games offer additional options that allow the user to easily identify and select ATI

Eyefinity display modes from the game set-up screens. For example, current games allow the user to

select “4:3” or “16:9” aspect ratios, this should be extended to allow the user to select ATI Eyefinity

display modes. When the user selects this option, the resolutions list would be limited to available ATI

ATI Eyefinity display mode, select it as the starting mode for the game.

In all of these cases, AMD expects the user to enable and group displays using ATI Catalyst Control

Center™, which will make the additional ATI Eyefinity modes available. AMD has provided the APIs (the

latest update to the AMD Display Library SDK) to assist the game to determine which modes are

available and which are ATI Eyefinity modes.

Portrait Modes

Historically, many games have not supported portrait modes as the narrow aspect ratio was

inappropriate for traditional gaming. However, ATI Eyefinity combines three portrait displays to produce

a compelling gaming environment as a result of its wide and tall field of view. It is therefore quite

important that games not blindly filter out portrait modes but instead look to see if the available modes