ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Gaming

Name: ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Gaming - Page 5
Brand: ATI

by Marco Chiappetta — Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 12:01 AM EDT

Next up, some Dirt 2 running on the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition and something many of you may not have thought possible--playing Crysis at 5760x2160...

Dirt 2

Dirt 2 was one of the titles AMD chose to show off Eyefinity at the Radeon HD 5800 series launch event, so we weren't expecting any major surprises. The game launched properly and ran on a 6-screen Eyefinity configuration from the get go. Although we didn't experience any technical hiccups, wow, what a total steaming pile of crap interface this game has. Navigating through Dirt 2's menus is torture.

Playing the game, however, is a total blast. Dirt 2 is the type of game that really exploits the benefits of having immense screen real estate. With such great graphics and a huge field of view, racing in Dirt 2 on a 3x2 Eyefinity configuration is a totally different experience than playing on a single, smaller screen.

Dirt 2 also happens to perform really well on the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition. With the resolution cranked up to 5760x2160 with 4x anti-aliasing enabled and all in-game options set to their maximum values in DX11 mode, the game ran at about 25 FPS. Reducing the level of anti-aliasing on in-game graphical options would only increase performance. Yeah, I'm an excellent driver.

Crysis

Crysis is known to run so poorly, even on modern graphics cards, that the "Can it play Crysis?" meme has spread wildly across the internet. We hate to add fuel to the fire, but in the case of the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition, it sure can.

With the game's options set to medium and the resolution set to 5760x2160, Crysis hums along at about 26 frames per second. Increasing the image quality options to the high present drags the framerate down to about 17 FPS.

Other than the same obscured crosshair issue we've mentioned with all of the other shooters, the only issue we experienced with Crysis was related to its menu system. Many of the menu options spanned across screen bezels, making it somewhat harder to navigate.

Tags: ATI, Radeon, Gaming, multi-monitor, Eyefinity

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com