While nVidia was holding a pretty impressive LAN party at PAX Prime 2011 in Seattle, AMD wasn’t too far behind. Although they weren’t holding a large scale event like nVidia, they did setup a showroom down the road to show off the latest developments in Eyefinity and their HD3D technologies. With Square Enix’s hot new game “Deus Ex” just hitting the shelves around show time, AMD took the opportunity to show off how one of the hottest games of 2011 takes advantage of their tech. Ritchie Corpus from AMD takes us through it all in the video above (or directly on YouTube).
Improvements to Eyefinity
The takeaways from the video are that AMD has made improvements to Eyefinity to improve the gaming experience. For example, AMD now supports a portrait 5×1 monitor configuration that no longer interferes with your crosshairs like their 3×2 Eyefinity 6 configuration did. It’s also cheaper to drop a monitor. For people already invested in 3×2 monitor configuration, some new games like Deus Ex have a different view that points the crosshair below the monitor bezels. Everyone is happy.
AMD says many new games will come with this support and old favourites should just need a patch to get all these new features. They are working with developers all the time so your favourite game might just be on the list, allowing you to get the best from your AMD Eyefinity setup.
AMD’s Take on 3D
AMD uses an open standard for 3D called HD3D and they leave it completely up to the hardware manufacturers to implement it. With their open standard, you can use your existing monitors and a pair of active glasses, which save you money. Or you can buy a 3D monitor and use passive glasses. The eyewear will be cheaper, but you’ll have to invest in a new 3D monitor. To me, this seems like AMD is simply riding the fence, but I could hardly blame them. 3D seems to be a fad, and not everyone can enjoy 3D due to the inherent “headaches” the technology can cause.
At any rate, a patch for your favourite game and the right equipment, will get you into the 3D realm. New games like Deus Ex already have everything baked in to give 3D hardware a go. You just have to decide if you want to buy a new monitor and cheaper glasses, or keep your monitor and use active glasses.
Other AMD Graphics Stuff
Currently, nVidia is the only game in town when it comes to hardware acceleration for many video editing suites like Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. This is software that we use to edit our videos with and we’ve always hoped that AMD would provide a solution to us so that we can pop an extra monitor on there to extend our editing view. Well, it looks like the battle still rages on but progress is being made for full Mercury Playback Engine hardware support for AMD graphics. Not gaming related, but our videos from PAX Prime 2011 wouldn’t be possible without our beloved Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 software.
Keep an eye on our YouTube Channel for more PAX Prime 2011 goodness from Seattle!
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