Satisfying The Stockholders

In the short term we don't have to satisfy anyone but ourselves.  Some of our very best engineers are working on EF because they believe in it.  I haven't had anyone say "no" for anything I have asked for.  And I have asked for most of the resources in AMD that are appropriate for working on EF.  Considering EF hasn't earned the company one thin dime so far, AMD is being rather liberal with our spending millions of dollars on this.

We can sell every 5870 we make, EF or no EF.  If AMD killed EF tomorrow it wouldn't make a dent in sales at all.  We'd still sell every one we make as fast as we can make them.  So stockholder happiness has nothing to do with what we do or don't do.  At least in the short term.

I am interested in making a reasonable subset of customers happy, for a number of reasons, but where we are right now today is one step along a path that Eyefinity is inexorably moving along.  I am focused on that path.  If there is a feature you want in EF that isn't being delivered, there is a good chance it is because doing it would take us off the path I see in front of us.

Eyefinity for Everyone

I don't recall where I said it, whether here or somewhere else, but one of my Eyefinity goals was making it available for everyone.  AMD has launched the Radeon 5870 and Radeon 5850 by the time of this posting.  Those products don't address everyone.

Read between the lines.

Eyefinity & Display Resolution

In MS' operating systems Eyefinity currently has two exclusive operating modes: SLS and extended desktop.  You can be in one mode or the other, but not both at the same time.

In extended desktop mode Eyefinity works pretty much as dual-monitor systems work today: any combination of resolutions is allowed on your monitors, as long as you have sufficient timing (clock) sources to support them.  In a 5870 card, which has three timing sources, you can support three different monitors in extended desktop modes.  This is not true in SLS mode.

SLS, or Single Large Surface, requires that all the displays used in a display group have identical resolution.  You can have different timings, but you can't have different resolutions.  All monitors currently must have the same resolution and orientation when in the same display group.   Currently Eyefinity exposes a single SLS on the 5870.

Notice I said currently.   These operating conditions are the result of the current software implementation for performance reasons, architectural complexity, and hardware limitations.  A different software implementation could possibly change the preceding.  Is AMD working on that?  I can't say, since I am not acting as their spokesman in this blog.