2 monitors & 1 HDTV... How do I make this work?

MoobyTheGoldenCalf

Golden Member
Jul 26, 2001
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I haven't built a new system in about 3 years so I'm a little rusty here. I'm starting to plan out a new build for next month and one of the things I want to do is run dual monitors and also have the option of hooking up to my HDTV.

Right now I've got a 24" widescreen monitor running at 1920x1200 and a 17" running at 1280x1024. I'll be using the PC 90-95% of the time just in this configuration. But since I also have an HDTV sitting here, I'd like to option to be able to play games or whatever on the HD too.

I'll probably end up getting an 8800GTX and I see those come with 2 DVI outs and one HDTV out, but you can't run those all simultaneously can you? If not, am I thinking right that I would also need a plain old PCI video card as well? So I would hook the 24" and the HDTV to the 8800GTX and the 17" 2nd monitor to the standard PCI card. If I do that, can I run the 24" at 1920x1200 and the HD at 1920x1080 simultaneously? Or do they have to be the same res? Would I need to switch them somehow when I want to use the HD? Is there some sort of easy way to do that?

Also, would I be running into driver issues with 2 video cards in there?

Help, my brain is melting....
 

brandonr23

Member
Sep 3, 2005
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I'd think running a cheap extra PCI vid card would do the trick. I've not done it myself, but i've read of others doing it. I doubt you would have major driver issues, it would probably just be a little work to get everything configured properly.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,204
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In my experience, you're usually limited to two displays active at once time (per videocard). I'm not sure about your particular card being able to run three at once, but even if it can, I don't think you can game on one screen and actively use the other displays as well.

As soon as you would click on one of the other monitors, the game would minimize.

For my own setup (Two 2007FPs and a Panasonic AE900U) I have both monitors hooked up normally and then the projector is hooked up via component.

I have three profiles set up:

1 - Two 2007FPs
2 - One 2007FP
3 - AE900U

For normal use, I use profile 1

For gaming I either leave it on 1 or switch to 2 or 3.

In my profiles I only have 2x the same resolution running or just a single display so I never run into primary display or resolution issues.

I'm not sure if that's exactly how you want to run yours, but I have everything hooked up to a single 6600gt and it works fine for me.
 

NuroMancer

Golden Member
Nov 8, 2004
1,684
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I have


7800gt powering a dell 2405fpw and a 21 inch CRT at 1920X1200 and 1600X1200 respectively.

The second card is a 6600gt, and it powers a 2005fpw and my HDTV. All moniters are active at the same time.

Now if you start doing gaming or anything else, you basically only have 1 active window.

But yah, it works fine, XP supports alot of displays. I used to have 5 hooked up to it VIA a PCI card as well.

A recommendation, get a piece of software call Ultramon for managing multiple displays :D.