22" and 19" LCDs on an 8800

[Skyguy]

I want to get a 22" LCD as my primary (gaming) monitor, and use my 19" LCD as my secondary one......for surfing, Office, whatever.

But the 22" would run @ 1680x1050 (I think) and the 19" @ 1280x1024. Different resolutions and different aspect ratios.

So my question:

1) Can this be done without major problems when moving windows/apps/cursor/etc from one screen to the other?

2) Can an 8800 handle this, or will it tax the card too much when I game?


Advice, comments would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[crydee]

You will only game with 1 monitor stretching never works good you won't be using the second monitor when you game either. When you're not .. almost any card can handle rendering 2 monitors for those kinds of things.. Differnt resolutions won't matter much I ran a CRT at 1280x900 and a LCD at 800x600 for awhile on a 9800 pro. I would recommend a program called ultramon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) I found it helped wonders with multiple monitors.

 

[Skyguy]

When I game, it's on my primary monitor.....and no stretching. My secondary monitor continues to function (doesn't go black), so I can have Xfire, Teamspeak, etc running and see what's happening while I game. And when I'm not gaming, the monitors would run at different resolutions, correct.

So this shouldn't pose a problem then? Won't decrease performance (ie--framerates) when gaming with monitors at 2 different resolutions?

 

[Bull Dog]

no you shouldn't see any performance decrease. At least I haven't.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Skyguy
I want to get a 22" LCD as my primary (gaming) monitor, and use my 19" LCD as my secondary one......for surfing, Office, whatever.

But the 22" would run @ 1680x1050 (I think) and the 19" @ 1280x1024. Different resolutions and different aspect ratios.

So my question:

1) Can this be done without major problems when moving windows/apps/cursor/etc from one screen to the other?

2) Can an 8800 handle this, or will it tax the card too much when I game?


Advice, comments would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

nope a 8800 will be fine. super fine infact.

 

[palehorse]

the only time you'll have to do anything special to make it work is if you run two 8800's in SLI... if you do, then you'll have to install a 3rd card to run the second monitor, as SLI seems to turn the dual-monitor functions off. I would suggest a cheap ATI PCI card (Radeon 9250 or similar for less than $25!)... using an ATI for the 3rd card prevents driver conflicts.

I do this with a pair of 7800gt's and run on 2 monitors, with my primary cards running in SLI, and the secondary monitor on my ATI card.

two 8800gtx in SLi.. mmmm... sounds like good times!

 

[KBTuning]

nView... it works great... it fixes everything for you.

 

[Skyguy]

Excellent ideas.....never thought of a PCI card actually. If the 8800 has "issues" then a cheap PCI card should do the trick. No SLI mobo (or money for that either), so I doubt I'd have to worry about that.

Thanks!

 

[foolfromhell]

Thanks all. I came here to ask this exact same question, except with a 8800GTX with 1920x1200 on one monitor and 1280x1024 on second.
So there shouldnt be problems, and I can full-screen game on one while just watching a video or reading stuff on the other, right?

 

[postmortemIA]

yeah, i do it all the time on my laptop, 16:10 and 5:4 aspect ratios, 1680x1050 and 1280x1024... looks just fine.