3 displays on Eyefinity, but only 2 active at a time. Do I need an adapater?

[MasamuneXGP]

Greetings all,

Here's my setup: I have two DVI monitors on my desk, and an HDTV in the adjacent room. I want all three displays powered by the same video card, so I'm looking into an Eyefinity card. I know the Eyefinity cards can only power 2 non-DisplayPort displays, so I'll need an active adapter if I want to use all three.

But, since the TV and monitors are in different rooms, I'll never need all three of them active at the same time. But, I do need all three to be visible to the OS so I can set up hotkeys to switch between them. Do I still need an adapter? Or can I get away without one?

Thanks!

 

[NoQuarter]

If you never need all 3 active at once you can get by fine without the adapter. When you disable one you can enable another. You aren't actually using the Eyefinity feature btw so you can do this with any video card with 3 ports on it, so if you prefer nVidia what you are trying to do would work with those cards as well.

 

[yacoub]

Also Sapphire offers their FLEX line of GPUs that supposedly get around this limitation, allowing 3 displays without needing an adapter.
Example: http://www.techwarelabs.com/sapphire-hd-6950-flex-2gb-graphics-card/

 

[MasamuneXGP]

You aren't actually using the Eyefinity feature btw so you can do this with any video card with 3 ports on it, so if you prefer nVidia what you are trying to do would work with those cards as well.

This is news to me. Are you sure about this? I thought without eyefinity, the OS wouldn't recognize three monitors at once? Even if they're not active, I still need all three displays to show up as connected in my display properties...

 

[NoQuarter]

This is news to me. Are you sure about this? I thought without eyefinity, the OS wouldn't recognize three monitors at once? Even if they're not active, I still need all three displays to show up as connected in my display properties...

The OS will recognize all 3 displays, but you can only use 2 of them at a time, so it's just a matter of picking which ones you want active off the list in the CCC or nVidia control panel (and setting hotkeys for them).

Does your current video card have 3 ports on it that you can test with before buying something new?

 

[MasamuneXGP]

Sadly not; my current setup consists of "pull out one and plug in the other" when ever I want to switch displays... I'm looking forward to not having to do that anymore!

Well, it's good to know I have more options now. Thanks!