Dual-display issue with Radeon 9000

[Tidalwave]

So I manage to get my hands on an old 19" ViewSonic PT795 and an old ATI Radeon 9000 64MB (both for free ). Since I'm already running a 19" ViewSonic PF790, I decided to yank out my old Radeon ViVo 64MB, and run dual-screens with the VGA and DVI plugs on the Radeon 9000.

Now, the problem is that, after installing all of ATI's Catalyst and stuff, two things seem to happen when I enable the second screen in the Display Properties --> Settings --> Advanced --> Displays:

1) Instead of being able to select which of the two screens is primary and secondary, Windows and all other programs seem to recognize my desktop as one large 2560x1024 display.
2) As a consequence of the above, anything I maximize is stretched over both screens, all pop-ups are centered at the "break" between the two monitors, and my taskbar is stretched over both displays.

Now, I once plugged in an All-In-Wonder card along with my Radeon ViVo, and got to pick primary and secondary screens and change settings at the Display Properties --> Settings window. I don't get that anymore, and my resolution choices are all dual-screen choices, ie, I actually get to pick 2560x1024 from the little slider.

I'm really confused about how this is more troublesome when I'm using one AGP video card rather than one AGP and one PCI card.

Anyone have some insight on this problem? I've been searching around the 'net for anyone with similar problems, but to no avail. And it doesn't help that the ATI homepage seems to be down at the moment...

 

[Peter]

That's what happens when you enable the _driver's_ dual screen feature. If you want dual independent, you turn that back off, and instead enable Windows' "extended desktop" feature, wherein a twin set of display driver instances runs the displays individually.

 

[Tidalwave]

Interestingly enough, I can't find that option anywhere...
Doesn't seem like Windows is detecting two screens connected to the video card or something.

In the "Display Properties --> Settings" tab, I don't get a choice of screens and positions like I did with my All-In-Wonder and Radeon ViVo combo... It's just one screen, and the "Display" line just says "(Multiple Monitors) on Radeon 9000"...

 

[Steve]

If you right-click on 2, can you select or unselect Attached? If it's greyed out, go into Advanced there and go to Displays. There, turn off the driver's dual-display scheme.

 

[Tidalwave]

I can't even see a "1" or a "2" screen numbers. The "Display --> Settings" page hasn't changed at all when I plugged in a second screen. There's just 1 screen like the defaults, even when I have the driver's dual-screen setting turned off already.

 

[Steve]

Odd. Having you tried booting up with the second screen attached and turned on? Don't have a dual display setup at home so I'm just stabbing in the dark here.

 

[Tidalwave]

Yeah, I've tried that already, in the hopes that Windows will detect something or other.
I've uninstalled and re-installed ATI's Catalyst drivers and stuff several times already too...

 

[Tidalwave]

I've realized the main problem is that Windows itself is not detecting a second screen; only the ATI driver and such is seeing the second monitor.

Since Windows itself doesn't see the second screen, there's no "Extend my Windows desktop to this monitor" checkbox.

Is there any way to "force" Win2k to detect a screen? I've tried rebooting my system with the secondary screen plugged in, but without success...

 

[Steve]

What Service Pack are you up to?

 

[Tidalwave]

Win2k SP4

The funny thing is that when I had both an old All-In-Wonder and a Radeon ViVo connected in the system, Windows detected everything no problems...

 

[Peter]

A-ha! Then you're running into W2K's silly limitations ... W2K cannot grasp the fact that one display engine can drive more than one monitor. You'll get only driver-based multiscreen, not Windows-based. If you actually put two separate display engines in there (two cards), then Windows will do Windows-based multiscreen.

Later Radeon chips pretend to be two engines in hardware, circumventing the problem. You can check on this by looking at whether your Device Manager list an "ATI blah" and "ATI blah SECONDARY". As far as I remember, the 9000 does have that already.

Monitor detection is the other thing to look at - some monitors and/or their cabling don't let the driver detect monitor presence. In that case, you'll have to force the ATI driver to CRT mode for this output. Somewhere in Display Properties ...

 

[Tidalwave]

Aaaahhhhh.

No wonder plugging in a PCI All-In-Wonder and an AGP Radeon ViVo got Win2k to detect two screens, but not this...

However, it seems that in the Device Manager, it doesn't seem to list multiple display adaptors...

 

[Peter]

OK, so now that we've established that your Radeon card doesn't have the pretend-two-chips trick, you'll have to live with W2K's stupidity, upgrade to XP, or replace with a 9550/9600 card at least.

 

[Steve]

Before you do that, disable or uninstall Hydravision, that's what allows you to do stretched desktop. I've been able to get dual independent displays (through Windows' own mechanisms) on Win2k, you only need a certain Service Pack level. I'm nearly positive of this, I just need a DVI-VGA adapter to try it out with this second CRT I've acquired, on my secondary system with a dualhead 9100 PCI.

 

[Tidalwave]

sm8000: Just to point out, though, I was running stretched desktop _before_ having Hydravision installed... But let me know when you've given it a test. However, like Peter pointed it out, it just might be that your dual-head card is recognized by Win2k as having 2 adapters, while my card isn't. Either way, let me know how it goes with you.

 

[Steve]

Not sure that I'll be able to pull off my test anytime soon, but I will try if I can. However, if you never had Hydravision installed, I'd go with what Pete said.