Dual Monitor Questions/Recomendations

[rcurley55]

I've been cruising the boards for a while, and I still have a few questions about seting up a dual monitor system.

I'm holding out on upgrading (I'm still in the stone age with a P3 500) for now, here's what I have:

Gainward GF2 Ti/450 w/64 MB DDR
Sony G200 - 17" FD Trinitron (running at 1600x1200)
Generic 15" fishbowl (runs well at 1280x1024)

The 15" is collecting dust, and I figure it would be good for all my IM/email programs. It appears that I can use a cheaper PCI card to run the second monitor, and keep the AGP GF2 for my primary. If I just install the card, then the drivers, XP takes care of the rest? Is this correct?

If so, what software do I need to get this running?

What card should I buy?

How much will it cost me?

Again, all of this is under Win XP

Are different resolutions on each monitor a problem? (I can't live lower then 1600x1200)

Sorry for such newbie questions, but I want to have some fun and expand my desktop realestate on the cheap.

TIA...sorry it's so long

 

[ProviaFan]

Yes, you can just get a cheap PCI video card and put that in in addition to your current one. It should work fine (no guarantees though). Your best bet, if you have $100 or a little more, is to get an ATI Radeon 8500 of some sort or an Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200. Either of these can handle two monitors at once (they have two connectors, so both monitors plug into the same card). This method is much more reliable, hassle-free, and you get special software (hydravision from ATI or nview stuff from nvidia) which enhances your experience a bit.

 

[ProviaFan]

Oh yea, forgot about the resolution. The answer is yes, each monitor can run at a different res, refresh rate, and (possibly in winxp) color depth.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well yes, a PCI is the cheapest solution as most cheap ($60ish) cards which sport dual display are no faster than your GF2TI.

If you want an AGP card which does dual display then GF4MX cards or ATI Rad7500 come in at $60+ and will enhance image quality but won't be a whole lot faster than your GF2TI.

GF4TI4200 or Rad8500 ($90+) are pretty pointless on your CPU (PIII 500) unless you're upgrading soon. So either get a PCI card to run alongside your GF2TI or GF4MX/Rad7500 AGP, but double check the Rad can do dual display as there are many diff version and just sporting CRT+DVI is not a sign it does dual display.

You don't need any sw to get dual display working, and working well. Any card which can do dual display can do so with seperate resolutions.

 

[Smilin]

This is a pretty easy thing to do and help files in w2k/xp cover what you need. Here's my one bit of advice that will save you some grief...

Do NOT get a 2nd nVidia card for your 2nd monitor unless it is identical to the first. Either use an nVidia card capable of dual monitors, two identical cards or make sure your 2nd card is NOT and nVidia.

nVidia uses the same driver for different cards and you can have some serious grief if you use two dissimilar cards using one driver to run dual monitors. I've had trouble using various combinations of A GF3, GF2, TNT2U and TNT2m64

 

[AnAndAustin]

Great advice Smilin, I hadn't thought of that but it certainly makes sense. Probably a good idea to get 2 different types of card (eg Radeon, nVidia, Matrox, etc) if you don't want hassles like that!