Dual monitor resolution question.

[techs]

I've never had a use for dual moniors, but I do know.
I have a 22 inch widescreen computer monitor that has a default of 1680x1050 and a large screen LCD HD television capable of 1080p.

I run Windows 7 and have an on board Radeon 3200HD which I don't use and an add in pci express ATI 4550HD.

My desire is to be able to set both monitors to run at their recommended resoulution, and to be able to see and work with my whole desktop on both monitors.

In other words, I don't want to extend my desktop, but want to show the same thing (clone) my desktop, but at different resolutions.

Can I do this with the add in ATI card using different outputs (e.g. dvi and HDMI) or do I need to use the onboard video for one of the outputs?

Thanks

 

[postmortemIA]

you can't use onboard video if you have another graphics card plugged in PCI-e port. ATi cards should be capable to drive independent resolutions on screens, it is trivial to set that up in ATi's CCC.

 

[NoQuarter]

you can't use onboard video if you have another graphics card plugged in PCI-e port. ATi cards should be capable to drive independent resolutions on screens, it is trivial to set that up in ATi's CCC.

You actually can use the onboard video concurrently with a plugged in graphics card on current AMD chipsets. They call it SurroundView. Not sure what chipset he's on but it probably supports it.


Problem is, currently Clone mode doesn't support differing resolutions on either nVidia or ATI. Apparently several years ago Clone mode would work at differing resolutions and the smaller resolution display would let you scroll up and down to see the extra desktop space but that ability is gone. Ultramon has a feature that will copy a desktop to another monitor but it's slow (updates at 30 times a second max).


If the issue is that the TV appears muddy because the resolution isn't native you should check the box 'Enable GPU Scaling' in the Display settings of the CCC panel. This will at least upscale the 1680x1050 desktop to 1920x1080 for display but there is no way that I know to Clone a 1680x1050 desktop to 1920x1080 or vice versa anymore.

 

[postmortemIA]

My bad, OP wants to clone displays, rather than to extend one display to another.

 

[techs]

You actually can use the onboard video concurrently with a plugged in graphics card on current AMD chipsets. They call it SurroundView. Not sure what chipset he's on but it probably supports it.


Problem is, currently Clone mode doesn't support differing resolutions on either nVidia or ATI. Apparently several years ago Clone mode would work at differing resolutions and the smaller resolution display would let you scroll up and down to see the extra desktop space but that ability is gone. Ultramon has a feature that will copy a desktop to another monitor but it's slow (updates at 30 times a second max).


If the issue is that the TV appears muddy because the resolution isn't native you should check the box 'Enable GPU Scaling' in the Display settings of the CCC panel. This will at least upscale the 1680x1050 desktop to 1920x1080 for display but there is no way that I know to Clone a 1680x1050 desktop to 1920x1080 or vice versa anymore.

Thanks. That addressed all my questions. Especially since my mobo does have the surroundview option.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: