Dual Monitor Setup with two Video Cards?

[Research]

Hi!

I have Radeon 8500 AIW 128 in my set up powering a Sony Trinitron CRT. I'm thinking of buying an LCD. I plan on using my old Voodoo 5 3dfx to power the CRT and AIW DVI for the LCD. I was wondering if dual monitor set-up will be possible using two cards (1 AGP + 1 PCI) instead of having to buy a new dual output video card?

Any experiences/suggestions?

 

[Research]

Anybody?

 

[Mik3y]

you cannot have 2 active video cards running at the same time on a computer. you will need a video card wtih dual dvi to run 2 monitors.

 

[Pixle]

If your video card (ati 8500) has a dvi and vga port. You may be already able to use dual monitors. No add in card is needed. As for pci and agp card - yes that works too. (?) Mik3y says nope...i'll believe him with so much posts

http://graphics.tomshardware.c...6/dual_displya-04.html

http://graphics.tomshardware.c...6/dual_displya-01.html

Pixle.

 

[RandomFool]

You can do it but it's weird and wasn't very useful, for me at least, it took some work for me to get it bios settings (pci is primary card) have to be right and driver garbage. Of course i was using a 2mb trident card in the pci slot so that might have been part of the problem.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=380564

that might help a little, not exactly the same but it gives the basic idea. I found a site awhile ago that had all sorts of info about what cards worked well and which didn't but i can't seem to find it agian and i'm tired.
-Ryan

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
you cannot have 2 active video cards running at the same time on a computer. you will need a video card wtih dual dvi to run 2 monitors.

BS.

You can have as many different video cards in your comp as you like (or ,as much as you can connect to your mobo). Only problem are the drivers, cards using same drives behave the best (all nvidia/ati/matrox/...)
Especially ati and nvidia don't often play nice together. Dunno about your voodoo.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
you cannot have 2 active video cards running at the same time on a computer. you will need a video card wtih dual dvi to run 2 monitors.

Sure you can. I've had both AGP and PCI NV cards, AGP NV and PCI S3, and AGP ATI and PCI Maxtor (2) cards. Haven't tried modern ATI AGP with PCI NV though, that's probably an interesting challenge.

It really all comes down to the card's drivers, and if they support multi-mon, and play well together. Matrox was the original king in this area, their cards supported multi-mon instrinsically, even before Windows' had built-in multi-mon support. Unfortunately, they really aren't much in the way of gaming cards anymore, if they ever were.

Since the Voodoo is so ancient, and generally pretty-much unsupported, I don't think that would make a very good candidate for a multi-mon setup. I would suggest ATI AGP + PCI cards, or NV AGP + PCI cards, or ATI/NV AGP cards and Matrox PCI cards. If you only want two displays, then any current dual-head card, NV or ATI, would probably fit the bill. Note that full-screen DirectX-using games can only use a single display, so if you want to utilize "span mode", in which a single effective display-device is stretched visually over two display outputs, then you will need to go with an NV card, as ATI still doesn't support this feature in their drivers.

 

[Research]

Thank you so much for your responses!!

Well, to answer Pixle's question, unfortunately my radeon comes only with one DVI and then ATI has provided one DVI to VGA adapter which plugs on to it. Hence it is a single head card.

RandomFool, DaFinn and VirtualLarry .. thanks for the info. RandomFool's google link was quite useful. Also, i found this info about my Voodoo card and it can be easily used as a dual card. Some more search indficated that XP can simply handle dual monitors as long as the cards are installed correctly (working correctly with their individual drivers). I feel pretty confident of setting up this dual monitor system once I buy my new DVI LCD. Please let me know any caveats etc. which come to your mind ..

Thanks again!!

 

[daveshel]

I have failed more times than I have succeeded with multiple cards. It is definitely possible, but not very practical. The cards tend to fight over which one will be the primary and it is a b1tch to get them to play well together. I have stuck with dualhead cards for a couple years.

 

[kef7]

I had the same set-up several years ago--actually was able to cram both cards in a lian-li pc-42 matx case by sacrificing a hard drive bay due to the length of the voodoo5.

I quickly gave up on this because driver updates for the AIW were next to impossible to perform with both cards in the system. In one instance had to pull out the AIW in order to clean all driver traces out of the system but when I booted up the voodoo card said it was using the AIW drivers?!?

Not worth the trouble; better off getting a radeon 7000 pci instead.

 

[Quasmo]

I have the exact same card (ATI8500 AIW). But I was able to run it with 3 video cards. I ran the ATI, an nVidia 440 and 200. It worked perfect. get a good multimonitor program (like MultiMon) and you're set. I did have problems installing a "Powered by ATI" card in the same system (with out the nVidias) The drivers were very skrewy and didn't like multimonitor support.

 

[LED]

It'll work as I have used the V5500 with a Dell LCD on the 7500, 8500, 9700, and now 9800 ATI all AIW plus a Matrox card to boot. The V5500 will only use 32 MB...

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
you cannot have 2 active video cards running at the same time on a computer. you will need a video card wtih dual dvi to run 2 monitors.

This guy is an idiot.

My setup used to be a 19" CRT off of 8500AIW (DVI->Analog) and another 19" CRT off of a voodoo 5 (PCI). My machine wanted to run off the PCI, but after you boot into windows the first time with it installed, you can change that in the display settings. YMMV with that. In the windows display settings you have the option to extend your desktop over both monitors and specify which is Primary and secondary.

Setting this up was really easy and I wish I still had an extra monitor! I never used any 3rd party software for it.

 

[Research]

This is great!! Thanks for the screen shot!

I guess, after this discussion ... I'm prepared for some driver hiccups ... (or mayble I'll be lucky) ... but feel quite positive about this set-up.

Originally posted by: LED
It'll work as I have used the V5500 with a Dell LCD on the 7500, 8500, 9700, and now 9800 ATI all AIW plus a Matrox card to boot. The V5500 will only use 32 MB...

 

[Research]

Just wanted to update you guys ... I got a second monitor yesterday (Compaq s700). It was a breeze to set up dual monitor system with my ATI AIW 128 + Voodoo 5 (amigemerlin driver). Just hooked up the second monitor and extended my desktop. Observed that moving a window from AGP (ATI) to PCI (Voodoo) is like moving on the same monitor ... completely seamless ... On the other hand moving from PCI to AGP sometime give a 1 milisecond delay/choppyness... nothing noticiable though.

One weird (maybe normal thing) that I observed was that the TV window on ATI display cannot be moved from the ATI monitor to voodoo monitor. Is it okay, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: Research
Just wanted to update you guys ... I got a second monitor yesterday (Compaq s700). It was a breeze to set up dual monitor system with my ATI AIW 128 + Voodoo 5 (amigemerlin driver). Just hooked up the second monitor and extended my desktop. Observed that moving a window from AGP (ATI) to PCI (Voodoo) is like moving on the same monitor ... completely seamless ... On the other hand moving from PCI to AGP sometime give a 1 milisecond delay/choppyness... nothing noticiable though.

One weird (maybe normal thing) that I observed was that the TV window on ATI display cannot be moved from the ATI monitor to voodoo monitor. Is it okay, or am I doing something wrong?

That's typical because the 2ndary cards basically do 2D and won't support overlaying

 

[Research]

Originally posted by: LED
That's typical because the 2ndary cards basically do 2D and won't support overlaying

Thanks LEd. But does that mean if I get a 3d capable card, I can transfer my TV from the ATI card to the other card. Also, voodoo seems to have 3d (glide) drivers. Will they work?

 

[LED]

Well from my experience you would have to get a dual output card or stretch/extend your desktop as one...I don't believe it'll work with the V55o0...if you notice only half the MB is working...also shoot for a 3rd party program like UltraMon or Powerstrip

 

[imported_zaphod]

I use dual monitors (separate cards) at home and at work. Has been supported by windows since Windows 98 (possibly except ME). But the card drivers do have to support that. On the other hand, this has been around now for 5+ years .... at work I use an nvidia-based and integrated Intel and at home I ame uing one ATI (all-in-wonder rage its old see?) and one nvidia vanta also old. I imagine you will have no problems doing it. And despite the detractors... it is not weird, it is indespensible.

In fact, at least beginning with win 2k you can have up to 9 monitors (but who has that many slots?)