Dual Monitor

[SoylentG]

I am setting up a new system. E4300, GA-965, 7800GT, etc. What type of a performance hit will I take by running 2 monitors for gaming? I would play on one, and have the other for web browsing and such. Would the performance improve if I purchased a cheap PCI video card and used it for the second monitor? If so, what would be the performance levels of each.

 

[Lonyo]

Performance won't drop noticeably. I run dual 17"'s on my 7800GT without issue.
You can't switch focus from the game to the secondary though really, not while gaming at least, it'll probably end up minimising the game.

 

[VERTIGGO]

I ran SUPCOM with my laptop running my desktop monitor from the laptop, and both ran at 1920x1200. I had a perf hit but not unbearable.

 

[SoylentG]

Some games you can run in "Maximized Full Screen", which lets you click off without minimizing it. My friend uses it for a couple games.

 

[zylander]

Originally posted by: SoylentG
Some games you can run in "Maximized Full Screen", which lets you click off without minimizing it. My friend uses it for a couple games.

Yeah, but only some. A lot of the games I try that with, the cursor move out of the game window and onto the desktop of the other screen and totally screw me up, haha.

You could get a second small graphics card to run the second monitor, but first try running both off your 7800gt using either ultramon or this one.

These programs let you run both monitors off a single headed card. Im using ultramon to run a 24" and a 19" off of a 7900gt and I have no problems.

 

[MotF Bane]

My GA-965P-DS3 E6400 7600GS 1GB-DDR2 ran dual monitors, a 17" and a 15", without problems. I gamed only on the 17", kept AIM and such on the 15". I never noticed any sort of performance degradation. You can use Alt-Tab or Windows key and switch easily, NFSMW minimized, JK2 and Quake 4 both let me just slide over to the other monitor.