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Help needed in building a projection comp - need a video card with dual monitor support

G

godspeedx

Golden Member
My dad just asked me to build a fast computer for projection at church. I need a good video card that will support dual monitors. We need a normal computer monitor and a projector to show seperate things. We're obviously not going to be using this computer for gaming or video editing or anything, but I WOULD like to know the latest video card that supports dual monitors, as well as some other not so expensive ones. This is the church budget so it can be expensive if it needs to be, and we're tired of projection slides lagging. 🙂

I'm planning on putting either a P4 2.53 or a 3.06 ghz in it, and my dad will present both to the pastor. And I had planned on DDR PC3000 ram. Everything sound good?

Also, will I need a special kind of MoBo or anything else that would be unique to this system?

Thanks a lot. Any suggestions on anything I should take note of while selecting the stuff for a computer like this are welcome.
 
Hmmmm. I personally have no experience with what you are describing (having 2 different things on the projector and normal monitor), but I do think that if you just set it up so your windows desktop was extended onto the second monitor (rather than the video card sending the exact same image to 2 devices like usual projectors) that it would be fine for what you want.

Pretty much, every new video chip today has Dual Monitor support. This includes the Radeon 9700 (Pro), 9500 (Pro), 9000 (Pro), 8500, and 7500, Matrox G400, 450,550, and nVidia GF4 MX 420/440/460, GF4 Ti 4600/4400/4200, GF FX all have Dual Monitor support in the chips. Do realize that the card must have the circuitry for this to be supported as well (ie for example, the cheapest GF4MX's have only 1 VGA port and thus no dual monitor support, although the GF4 MX chip has support for it). Obviously the most expensive cards listed there are the GF FX and Radeon 9700 (Pro), but the G400 and Radeon 7500 can be had for around $50. You really don't need anything special other than the vid card. You also would need a modern OS (Win 98, 2000, Me, XP) for Dual Monitor support.

I do have one question tho, why would you need a P4 2.53 or 3.06GHz for it? What else will it be running? You could do what you are describing on a Duron 1GHz with enough RAM and a decently fast hard drive.

I might drop you a line on AIM. cya
 
Bah, if you don't need anything above 60Hz for the monitor, you'll be just fine using dual output on a used Radeon VE card. I have one specifically for doing crappy dual output with a TV and cost was under $50.

You can use that, keep your taskbar on one side, then enlarge your powerpoint on the screen being sent to the projector.
 
yeah i'm using a radeon 7500 with dual monitors and it works great for playing a movie on one monitor and doing work on the other. the 7500's can be found for about 70 bucks. It has vga, dvi and S-video out.

If you really want to save your church money you should make them an inexpensive AMD box. I made my school a lab of 20 machines with XP1800's for under $10,00 ($500 per machine)
 
Totally overkill dude. They want to project images, not play Quake! I Just built a system in the last few months using a PC chips (A.K.A. ECS) MoBo with built in sound, and video. AMD XP 1800. Used a generic Nvidia pci video card for the second video driver. 256mb of pc133 SDRAM. System works beautifully. The key is software. Windows XP will recognize 2 video cards. You will need other software to run the second monitor separately like Powerpoint. We went with Song Show Plus, which is designed for churches and can also incorporate powerpoint presentations. The software will cost more than the pc system! You will also need a VGA splitter / amplifier box to send signal to the 2nd monitor and projector.
 
Ya our church is using SongShow Plus also. I don't know what I was thinking when I was planning a P4 2.53 lol. I didn't know that SSPlus could incorporate powerpoint presentations though, I'll have to look into that. I think i'm going to try reformatting the hard drive and doing a clean install of windows, and I'll probably upgrade it with windows xp instead of ME. If that doesn't work I'll probably go with an AMD XP 1800 or something. And then should I go with a MoBo with video and then a seperate video card, or a video card with dual vga outs?
 
If that doesn't work I'll probably go with an AMD XP 1800 or something. And then should I go with a MoBo with video and then a seperate video card, or a video card with dual vga outs?
Click to expand...

It's up to you. A mobo with video on board and a second pci video card will be cheaper in the long run. Video cards with dual outs are more $$ and generally are overkill for your application. FYI video cards with an earlier version of Nvidia Geforce are inexpensive and those chipsets work well in a dual video application.

Good luck!
🙂
 
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