Help on Triple monitors

[striderempire]

I am looking for a video card to connect my three monitors onto my desktop. All these three monitors are 21". One is Sopy G520P and the other two are E540/B, that is to say they can all support at least 1900x1600 resolution individually. Now I am considering to buy a Matrox Parhelia? 128MB card. However according to its specification,
while using 3 displays at a time (TripleHead), all 3 displays use the same displayresolution, color palette, and refresh rates, and the highest display resolution available is
1280 × 1024 (that is, 3840 × 1024 for all 3 displays). In this case the power of my monitors would be wasted. Can somebody give me some advice on this issue? I am not using this pc for gaming or video editing, therefore the 2D/3D performance is not important to me. My pc's configuration is

Dell Dimension 4550 P4 2.0GHz
1G PC2100 RAM
32MB ATI Rage 123 Ultra video card

I am also considering buying one Dualhead AGP card to work together with my ATI card. The question is whether this solution work or not. Shall each monito can work at least at 1600x1200 resolution? Can each monitor's resolution be set independently or not? Which kind of card should I buy?

My only experience with multiple monitors is connecting my G520P to a Dell inspiron 4100, thus my expereience on this is really limited. Any help or advice is grealy appreciated.

--strider

 

[heliomphalodon]

Running three monitors at 1900x1600 (or even at 1600x1200), with independently-controlled color depths and refresh rates, is a tall order. The Parhelia can't do it. I'd say you're going to need specialized hardware for this. Take a look at the Appian cards, or the nVIDIA Quadro NVS cards.

 

[striderempire]

If I install another dealhead video card or even two more cheaper video cards ( that is, two or three cards instead of one Matrox Parhelia card ), can I make all monitors working in 1600x1200 resolution? I don't care much about the color depth, refreshing rate and 2D/3D accelarating performance.

--strider

 

[BoomAM]

In theory you could. But you would get more than likely get compatibility problems.

 

[heliomphalodon]

If you had three 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 cards you could do it.

 

[Gosharkss]

Don?t advise using CRT monitors especially if you run them at different resolutions and refresh rates. The magnetic fields will interact and cause rolling bars and other artifacts. It is best to use LCD monitors for multiple monitor configurations.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: Gosharkss
Don?t advise using CRT monitors especially if you run them at different resolutions and refresh rates. The magnetic fields will interact and cause rolling bars and other artifacts. It is best to use LCD monitors for multiple monitor configurations.

yeah, but he already has the monitors. the only thing i can suggest is to go with 1 AGP and 2 PCI cards. that way you would definitely have the ability to adjust everything individually with each monitor. maybe 1 ATi Radeon 9000 agp and 2 PCI radeon 9000's.

 

[Gosharkss]

Odds are he/she will be required to move them away from each other to reduce the affects, limiting the effectiveness of a multiple monitor setup. Just want to make certain he/she knows what to expect. Shielding is not an option, there is no cost effective solution.

 

[Confused]

I have a 19" and a 17" CRT right next to each other. There are only bars running up/down the screen are when they are at different refresh rates. When both at 75Hz, they're fine




Confused

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Working with multiple LCDs would be nice, but evn if striderempire sold all 3 of the 21" monitors he could maybe afford 1-1.5 19" LCDs of which have no hope of obtaining resolutions anywhere near 1900x1600. Even 1600x1200 support is hard to find on most 19" LCDs as it seems 17"-19" run native at 1280x1024...

1 agp and 2 pci cards is probably the most cost effective way to go. Any other "specialty" hardware could very well end up costing a lot of money...

 

[ProviaFan]

Perhaps the possibility exists of having one AGP dualhead card, along with a PCI card (your internal one might work for this). Don't expect the greatest performance, and don't expect to be able to span any 3D apps across multiple monitors.

 

[heliomphalodon]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks
Maybe 1 ATi Radeon 9000 agp and 2 PCI radeon 9000's.

Good luck with that. I tried everything to get just two PCI Radeon 9000 cards to work, never mind a third AGP one. The drivers just can't handle it.

 

[striderempire]

I decide to buy an ATI 7500 to work with my ATI Rage 128 card which came with my pc. However I just found my ATI Rage card is an AGP card instead of PCI card. I think one choice is to buy an ATI 7500 card with PCI interface. Shall this solution work or not. If not, I might have to buy another cheap ATI PCI card besides the ATI 7500 AGP card. :-((
Thanks for all help and advice I received.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: striderempire
I decide to buy an ATI 7500 to work with my ATI Rage 128 card which came with my pc. However I just found my ATI Rage card is an AGP card instead of PCI card. I think one choice is to buy an ATI 7500 card with PCI interface. Shall this solution work or not. If not, I might have to buy another cheap ATI PCI card besides the ATI 7500 AGP card. :-((
Thanks for all help and advice I received.

If you can, buy an ATI Radeon 7500 PCI card where you can take it back. Try it with your AGP Rage 128 and see if it works. If not, take it back.

 

[striderempire]

I installed the Radeon 7500 PCI card successfully, but I am waiting for the DVI-I to VGA convertor ordered from ATI. THerefore I can only use two monitors as this time. Thanks for all the help.