Help with using more than one Video Adapter

[DirtylilTechBoy]

Hello,

What I have

HP Pavilion 513x with AMD Athlon XP 1600 with 256megs of DDR a CDRW, DVD ROM, Integrated (but can be disabled) 32 meg DDR Prosavage video card, and an ATI PCI All In Wonder 128 with 16 megs of ram.

I hooked a 17" Monitor up to the 32Meg ProSavage Card and a 19" Monitor up to the ATI All In Wonder card.

Under normal operation, with the Prosavage card set as primary display and the ATI as secondary, I don't have any problems. I can see both desktops, can drag icons across both displays, etc.

However, when I try running Return To Castle Wolfenstein, it fails, which normally doesn't, because it can't decide which display to open up with. The same thing happens with the TV Tuner.

For wolfenstein, if I deactivate one of the video cards by disabling the desktop, the game runs fine on either card. But it only works if I only have one card active.

its similar, but otherway around, for the TV Tuner. If I have the ATI card set to primary, which I don't want, because I want my desktop and start menu to be on the other monitor, .... if I have the ATI card set to primary, the TV tuner will launch fine and I can watch TV. If I set the ATI card to secondary, the TV tuner fails because it tries to open up and run on the Prosavage card.

My question is, is there any way to tell a program which display to use?

 

[blade906]

Hi

I've faced a similar problem and also with two sound cards.

If you have an Athlon, the motherboard has to have either a jumper setting or a BIOS setting to override the onboard display adapter. Look up the motherboard manual you got. Chances are you have a VIA chipset, though I am not quite sure what Hewlett Packard gives. Check the manual and the jumper settings. It should be there.

Another possible but not 100% guaranteed way is to disable the onboard chip in Windows using Control Panel-->System-->Device Manager. That won't actually switch control over to the ATI card unless the ATI is being recognized in Windows properly as an AGP card. Install the drivers for the ATI card in Windows, reboot and try to choose the adapter in Display Properties manually, if the abovementioned BIOS and jumper settings don't work for you.

I've successfully disabled an onboard sound chip on an ASUS A7V333 M/B running an Athlon XP 2000+ and have installed a Creative SoundBlaster Live! value card on it, so there is a chance that the jumper settings work for you, that is, if your manual and motherboard have it.


Enjoy!

Vivek

 

[DirtylilTechBoy]

But I still want to keep both cards active. I was thinking about writing a macro or something that would switch my desktop around according to what I was wanting to do.

That, or I am just going to buy a new all in wonder card that is better than both. The thing is, one card plays games very well, but the other has the tv tuner stuff, but doesnt do games that well.