PCMCIA Graphics cards?

[matobinder]

I have a situation where laptop users(for presentations) need a dual head capability. We want to avoid the "big" docking station ideas that add this, as the small laptop is the whole reason we are doing this.

Basically, I want to get solution to power two projectors from a single laptop, and have them both be separate displays. My main idea is to get a PCMCIA graphics card, and power one projector off it, and the other off the laptops own graphic port.

I think the PCMCIA graphics card solution will work the best for us here. However, I haven't seen anyone use one before, and wanted to know if there were any general comments.

Anyone use any of the PCMCIA graphics cards before? I have found 4 so far. If you know of other let me know. A review/comprason of these would be GREAT!

VTBookDD
http://www.vtbookdd.com/

Margi Display to Go
http://www.drbott.com/prod/db.lasso?vend=Margi

Appian Traveler
http://www.appian.com/products/traveler.html

Colorgraphic Voyager
http://www.pygmy.com/hpc vga card.htm

 

[AndyHui]

That's a tough one, since I've never heard of anyone who actually uses any of these.

You are probably better off using two separate laptops if you want a different image on each screen. They don't really cope well with dual head type applications.

FWIW, the most well known (erm...that's really pushing it) of the cards that you have listed is the Appian Traveler.

 

[Peter]

You might want to look into notebooks that use SiS chipsets and have both VGA and video-out connectors. The reason is, if you build a notebook around an SiS chipset, you have to use their SiS 301 "2nd display companion" chip to drive the LCD panel, so it's in there. Now the external VGA connector usually comes directly from the chipset, while the video-out technically must come from the 301. The VGA-out should then be able to show independent content, while the notebook's LCD shows the same thing as the video-out does.

If that's not an option for you, there actually are Cardbus graphics adapter thingies. If your notebooks don't have Cardbus, only old style, 16-bit PC-Card, you'll be out of luck.

regards, Peter

 

[matobinder]

Cardbus should be a valid option for us. I haven't seen much on those... aren't those just the PCMCIA Type III cards?

Having two laptops will not be an option, all the software we write designed for multiple heads. It works great off desktop PC's, and the older style laptop setup where we had a laptop docking station that allowed you to plug in graphics cards. We just wanted to get rid of our current solution with the docking station(one big extra thing to drag along...)

I think I may go out and buy one or two of the different PCMCIA cards, just to try them out. If I can get the budget for that...
-matobinder

 

[Peter]

I didn't say two laptops, just laptops with dual head capability built in ... and those using integrated-VGA SiS chipsets inherently MUST be, else they'd be unable to drive their own LCD. Same for Mobility Radeon. These also can drive three outputs with two different sets of screen content.

The PC-Card "type" is just the physical thickness of the card, type III being the thickest ones that block the other slot as well. Nothing to do with whether the card is 16-bit legacy PC-Card (ISA style) or 32-bit PCI-ish Cardbus.

regards, Peter

 

[fr]

My Dell Inspiron 4100 has an ATI Radeon Mobility M6 and it supports Dual Display with one of the recent BIOS upgrades. I can connect a monitor to the VGA out and have my desktop extended to it with no problems. The clone feature works as well. I haven't tried it yet, but I suppose you could use the VGA out + s-video clone to control two screens, but I'm not sure if you can use the VGA out and s-video at the same time.

 

[Peter]

Mobility M6 is a Radeon 7000 core with on-chip RAM. R7000 in turn can run CRT+TV+LCD, with the TV and LCD showing the same picture, and the CRT being independent.

regards, Peter