radeon 8500 - the best dual video card?

[aks93]

was wondering what the dual performance on the radeon was like? In paticular whats the secondary monitor display resolution limited to and does it look any good in 2d or 3d?

 

[ADxS]

The second "head" on the 8500 passes thru an external Analog Devices 240MHz DAC. You get independent resolutions in XP w/o any additional software, and up to 2048x1536 on the second monitor.

The big caveat with the current XP drivers is that the monitor you connect to the 2nd head absolutely *must* support DDC.

 

[Wag]

That's not a big deal. Read my swap trick. Just configure your DDC monitor on the 1st VGA port, disable "check for pnp" in monitor properties, then swap monitor cables. That's all there is to it. You can easily swap monitor priorities in windows.

 

[ADxS]

It is a big deal if neither of your monitors are DDC-capable, or you prefer to use BNC cables, but hopefull it will be addressed in future drivers. (The G550 is also a nuisance this way.)

And a correction: although 2048x1536 can be selected on the 2nd monitor, it is virtualized - the highest is actually 1920x1440 which, at 60Hz, falls within the AD DAC limits.

 

[Wag]

Well, I encourage you to complain about that DCC check BS because I'm having problems with it too.

nVidia just added a little "force monitor" option after enough people bitched. I am using BNC cables to my HDTV. I think they'll have to add this feature anyways because they're going to release that component output dongle thing.