two video card: true or false?

[ZippyDan]

i just bought a PCI ATI All-in-Wonder 128 16 MB to act as a secondary card to my Geforce2 and I was basically guna use it as just a TV-Tuner and DVD playback device

thankfully (maybe?) i havent opened it yet, i decided to call up ati and ask them some questions about it first. the ati tech support dude there told me that i cant use the TV-tuner or DVD features unless i set the ATI as the primary video card (basiclly rendering the AGP Geforce2 useless)

of course theres no way i'd want to do this

is this true? true of all operating systems? are there any work arounds to this so that i can still use the GeForce for games and the ATI card for TV and DVD? any way to easily switch between the two as far as which one is defined as the primary (like preferably without restarting)? thx

~Zippy!

 

[Wag]

Yes, it's true. It's a windows limitation, no direct draw overlay in the 2nd monitor.

There really isn't any easy fix for this. You will need to switch the ATI card to your primary in your bios every time you boot.

Other than that, the only videocards that display DD Overlay in the 2nd monitor are the nVidia MX dual-head boards. It does a pretty good job, and automatically displays anything that uses overlay (DVD, tv-output, etc) full screen on the 2nd monitor. Maybe you'ld want to consider the nVidia cinema thing with a dual-vga board? It seems the easiest way to achieve this. Either that, or if you only need TV output for the 2nd monitor, a Radeon 8500DV should work, although you have to switch monitor assignments, but you won't have to reboot. Bleh.

I'm in the same situation. I use my MX board's 2nd VGA output to feed my HDTV for DVD playback. No nVidia boards w/dual-VGA this time around.