What do i need for dual monitors?

[dchakrab]

I would like to stick a 21 incher next to my 19inch Viewsonic. I need to be able to do an extended desktop (NOT mirrored) over both, preferably with differing sizes and resolutions.

Can i do this by adding a second PCI video card into my machine? I don't want to lose the TV-in on my current AGP All-in-wonder card if i can work around it somehow.

If i did install both, what kinds of conflicts would i have to work around? Which card's drivers would handle the desktop "stretching" ...and how would that work? Would both cards' drivers show up in my system display prefs?

Am willing to buy a dual-head card if i absolutely have to, but am hoping i can work this out with a small investment on a decent PCI card.

Dave.

 

[Soulkeeper]

many of the new cards have both a dvi and vga connector
this allows you to connect either one dvi and one vga monitor at the same time, or connect two vga monitors with a connector

a few have dual dvi outputs too
no need for two video cards
my gf4 ti4200 is running a 17" and a 15" right now
i got a 21" coming in the mail
nvida has pretty good software support for dual displays
i don't think ati is too bad off either
i have never tryed using two vid cards at once tho, so i'm not sure how winxp would deal with it


good luck

 

[dchakrab]

That's the problem...if i switch to a newer card with dual display capabilities, i'm going to have to give up my AGP All-In-Wonder card. Or find a newer dual-display capable card that works in PCI, so i can use my AGP card as i am now, and have a total of three displays...might be overdoing it, in terms of deskspace.

But a fun experiment, if someone can advise on the use of multiple cards to split video.

Dave.

 

[Elcs]

Unless Im mistaken which I could quite well be, ATI cards cant 'stretch' a desktop. I dont know whether its a driver or hardware issue or just the fact that I cannot for the life of me find the option.

With my Sapphire Radeon 9800Pro using the 4.2 Cats and Hydravision 3.25, I cant find a stretching option like I had with my GeForce4 Ti4400. My only complaint so far.

 

[Rankor]

If you install a pci video card, you will be able to run extended desktop and run separate resolutions.

I have an ATI 9800 running dual lcds and a Sapphire ATI 9000 PCI running a third lcd. I use a combination of Windows Dual View Extended desktop and Realtime Soft's UltraMon multi-display utility.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: dchakrab
That's the problem...if i switch to a newer card with dual display capabilities, i'm going to have to give up my AGP All-In-Wonder card. Or find a newer dual-display capable card that works in PCI, so i can use my AGP card as i am now, and have a total of three displays...might be overdoing it, in terms of deskspace.

But a fun experiment, if someone can advise on the use of multiple cards to split video.

Dave.

The All in Wonder 9600 supports dual VGA. No DVI port though, but you can have your dual monitor and AIW in one card.

 

[dchakrab]

Hmmm....updates:

This works fine if i use an ATI pci card and a GeForce AGP one.

This works crappily if i use two ATI cards...i have to set the PCI as the main card, otherwise only the AGP shows up, and if i set the PCI to the main card, the AGP's TV in doesn't work.

I think ATI's drivers conflict if i have two ATI cards installed...the TV tuner on the All-in-wonder reads the PCI card as the main card installed, and so thinks TV-in isn't possible, and gives me an error message.

ATI cards will stretch desktop, without problems, as will the combination of ATI and Nvidia (i think windows does the stretching, so the cards don't matter much, other than the afore-mentioned issues with conflicts).

Anyone got any cheap old pci cards they want to sell me? Preferably not ATI?

Any suggestions on resolving the conflict issues?

Dave.

 

[nullshark]

Try switching which video card gets initialized in the BIOS first.

Also, check this site for info and links on good selections for secondary/tertiary cards

 

[dchakrab]

Unfortunately, switching primary or secondary doesn't make a difference. Dual will only work with the PCI card set as the primary card in BIOS...otherwise, the AGP card is the only one that shows, with the PCI card not even showing up in my device manager.

Will check that link out and see if i find anything that helps...

Dave.

 

[dchakrab]

Ok, here's an update:

Decided to go back to the Nvidia + ATI combination. GeForce 2 mx in the AGP slot, set to primary, with an ATI pci card in there as secondary.

Both cards show up fine in windows, in the device manager, with drivers loaded happily for both, no resource conflicts.

The pci card doesn't seem to be outputting anything to the monitor, though...only the AGP card seems to be "working" ...and i can't seem to figure out how to get the second card to display.

Suggestions?

Dave.

 

[dchakrab]

Uodate to my update...it appears older cards have to be listed as primary to work in XP. What does this mean? Is performance going to suffer a lot by listing an 8 mb PCI card as primary? The system will still be using the AGP card for that monitor, so full-screening a game on that card should still function the same, right?

Does anyone know what it actually means to list a card as primary...is it just a BIOS listing, meaningless in terms of performance?

Dave.

 

[kylebisme]

it sounds like you are playing around in windows, you need to go into the motherboard bios and switch "initiate vga device" or whatever from pci to agp.

 

[dchakrab]

Nope...that's what i was talking about. Older PCI cards can't be set to anything but primary in BIOS to work properly, especially ATI cards. This means i can use the older ATI PCI for dual displays, but not if i want use the AIW functionality on the AIW card, because that has to be set as primary in BIOS for all the inputs to work.

So, my question again....what does it mean to set a card as primary in BIOS? Is this just the card that displays startup information (which is all i've read on this so far)...or does it mean something in terms of gaming performance, etc?

Dave.

 

[Peter]

The "primary" attribute means that this VGA chip gets to own the legacy VGA resources. This implies nothing but the fact that it gets fired up by system BIOS and displays the boot process. All other VGA chips will be enabled to linear mapped model only (no VGA compatibility enabled) by the booting operating system. Your non-primary VGA cards and their drivers need to support this. ATi cards, Rage128 and Radeon series, all support that.
Very old stuff from any chip vendor does not.

 

[acemcmac]

I'm ordering my 98AIW tomorrow to replace my single tube driving 9800 (at nominal cost to me)... will keep you posted on how it plays with the pci9000 and it's two tubes... unless it's really that hopeless of a situation

Edit: dchakrab, you may want to change the title of this thread to include AIW... I passed it over more than a dozen times while I've been contemplating the same thing without having a clue you and I were in the same boat.

 

[DaveR]

Quick question. I have a Sapphire 9600. It does support dual monitors, but as you know it has 1 vga and 1 DVI. I have 2 vga monitors and wonder where I can get a dvi to vga adapter?

I assume that is all I neet.

TIA

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: DaveR
Quick question. I have a Sapphire 9600. It does support dual monitors, but as you know it has 1 vga and 1 DVI. I have 2 vga monitors and wonder where I can get a dvi to vga adapter?

I assume that is all I neet.

TIA

A DVI-VGA adaptor is included with all retail ATI cards that support 2 monitors...you sure one didn't come with your card?

If not, you can get one off Newegg for $8 or so.

 

[DaveR]

WOW...Thank you! I bought the retail Sapphire 9600 (non-pro) from Newegg a bit ago. They sent me the "retail Box" but did not have cables, etc in it. I called and said I never got the software (who cares) and cables. They said if I liked the card they would send me the other stuff...and a T-Shirt.

I got it a few weeks ago and never did look at the small adapter! Sure enough, it is a DVI to VGA adapter

Now, I assume I just hook up the second Monitor and tell the driver I have a second monitor...of course, I do not expect it to be that easy!

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: DaveR
Quick question. I have a Sapphire 9600. It does support dual monitors, but as you know it has 1 vga and 1 DVI. I have 2 vga monitors and wonder where I can get a dvi to vga adapter?

I assume that is all I neet.

TIA

A DVI-VGA adaptor is included with all retail ATI cards that support 2 monitors...you sure one didn't come with your card?

If not, you can get one off Newegg for $8 or so.

 

[DaveR]

HEY! That works. I can drag an app from one screen to the other! I will have to copy from 1 screen to the other!

I believe ATI has an app to let me expand an app like an excel sheet, too!
This is so cool, I need it for work as I work from home 3 days a week and I had what I needed all along!

 

[Rent]

Just an FYI (as I'm sure I'll be flamed by a ATI fanatic here), nVidia nView offers everything you are asking about. If you have any nvidia card with dual heads, you can easily use it as its built into the drivers. IMO, its better than any solution ATi offers in the multi-monitor department.

 

[DaveR]

Thanks Rent. The ATI driver is doing fine on my system. I have not tried their software to "stretch" a big spreadsheet, but will.

 

[Peter]

You might want to install and venture into the "HydraVision" software. This does essentially everything NView does for the NVidia chips.

 

[DaveR]

Thanks, Peter. I did download it, but have not installed it yet. I was sure surprised when I found the DVI>>>VGA adapter in the box!