what's a good second video card w/ATI All In Wonder Radeon

[jayhawker70]

I just upgraded from W98 to Win 2K. I have a 2 monitor configuration and my second video card is not supported by 2K. I am considering upgrading my primary video card to the All in Wonder Radeon and would appreciate suggestions for a second card to drive the second monitor. Obviously it needs to be a PCI card. I don't need to watch DVDs or play games on the second monitor, but I do need do use different resolutions on each monitor. My primary applications are Photoshop and the Microsoft Office Suite.

Thanks in advance!

Ron Bower

 

[Ashen Shugar]

Get either a Voodoo3 3000 PCI or a Voodoo4 4500 PCI. 3dfx has great drivers for use under Windows 2000 and both the cards have excellent 2D at high resolutions and 32bit color. Plus, you can also use them for Glide compatibility for all those old games out there. You can find a Voodoo3 3000 PCI for around $80 if you look around online. The Voodoo4 4500 PCI can be found for around $125 and its only advantage over the Voodoo3 is that it uses the newer VSA-100 chip which supports 32-bit color in 3D games.

Edit: The other difference between the 2 cards is that the Voodoo3 comes with 16 MB of RAM whereas the Voodoo4 comes with 32 MB of RAM.

 

[demenion]

I don't really know except I hear people recommendinging PCI Matrox cards for 2D

 

[miniMUNCH]

Matrox for great 2D...no gaming on that thing though.
But you have your Radeon!

 

[jayhawker70]

Are there issues asscoiated with mixing vendors on the two cards? I understand that Win 2000 imposes some restrictions on the functionality of the second monitor (DVD, etc.).

Thanks,

Ron

 

[Hawk]

Nope, you can get different brands, I have an AIW Radeon and a Riva 128 in my one machine and it works...you could try and look for a Matrox Millenium, as long as it has enough memory (depends on resolution you are going to run), you'll be fine.

 

[Mday]

the secondary card can't be used for games, since windows (98 and 2k) does not support it. well, it's directx, but still, the secondary card cannot be used for games. BUT, you can change which card is the primary in w2k (unlike in the BIOS for w98) in real time, so that's something i have yet to figure out. my secondary card is no 3d card. it's a matrox mystique (170, 4 MB version)

matrox mystiques ROCK!. =) but the millenium is better :s

ATI cards are good for secondary, but with an ATI card as primary, i think that'd be screwy. i don't even want to try it, my primary card is the aiw radeon =)

what ever card you do get, make sure you get a lot of RAM on that card since you will want that =) 4 MB is not enough for me =( with respect to the secondary card. i wish it had 8 MB of RAM :s

anyway, make sure the card has a good RAMDAC.

 

[Hawk]

I thought you could do Quake 3 (and others) with multi-monitors, like have the secondary card render the back, etc.? That would require the secondary card to do OpenGl right?