Why doesn't everyone want dual monitors??

[dougjnn]

I really don't understand why this isn't a big thing.

I mean it costs a fortune to go beyond about a 19 or 20" monitor. Maybe 21" . Small change difference. Two 19 or 20's add huge screen real estate.

Come, I can't believe I'm the only dude that rarely has less than six windows open, and often has 10 or 12 or more. In fact I need more memory ?

Lots of different Explorer windows open. Word. Excel. Maybe Wordpad. Widows Explorer for HDD file pulling up. Maybe some program crunching along in the background, that I need to check from time to time.

Gee, it seems to me that the ideal computer environment would be, if not quite 180 degree surround video screens, then maybe about 120, or at least 90. As opposed to the 20 degree or so at most which the monitor now is, generally. Give me video REAL ESTATE!!

I'm now trying to determine if a PCI card and AGP card solution is easily workable, or whether I have to go with a dual monitor in one card approach. I'd rather go with the former, since I don't see any need to upgrade the 2D /second monitor card very often at all. And it would free up the choice of 3D AGP card, and also end up being cheaper for the same power. Or about the same. And definitely cheaper after the first AGP 3D card upgrade, which doesn?t have to be dual monitor on one card.

 

[warmachine]

Dougjnn your right I love having two monitors the extra real estate is great I've benn thinking about adding a third allthough I'm not sure how to do it. On your box just go for it 98se supports two.It helps if they will run the same res. but they don't have to, One problem I ran in to when I used on older vid card pci is it would only run as the master and my good cad would then run as slave, so if you are going to buy a pci card make sure it will run as slave. I wish they rote games that would support 2 or 3 monitors so you had some peripheral vision this would make the games great! what do you think?

 

[ManiacMonkey]

My main reason for not having dual monitor display is insufficient funds!
I'd be all over it if I can dish out cash for another monitor and video card. Another reason is the lack of desk space on which these two monitors will go on. I'm lacking in desk space as is.

So, the two biggest reasons I'd imagine why dual monitors aren't so hot are funding and space. I'm sure everyone wants a dual monitor (or more!!) setup but it's just not practical for everybody to spend the money or give up the space for the monitors.

My roommate has dual monitor display (that bastard). I'm still on a dinky 15" trinitron doing graphics and video and a buttload of other stuff. Ironically, I refuse to go to a 19" or 21" display cuz I'd rather spend on other things and I think 17" if pretty nice step up.

my 2 cents.

 

[rbV5]

Lack of two monitors.

 

[RobsTV]

Yep, multi-monitor is great for 2d, but can actually be a problem with 3d.
Many games will crash if you have more than 1 monitor enabled, or use "extended desktop". And I don't mean trying to play a game with more than 1 monitor, I mean you expect to play on 1 monitor, and it will still crash if you have extend box checked. So you end up having to disable the other monitors. No big deal really, unless you forget.

Combining AGP and multiple PCI cards is the way most do this, instead of using dual head. No problems getting it to work with most card combinations. A good place for info is: Multi-monitor support

If gaming is not your thing, and 2d apps are what you are into, then it is an easy choice. Multi-monitor is much better than a larger monitor.

 

[laper]

My experience has been that the system is buggy if your running any version of Win9x (including ME). Win2K is by far the most stable for running 2 monitors. Still, watching movies etc will cause my system to crash if I use the slave monitor.

 

[AndyHui]

2 monitors? No money, no space. Sure, I'd love 2 monitors, but I'd rather spend it on something else first.

 

[Davegod75]

same as everyone else...no money space or reason

 

[Sunner]

I have two monitors but I dont need the second so its not worth the hassle.
What would I do with it, read two sites at once?
Play two games of Quake at once?
I actually used a setup like this a LOOONG time ago during the age of mono monitors, one 21" and one I dont know how big, probabaly 17" or so, was cool for 10 minutes then I found myself just using the 21".

 

[TravisBickle]

I'm with Sunner on this one. I know someone who had 2 monitors and windows 9x gave him the run around with it not managing to boot with the pci card. windows 2000 works very well with it though. I was unimpressed with what the setup was actually gaining him other than massaging his ego a bit. if you have an older monitor you can't think of what else to do with, then ok, but you can only look at one place at a time.

 

[dougjnn]

RobsTV --

Thanks for the info. I'd like to check out that site -- but I get a bad url message every time. Are you sure its the right link?

Also, do you know how a Voodoo3 2000 or 3000 does as a second monitor card? I mean in terms of conflicts with a primary card.

Primary card would be either a Radeon 32 DDR oem, or a no name Geforce2 gts (eg eVGA). I think I'm leading towards a Radeon again. Depends on Win2k driver support when I buy the mobo.

 

[Mathias]

What in the world would 2 monitors do to help me?

 

[dougjnn]

Most games don't take advantage of two monitors.

But for web surfing, for example, it can be very nice to have more real estate. Compare info on one screen against another. It's the same reason you have many many explorer windows open at once. So you can switch to something else quickly, and compare things. Or for example, add info to a spreadsheet or a word file that you're taking from an explorer window. Sure it works by tiling, and switching which window is pimary and on top. But I for one have wished that I had both fully visible side by side from time to time.

Or watch stock developments in one window while doing other things in another one.

 

[Jugernot]

My problem isn't affording, but desk real estate! My poor desk just doesn't have enough room for another 19" display. I tried doing multimonitors with a 15" a few months ago, but ended up getting rid of it. It only works great if both are the same size (or at least close).

 

[Mem]

Two monitors ,I would rather buy one top of the range in image quality plus storage space would be a problem with two.