Dual Monitor support

[Draftsman 0]

Sorry to post again so soon, but you guys rawk!

 

I want to buy a vid card that supports 2 monitors. I still want to play games (of course) but also to work.

 

I'd like a GeForce Pro if they support that. Has anyone any info or tips?

[Brian Frank 0]

The only nVidia based cards that support 2 monitors is the GF2MX's.

No GTS, Pro's, or Ultra's, nor the GF3.

 

Check newegg.com for this stuff. GF2 Pro will run you around $150 with the shipping saver option.

[Almghty 0]

Scuse me?

 

All Nvidia cards support dual monitor in that if you add another NVIDIA card the driver will detect it and you will get two screens.

 

 

IF you are referring to DUAL monitor OUTPUT from ONE card then only the Geforce2MX offers thsi solution.

 

As far as I know ...I have tried ..TNT2 Ultra, TNT2 M64, Geforce2MX 400 and in all combinations I was able to get a dual screen setup going.

 

Again it is the driver that you use that will depend on the features. For example some drivers will allow you to play games without needing to disable the second monitor ..although this is typically a OPENGL problem ..hope this clears up some things.

[AndyFair 0]

Hmmm. All we need now is a motherboard with 2 AGP slots so we can get good performance out of both video cards.

 

AndyF

[Cynan 0]

I heard somewhere that a dual AGP m/b was in the works... don't quote me!

 

BTW, I currenly have a GeForce2 GTS running along side an older ATI Mach64 with no problems.

 

--Cynan.

[bobbinbrisco 0]

take a look at Matrox's range of video cards.

 

http://www.matrox.com

[Almghty 0]

ATI also have dual mon capability ...

 

If you were to rank in terms of IMAGE quality it would be (TOP to bottom)

 

Matrox

ATI

Nvidia

 

If you were interested in GAMES with ImAGE quality in mine than ATI is probably the medium.

 

I dont know if DUAL AGP is the solution. Given that at the moment anything aside from the primary monitor in win2k/XP is more of a helper screen. A place to dump your tool bars ..palettes etc etc.

 

The Nvidia drivers are suppose to give OPENGL accelerated performance IF both cards are Nvidia on every screen for work stuff like maya ..3dstudio. Which is hardly games type stuff ..meaning you craft models ..than render ..so we are talking about realtime generation most of the time.

[Brian Frank 0]

I've heard with ATI's Radeon VE, the 2nd monitor's refresh rate is limited to 60Hz. Nvidia has their solution too, but dual monitor cards are where Matrox is king. Unfortunately, Matrox is at the bottom of the 3 when you talk about gaming.

Also, what kinda work are you gonna do on your system?

[Seadog 0]

Just thought you multiple monitor types might like some more info on this subject.

I tried mult. mons. w/several cards and found that the Matrox G450 or G400 Dual 32mb or 16mb seem to be the only ones fully supported by XP Pro.

I'm actually running 3 Viewsonic monitors on a SY-K7VTA-B. I've got the Matrox in the AGP slot and an ATI Rage XL in the PCI slot. I'm set to boot with the PCI card first. My wife has a PCV133 w/a Matrox G450 Dual 32mb card running 2 Viewsonics.

I tried several other configurations with an ATI XPERT and the Raedon VE Dual. None of these seemed to work on our systems. I'm not sure but it seems to be a Motherboard/Video card thing.

Just thought I'd add my 2cents worth.