More than 2 monitors

[OsirisRa 0]

I am trying to get 3 video cards to work with xp at the same time...

I cannot get it to work. When I boot with all three vid cards, one of them disappears from the device manager. I am using 2 PCI and one AGP.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions? Or is this simply a lost cause.

 

Thanks,

-O-

[Dirty Harry 0]

3 monitors ? You only got 2 eyes !

 

Just outta curiosity, how were you planning to use 3 mons?

 

Are the 2 pci cards identical ?

 

H.

[Cynan 0]

The cards don't need to be identical, however some cards don't work with each other. What cards are you trying to use?

[Palos 0]

Make sure you leave free the first PCI slot down from the AGP, because they share an IRQ. Other than that, I think you should find more useful things to do if you got so much time on your hands

[Seldzar 0]

I used a gf2 GTS and 2 v3 pci cards and had triple monitor working no problem a while ago, however 3 monitors is just too much.

[OLEerror 0]

Depending on the video cards you are using, it should work. Windows 2000 and XP support up to 10 monitors. I'm about to go dual monitor myself.

 

Make sure you've installed both PCI cards before installing the AGP card.

[OsirisRa 0]

I am using an old trident, a PCI Vrapter (rendition 2200, this baby is a classic), and a Ti500, since I had installed my os with only my ti500, I have my bios set to init PCI first. That is the only way I could get xp to use it. The problem I was having was that when I installed the rendition the trident would dissapper. It is not a hardware conflict that I am aware of...at least between the two PCI cards. I am still experimenting with different configurations. I was not aware that 2k and Xp supported 10 minitors, I might have to go get some dual head PCIs

 

Thanks for the help!

 

-O-

 

oops, forgot to answer dirty harry...

I tend to do a lot of things at the same time, or have a lot of things open, JUST photoshop (when I use it) almost fills up two monitors, then I'll usually have media player going playing a movie or music vids, then roughly 15 instances of IE. it gets pretty cluttered, the only downside I've run into with multiple monitors is some games don't like them, but I think that is the result of my bios being set to init PCI first.

 

Quick question: If I install the PCI first, can I leave my bios at Init AGP first and still have windows use my pci adapters properly? Anyone have any exp with that?

 

Thanks again.

[Cynan 0]

Most older PCI graphics cards need to be initialised first - its not 2K/XP thats the problem. Newer cards should be ok to initialise the AGP slot first.

 

As for your games problem, thats not your BIOS but to do with OpenGL(/Direct3D?) drivers. They don't support multiple monitors and you have to turn them off to play a 3D game. Matrox's DualHead range do provide some support in their drivers though and you can get away with it in most instances so I hear...

 

..its just a shame nVidia don't offer any kind of DualHead stuff.

[Dragon-Lord 0]

the Nvidia 27.xx series drivers include DualHead style software and functionality. :}

[tweaked 0]

geforce 4 will have some awesome dualhead capability.

same type as radeon 8500 (Dual tsmd?).

There's a reason its in the drivers, its about to arrive at nvidia big time.

[OsirisRa 0]

NOW if I could only find a board with dual AGP....well...at least a chipset that supported it would be step in the right direction.

I found two listings for the GeForce4 in my inventory system at work... It appears to come in two flavors.

One of them was entitled Titanium MX4600 (who knows what the people that create these entries are smoking...this could be off the wall)

I don't remember the other, both were PNY though

 

-O-

[OLEerror 0]

Supposedly, dual AGP is on the horizon. Intel has stated that they are working on a chipset that supports it. I'm sure VIA and SIS are, as well.

[pimpin_228 0]

isn't 8x agp on it's way

[Brian Frank 0]

Yup. Of course, it'll be forever and a day until we use it... ;(