Dual monitor display

steveland?

Hey folks, I've got a PC with an AGP GFX card in it, one VGA output (nVidia GeForce FX5200)

Also an s-video out or something...

Anyway I've got a 17" CRT hooked up to it but I've also got a 15" CRT I want to plug into it so that I can watch videos on the smaller one and use the bigger one for regular computer usage.

I've got an old Mac G3 here with a Voodoo3 PCI GFX card in it.

What I'd like to know is can I put in the PCI card from the Mac into my PC and have both GFX cards running simulataniously or can you not have 2 GFXs in a PC at once?

Also how do I set it up to display accross both monitors (using XP Pro)

KdjaCL

Cant have 2 cards in a machine.

The 5200 does it have another connector on it? http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGGL%2CGGGL%3A2006-14%2CGGGL%3Aen&q=dvi&btnG=Search

Like that? A monitor can plug right into that so both can run off the one card. If you want dual display like half screen on one and half on other, get 2 of the same monitors preferably TFT for closeness as CRTs have a bit of size between screen and and side of monitor. So there would be a large gap but if you only wanted programs on the screen and nt a movie its fine.


The 1st pic is what you will need to obtain to get both monitors on the card assuming it has DVI almost all newish cards do. Nvidia control panel will sort out both screens once they are working fine, fairlyu easy to do its in Display Advanced.


kdjac

Rollo Tamasi

KdjaC wrote:

Cant have 2 cards in a machine.

you can have an AGP and a PCI graphics card in the one machine as far as i'm aware.

weeder

you can have graphics cards in one machine as im working on the same thing myself atm but i need to locate a pci graphics card

google it theres lots of tutorials

KdjaCL

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

you can have an AGP and a PCI graphics card in the one machine as far as i'm aware.

But only one as Primary display, unless you find 3rd party software (which i dont know off) to put a picture out on the 2nd card. The Display is set by Bios 1st then windows. I dont know of a way to get both outputting so suggested using the DVI port.

kdjac

weeder

yes the bios is only outputting one then inside windows you turn the other one one its fairly simple

steveland?

weeder wrote:

yes the bios is only outputting one then inside windows you turn the other one one its fairly simple

Can't find a decent tutorial, basically all I have to do is stick the PCI card in the PC, connect the other monitor to that card so what do I do then?

Should Windows pick up the new monitor straight away?

weeder

ok when in display settings 2 monitor icons should appear instead of one with a sample of the windows desktop right click and click identify and a big number will come up on screen click monitor number 2 and check the expand my windows desktop onto this monitor

KdjaCL

Link to guides for 2 gpus?


kdjac

steveland?

Ah yeh, I've set up dual displays on my laptop before, plugging a monitor into the VGA and using the laptop display too

What I was just wondering was do the two monitor things in display properties come up automatically when the two cards are plugged in because in Windows on my PC it only has the one

TempestSabre

Its likely a Mac gfx card won't be seen because its bios is different from a PC card. You'd have to download a PC rom from a PC 5200 then flash you gfx card with that. Of course if you get it wrong the card is stuffed. Its quite common in the Mac world to flash cheaper PC cards with a Mac bios to get the card working on a Mac.

You can have multiple PCI gfx cards in a PC. I've seen systems with as many as 10 monitors attached. You can even buy cards that have 4 connectors instead of the usual 2.

Check out the FAQ and Gallery over on multimon
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp

We have about 40 systems at work with multiple monitors. Most have 2 but some have up to 4 monitors attached. Depending on the drivers you can spread a desktop or application over multiple screens. Video is harder, out of the box it has to stay on one screen. With special drivers you can stretch video over many monitors.

TempestSabre

steveland? wrote:

Can't find a decent tutorial, basically all I have to do is stick the PCI card in the PC, connect the other monitor to that card so what do I do then?

Should Windows pick up the new monitor straight away?

Should pick up the card at least and a default monitor unless it recognises it.

cgarvey

KdjaC wrote:

Cant have 2 cards in a machine.

You can. As pionted out already, you can have an AGP card and 1+ PCI cards. I have an AGP and 2 PCI cards driving 3 monitors (could do a 4th if I wanted).

If you have an AGP and a PCI card, for example, and both have recent drivers, then Windows will recognise both monitors just fine. You have the choice of "Extending" the desktop across the monitors, or mirroring the display on both monitors, an option in the standard Windows display properties.