Fancy multiple screens...

jabaroon

Hi All,

Has anyone setup their PC to have more than one screen?....I need to do something similar and was looking to see what sort of experience people have had.

What I would like to do is setup 3 monitors and have them side by side operating off of a single PC (I know I will probably need 3 gfx cards...).

Then what I would like to do is to have 3 separate video's (AVI or similar) playing (one one each of the 3 screens). All of the videos would need to be synchronised perfectly with each other....

So, my question!...
- What sort of hardware would you recomend for the 3 monitors
- Has anyone done this before and what is your experience
- Once setup, how do the 3 screens behave?....just like one large wide one?
- Does playing the 3 videos in tight synchronisation seem reasonable / doable?

Ta for the help,
Jab

thesteve

I've done it with two... We used Nividia graphics cards that supported two monitors. With the card you got a splitter cable that allowed the two monitors to plug into it.

When you installed the driver then you got a number of options for the way the screens operated together ie usually set up as one desktop setup across the two screens, when you moved the mouse it would disappear off one and appear in the other, etc... It could also be setup as the two monitors would display the same data...

To have three different videos playing I'd say it could be possible using three differrent media players, but don't forget that if there's sound with them then there'll be three audio tracks coming out ontop of each other

I think also that the monitors had to be the same make and model...

Wertz

Nearly any up to date gfx card does dual monitor output....can't say I've heard of 3 from one, but I'm sure there's some way of doing it.

Mind us asking why?

Zascar

there are cards that do 6 and more for share traders... Very Expensive, but you can get them.

rsynnott

Two 2head cards, or Matrox used to make a four head prosumer one; you might be able to get one second hand. The video shouldn't be a big deal.

Shiny

You could do 3 monitors easily with a dual head
Nvidia/ATI card and then another PCI card such
as a GeForce 2 or something cheap like that.

I had 3 monitors running for a while but I feel that
2 monitors is plenty.
I usually have firefox/transfer files/common tasks
in the main and best quality monitor.
I then leave winamp, bittorrent, and netlimiter running
on the second monitor and glance at them every so
often.

If you are going to have a PCI card as well as an
AGP/PCIe card then I recommend that it is the same
make, ie if you are going Nvidia, then get a nvidia
pci card too. Makes graphics driver installation and
general day to dayness easier.

The monitors do not have to be the same.

To sum up, Dual monitor setups are brilliant and I
am addicted to my setup. If i had to use a single
monitor system for everyday use I would go mad!!!

sci0x

Thats the next thing i must do get another 2 or more monitors for my system. My friend done it recently, has a 19" TFT and a 17" CRT. He has Media Player open on one screen and does usual business on the 19". Looks really cool too!

Webmonkey

Its simple enough to get Multiple Screens. Done it at work, 2 Graphics Card, 1xPCI 1xAGP. AGP is channeled to a 4 way splitter. Its for Powerpoint presentations, The presentation comes off the PCI card and the other 4 can be used for reading notes and control slide shows. Excellent Setup.
If you want to spilt the screen up to 2 or more then you will require extra cards like they've said above.

Webmonkey

Edit: Hi sci0x btw, what hell u doing up so late :eek:

jabaroon

Hi All,

Thanks for the info and suggestions. Can anyone recomend a 4 head card that is reasonably current?...

What I am doing doesn't need a high-end card, but when I am finished, I think I like the idea of having the card run a dual setup at home!!!...

As such, I dont want to buy a piece of crap card that will serve its purpose for a few weeks and then wont be of any use to me for my home PC for running games and the like!

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jab