2 Video card in one PC...

mayhem#

Lads,

Maybe a somewhat stooopid question, but the head is not right today ;-)
If I stick 2 video cards in one PC can i theoretically get the same setup as by using a video card with 2 ports?
Was over at a mates place this week who had his desktop displayed over two screens and it was plenty cool (except I kept "losing" the cursor...).

STaN

i havent heard of it work before, im sure you would need some specialised software to pull it off... and it is something attractive to me to have 2 monitors, i just DONT have enough space!

Maxtrox (or something like that) do dual headed graphics cards

Rew

Yeah, there are a fair few dual head cards around these days. I have a Matrox G550 (AGP) and G450 (PCI) both dual head. I plan to put 4 monitors off the machine

You dont need special software just drivers. I think. Depends on your OS a bit as well i think. Seen it done perfectly with 2k and Linux

With a bit of playing arounf u can set quake up so that it spreads accross multiple monitors (bit of googling u should be able to find the details) The G550 and G4550 are around 150 euro each from IT Direct.

mayhem#

Yeah I know it can be done with a dual port card.
Thing is I have several perfect single port cards here and do not really want to buy a dual head one....

Lump

Yea It can be done, all you do is bust the first Gf card into the pc, then you stick in the other and install it, Windows 98 will know that you have two cards installed, then the display options will allow you either spread it over two screens, use scrolling (****ty) or just use 1 monitor..... remember to install the primary card first as you cant alternate which is the primary display adaptor.

TBH, games wont run over the two screens, just programmes that run in window mode.




John

mayhem#

Cool!!

Will give it a go tomorrow...

STaN

does it work if i have an agp and a pci gx card and does the card type matter?

Lump

Well, when I did it two years approx. ago, we used a pci 8 meg as the second card, and a 64meg as the primary. it worked fine, we were using it on an editing machine. The problem arises with the monitors, you need to obviously have to of the same sized monitors...... or it'll look shít to be honest as you can imagine. Also make sure that you have monitors that will take whatever refresh rate you intend using.


AFAIK (dont take this as gospel) I think the primary card does all the processing and then just uses the second card to feed the information. Like I said that may be a blatent lie, but all the rest ias true.



John

acous

I think the primary card does all the processing and then just uses the second card to feed the information.

blatant lie! blatant lie!!

you're right about the dif types of monitor, its crap if they look different at all even though its perfectly functional. also the refresh rate can be different on each monitor but you'll really notice the difference (i did anyway, but i'm special:)).

another thing is if you have a pci card and an agp card the pci one will always be the primary card for dos and bootup messages. maybe fore win98 too, but xp definately lets you choose the primary display for gui use.

satchmo

On my machine at least (KT7-A, WinXP), if you have both an AGP card and a PCI one, you've got to set the PCI one to be the primary card in the BIOS, otherwise the OS won't see it. The AGP is usually the default card.

Gerry

Its the luck of the draw whether it will work or not, the drivers have to be capable of co-operating with another card. Usually best to stick to cards of the same brand, I remember tears trying to get an ati radeon agp and a pci geforce2 mx to work, when we swapped out the ati for another nvidia card all was fine. However I have seen it working with a geforce and an old ati mach64 also..

Lump

Like I say, it was at least two years ago when I did this, All I know is that it worked


John

daveJAM

A while ago in Cybermart they set up a system with 2x21" monitors for Quake. Not a good idea, guess where the cross hair was. In the end they had to go with 3 but I'm not sure if they ever got that working properly.

satchmo

There's some good multi-monitor links, FAQs and game-related stuff etc here.

RicardoSmith

I have use PCI GF2MX cards succesfully with ATI cards and other Nvidia cards. Under w98/w2k/xp it should all work easily. It doesn't work under NT or 95. Great for web development or programming. which card is booted from or which dos uses it determined by the Bios on your PC. Its different in every PC i see. Newer one allow you do pick which one is booted from and will automatically boot from the one with a monitor attached if you remove one monitor for some reason.