dual vid cards??

[Sacofjoea]

Hey.. Im wanting to hook up 2 monitors to my pc and was thinking about buying a cheap PCI video card and placing it in the pc, then running my second monitor out of it and my main one through my AGP video card.
Wanted to know if this would work without problems...

Running XP
and I know it also depends on my Mobo, but its about two or so years old..and on average, do most mobos support it?

Thanks
Sac

[Sastraxi]

I think you'd be better off investing in a dedicated multi-display AGP card.

[Sacofjoea]

my Geforce has Twin View feature but only plugs into screens/monitors with Video In.. dont know any monitors that have that.. only works on TV..

[JungleMan]

I have the same setup you are talking about, AGP GeForce3 Ti200 with S3 Virge PCI thinger as the second display.

Naturally the 2D quality sucks on the S3 Virge but it does the job-- AIM windows, Genome Spy, and the occasional web page/IM in view during a game.

If you get a cheap TNT you should be fine. Just make sure it's got at least 8MB of VRAM, this one has 2MB and only does 1024x768x16 bit. One of these days I'm going to get a new card...

[MidgetsBro]

I had mine set up like that as well, Justin, but I had an 8MB ATI All In Wonder... I just had a shotty 2nd monitor, so I could only go to 1024x768 without making the monitor fizzle and start doing weird ****. I did this in Win2K without a problem. I plugged in the new card, booted up, and WIn2K noticed it immediately and asked me if I wanted to use it as a duel setup. I said yes, and my picture just appeared on the 2nd monitor... it was cool, but I had to get rid of it so I could put my fish tank on my desk.... lol.

[Sacofjoea]

eh just bought a cheap 4mb Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo PCI Card.. it should work lol pretty crappy but cheap (2 bucks). And thats exactly why I want it.. for misc programs while im in games (aim, etc..)

Hope it works
sac

[JungleMan]

Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't drivers are probably built into Windows.

2-D quality might be another story, my secondary PCI looks horrible

[parksie]

Originally posted by Jungle-Man
Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't drivers are probably built into Windows.

2-D quality might be another story, my secondary PCI looks horrible

Over here, you can pick up 4mb Matrox Millennium PCI cards for about £5 ($8 or so) and the quality on those is pretty good, I ran with one for years that I bought for a tenner

[JungleMan]

I'll snoop around on eBay or Pricewatch a little and see if I can find a Matrox 8MB and it should be able to handle 1280x1024x32, or maybe 1152x864x32 as my monitor only shows 60Hz at the former.

[parksie]

I don't know if they're still generally available, but I've got a copy of the latest Millennium drivers (from Matrox).

I didn't have much luck using them in a multiple-display system though, your mileage may vary

[Sacofjoea]

Well... I got a Matrox Mellennium II (8mb) and installed it, updated drivers, but seems to not work for video games. I drag my windows over to the other screen, and then I start up my game. Once I get going.. it changes the resolution on the other card (really shouldn't do anything since they are diff cards..) and then when I click in the secondary monitor to use AIM and my other things while in a game, it minimizes the game and then readjusts my res and then allows me to click it.. whats the deal with it? Any way to err fix it? lol

sac

[Sacofjoea]

Originally posted by parksie

I didn't have much luck using them in a multiple-display system thogh, your mileage may vary

ahh crap

[JungleMan]

Try using the stock Windows drivers.

[Sacofjoea]

stock drivers? (ones that came with it?)
ill try that, assuming its what you mean.

(sorry for the late reply.. vbfourms were down)

[agent]

i have a related question actually

i have an ATI Rage Fury with 32 megs

if your not familiar with this card, it's and agp card with a vga connector, two rca connectors (one for capture and one for output), and an svhs connector (for output)

when i enable the rca out or the svhs out, it always has the same image as the vga out. i would like to have windows see it as two different "monitors" so that i can output winamp vis plugins to the rca or svhs and winamp itself on the vga.

can this be done with this card?

[Lord Orwell]

i had that card i think. i think you have to change driver settings because it defaults to mirroring the display but you can set it to be part of your desktop or whatever.
as a side note, there are models of both ati and nvidia cards with twin view that have dual monitor output instead of monitor and tv. i nearly bought one, but easy dvd duplication changed my mind. svideo out to the svideo in of the other computer
in a related note, i have a radeon all-in-oneder pci card, and if you twin-view it with another vid card, it breaks the tv.
ive ran up to 3 monitors in one system that way. i had a nice agp card and two ****ty ones for vb to run in and for aim
my stand by is a s3 mach 64 with 2 meg of ram. And you thought YOUR card was crappy??

[wrack]

I have got MATROX G450 DUEL HEAD and I am damn happy with that except it only works with W2K and higher...

Even the company provides the driver for 95, 98, ME but never worked on my PC...but hey I haven't used 98 since W2K came out...

Cheers...