no you don't need ultramon to get 4 monitors working, just 2 video cards and since they will most likely be nVidia or ATI, both driver packages support configuring multiple monitors.
However without UltraMon, you can't do think like move windows from monitor to monitor with the click of 1 button. If you have a maximized window in monitor 1, and want to move it to monitor 4, you have to
unmaximize
move across 3 monitors
remaximize
versus ultramon, where I click 1 button which is inserted next to the min/max/close button on a standard window, and it pops up with a small window showing my 4 monitors, and i just pick the one I want and its there.
It has other features, some simply visual, like you can select a wallpaper for each monitor or select a single wallpaper to span the monitors. Default Windows behavior just mirrors the wallpaper to each monitor.
There is a 30 day trial I think so if you run even 2 monitors, I recommend you check it out, MS should buy UltraMon and bundle it directly into Windows.
Everything that has a computer in will fail. Everything in your life, from a watch to a car to, you know, a radio, to an iPhone, it will fail if it has a computer in it. They should kill the people who made those things.- 'Woz' save a blobFileStreamDataTable To Text Filemy blog
I have a dell reseller account so I can get discounts on Dell products now. Although I usually order my monitors from NewEgg or buy.com, as they generally have deals that are good, and I am not really that picky about my monitors. As long as the primary one I use for most of my stuff is good, I don't mind if the secondary monitors are not quite as good. As long as I can match the colors and contrast, I am happy.
I thought you could do this easily using the NVidia settings? (I've even managed to use keyboard shortcuts such as CTRL+ALT+3 for example to move that window to display 3)...
maybe you can. I am not sure. I have nVidia at home, but I don't use multimonitors there too often. I do have 2 hooked up though.
I have ATI here at work, there may be some keyboard shortcuts you can setup, however I didn't see any under hotkeys (only shortcuts for changing actual video settings on the fly).
UltraMon also adds additional items to your controlbox context menu in windows, in addition to the buttons it adds to the title bar. I just find it useful to move things around with a few mouse clicks, as I am used to using the mouse versus keyboard when moving windows around.
I also like how you can have a different screensaver for each monitor.. that is kind of cool.
I had UltraMon for a while on my work computer. Worked great the first time around... didn't like reinstalling the trial
I'll soon have a computer capable of running 4 screens, but I'm opting instead for 2 and running the cards in SLI. The system is built from the ground up for horsepower and upgradeability. Can't wait to put it together
Rob, just having each monitor with its own taskbar that only shows only the windows that are in that monitor makes it worth having IMO.
There is no way to do that in Windows as it stands now, and once you have 4monitors, you really tend to have a lot of stuff open.
40 bucks isn't an insulting price for that app.. but again, im not trying to pitch it or anything, I just think its a good app to make you more productive.
That sounds good. Especially having seperate taskbars. I'm running 3 monitors at present (a modern card running 2, and an ancient pci card running the third), and I'm stuck with one task bar on the centre monitor which really isn't big enough.
I have some questions though (more for curiosity sakes than anything). Do you buy two pci-e cards and stick them into a SLI motherboard (and not enable the SLI). Is that all that's required to make all 4 video outputs work okay?
Also (and I think you can see where I'm going with this), do all of them run DirectX, so if I was to say throw Flight Sim X on there I would get the full surround view?
P.S. Very nice setup. I am quite jealous
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"
They all run DX, but I am not sure how it works when you try to run something like a DX game. I know a DX screensaver crosses all the monitors, and I know when I had tried playing counter strike at home with dual monitors, I was able to do so, however the plastic borders around the monitor generally make it less than ideal, because you get spanning in those cases, versus a program actually supporting seperate rendering to multiple monitors. I think there are a few games out there that have direct multimonitor support, but they are few.
As far as the whole SLI thing, yes, I have 2 PCI-e 16x slots so I just got a second PCI-e card and put it in. These cards (ATI x1600Pro) don't need any physical bridge to run them in crossfire(ATI uses term CrossFire where nVidia uses SLI), you just need a mobo that supports it. I actually don't think my mobo does support xfire (according to what they list as compatible intel chipsets anyway), but the ATI control panel did prompt me to go into xfire mode when I booted up for the first time, so maybe it does.
In any event, since I wanted multiple monitors, I didn't want xfire anyway, and this is a work machine, not a gaming rig, so I wouldn't benefit from 2 GPUs working as 1 anyway.
So yes, it was really easy to setup, especially since both cards are x1600 pros, so there was no driver hassle, it just worked as soon as I plugged it in.
i actually ended up moving the 2 17" monitors to the outside, so I can do the bulk of my work on the 2 19" in the center, while keeping reference docs, email, browser, etc.. open in the side monitors for quick access.
I think it gives better overall flow to everything.
I still don't like 4:3 monitors... I'm gonna have a 24" widescreen and a 19" widescreen for the new computer when it shows up, and that affords a LOT of screen space. Plus, both monitors are the same style, and it's a fairly sexy style, so it'll look goooooooood
I still don't like 4:3 monitors... I'm gonna have a 24" widescreen and a 19" widescreen for the new computer when it shows up, and that affords a LOT of screen space. Plus, both monitors are the same style, and it's a fairly sexy style, so it'll look goooooooood
Unless you split your screen when you code, you'll realise the disadvantage of widescreen very quickly when coding.
i have my 2 monitors, and i like having more than one (a lot). When i get the money, i would like to get another video card and a new monitor. I have room on my desk for another LCD monitor. As of now i have a 15" lcd and 19" crt.
I'll probably ugrade from my 3 17"s on two dual cards to two 22" widescreens each on their own video card to reduce my power consumption and actually expand the desktop realestate with just two bigger widescreens.
Hey Matt what kind of deal can you get on two Dell 22's with 1920x1200 res and true black?
VB/Office Guru™ (AKA: Gangsta Yoda™ ®)
I dont answer coding questions via PM. Please post a thread in the appropriate forum.
This is my primary monitor right now. Very nice, well worth the money. It has 1:1 pixel mapping, which is nice on older games that don't support widescreen, but even more than that, I prefer its' aspect mode. Diablo 2 for example, outputs 800x600 at the highest, so this monitor upscales it to 1600x1200. Looks great. Very bright, though. I have the brightness at about 60. High gloss, so very crisp. Good response time. Ah hell.. it's just a great monitor all around. I haven't found anything about it that I don't like (except the cost).
Seriously, I don't see the point of widescreen. My brother got me a widescreen monitor, and at first I was like "OMG LOLe" but then I realised that it will take me bloody ages to get to the quick reply bit in VBF. So I rejected it.
i actually ended up moving the 2 17" monitors to the outside, so I can do the bulk of my work on the 2 19" in the center, while keeping reference docs, email, browser, etc.. open in the side monitors for quick access.
I think it gives better overall flow to everything.
Is that Edinburgh castle on your backdrop?
Very cool setup.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"
Reply With Quote
But it does look wild! 
Originally Posted by timeshifter
