Dual Monitors?

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reckedracing

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So i finally talked my boss into getting me a dual monitor setup
one for myself and one for him
we are currently running one 15" flat screen each

i'm guessing i need a special video card for dual monitors for each machine right?
 
yea, you need a video card capable of processing dual monitors. You can get them for around 130 ish from newegg. i recommend invidia.
 
You can get it for way cheaper than that, and it depends on what you're going to do. Hell, even a cheap $30 Nvidia 6200 (newegg) will do it with dvi and vga.

Anyway, the price moves up if you want dual dvi and depending on graphical needs.
 
what processor and memory spec's would you recommend for a dual setup?

i've got an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 228708KB RAM which i assume is a single 256

graphical needs are rudimentary...
no gaming etc
i occassionally watch a movie at work, i would like to be able to do that, but i'd rather have dual monitors than my boss passing cause its too much $$
 
If you have a free PCI slot, you can use a PCI card along with the card you have now. Windows *SHOULD* detect it and know what to do (never did multihead on a Windows box). If you can't go that way, take everyone else's advice and snag a dual output video card. Most geForce and ATI cards have this, so there's nothing super special you need to grab, maybe except for a DVI to VGA adapter which usually comes with the card.
 
yes you can run two seperate video cards.

in BIOS you should be able to specify which card takes primary.
 
Most of the video cards today or even older ones have dual video outputs. The older ones tend to have 1 DVI and 1 VGA. The newer ones usually have 2 DVIs and most often include an adapter for DVI -> VGA. There is one that goes the other way (VGA -> DVI) but in reality it wont up convert the signal, it'll stay analog.

To make it more complicated, DVIs come in single link and dual link. Dual link has more bandwidth and if you look at the connecter, there a few pins with a +. The single link only has a few pins with a -. Most of the video cards have the + and monitors have the -. What to do? Just get the single link cable and itll be fine. ONLY GET DUAL LINK if BOTH monitor and video card support it. Look for the + pins.

With that out of the way; NO not all monitors come with DVI. Ask or look. The DVI connections are a lot bigger, roughly twice that of VGA. And if it is DVI, itll most likely have VGA.

You can get two monitors running, one with DVI and one with VGA or two DVIs or two VGAs. Preferrably two DVIs because of consistency and better image quality, especially in LCDs.

You can also get two separate video cards. Depending on which you have, you can get a mixture. Older boards usually have AGP and PCI. So you can getone of each. Newer ones will have either 2 PCI-e and PCI or 1 PCI-e and PCI.

Now if you were getting two new monitors and want it nice, I suggest getting a card with dual DVI and 2 exact monitors with DVI.
 
The EASIEST way is to take ANY ANY ANY PCI Video Card and just throw it in an empty slot. Instant Dual Monitors. Hell... I used to run 3 monitors.
 
The EASIEST way is to take ANY ANY ANY PCI Video Card and just throw it in an empty slot. Instant Dual Monitors. Hell... I used to run 3 monitors.

celestia1.jpg


Pieced it together with 3 geForce cards, built to run Celestia (shown running). Wish I could have gotten better monitors though.

That aside, three monitors is much better than two... you're not staring at a gap when you look at the center of your display setup.

Now this...

_Radius_320.jpg


Is simply badass. The three displays are seamless. Excellent for Celestia.
 
Holy crap-tastic! Those 3 CRT's are butt ugly. Lol. But at least you have 3 monitors running for less than 100 bucks. CRTs are being given a way free and those old PCI cards are like 10-20 bucks used.

If you had the money, why not just get a big nice 20.1"+ Widescreen? Unless you need 3(2) seperate images.
 
i need to be able to view last years tax returns on one screen and prepare the current years on another screen

we are no longer keeping paper copies in our files, so i need another screen to view the e-file cabinet

pushing towards paperless
we also have a copier/scanner that will put all original documents into the clients e-file cabinet drawer...

i dunno if a 20.1+ widescreen will have enough room to view both programs, and i doubt it'll be as cheap as picking up another cheap card and lcd
 
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