Dual Dislplay?

[boweevil]

Well i bought the beginings of me system, well most of it really, just a few odds and sodds to get, i wanted to check on peopel opinions on dual displays either with the second output of the graphics or a second card, i havent used it before, no doubt it will be useful when im workin, but how does gaming work?

Anyone had any good or bad experiences with multiples?

[Mikki]

boweevil, welcome to BE :wave:

I'm accumulating a lot of experience with multiple displays, but I don't do any gaming so I can't help there. I can tell you that the setup is very easy, and I think you're more likely to run into issues with games than with the hardware or setup itself.

Cheers! :)

[boweevil]

Yeah i guess thats what i figured, i wanted to stay away from flatscreens for now, till they seem better value for inch, ive already got a great nokia 21inch which is perfect so i figured maybe a smaller 17 crt, i might even lower it into my desk, i at an angle, like in posh offices,

Has anyone come across any troubles with multimedia software? adobe, macormedia etc.

Do you sugguest using the dual outputs in modern GPU's or woudl this as logic would suggest half the performance of each,

also i want a good mod for my pc-65, glass panel as standard, i was thinking of an etching, combined with lights etc.

[dbwillis]

When I had dual mon's (17in and 15in), most games would disable the 2nd one and then when the game stopped, it would be re-enabled...

[sodface]

Hiya boweevil :wave:

I run 2 17 inchers off a single TI4200 and have no problems with it. Like db said - when I run a game it runs on the primary monitor and the secondary still displays whatever it had on it (sort of) but you just can't access anything as the mouse pointer will not transition out of the game and over to the other monitor - I do sometimes jot down things in notepad I want to refer to while I'm in the game like IP addresses or whatever and leave it up on the secondary so I can still see it once I start the game.

The one problem I had I think is isolated to the 4200 but I'm not sure so I'll mention it. If I run both monitors at the same resolution and refresh rates I'll get a sort of ghost stripe down both monitors - so I run one at 85 and the other at 75 to get rid of it.

Nview is pretty good, but there is a third party app that I use and really like for setting up your multi-monitor system - It's called Ultramon and can be found here. (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/)

Cheers!

[boweevil]

Cheers i feel welcomed, I currently have a geforce fx5900 128mb, which does support has dual outputs, since im not going the ftft route as mentioned before about cost per inch, and the nagging refresh rate. I will probably need a crt/vga adapter, anyone have any experience with those?

Cant wait to get the ball rolling, just awaiting delivery 3-4 days my arse!

[NeoShowtime]

I have a 19" and a 17", the 19 off my Ti4200, and 17 off a Matrox G200 (PCI). I use Ultramon to run em both, and I like it alot more than nView. As for games, most of the time the game locks the mouse in the primary screen, and its all fine. Sometimes older games dont, so I just use some pre mapped hot keys to lock it with ultramon. As for the dongle (DVI->CRT), they have worked fine everytime Ive had to use one.

[Underwater Mike]

How do you guys like working with screens of different resolutions? Not just different sizes, but different resolutions?

I'm about to buy another LCD, but I can't afford a second 17" screen. I was thinking about a 15" second screen, but then I will have 96 dpi on the primary (1280x1024) and 85 dpi on the smaller screen (1024x768). Does that ever wig you out, going from the smaller to the larger and vice-versa?

It's a $150 savings going with a 15" vs. 17", which is why I'm considering it.

TIA

[NeoShowtime]

I used to run my 19 1280x1024, and the 17 1024x768, and I wasnt upset by it at all. Then I realized my 17" trinitron will do 1280x1024@75hz :rolleyes: