Two monitors ?

[Agile]

With a modern 2.6 GHz computer and recent Windows there is a facility to operate two monitors at the same time.

Does anyone know if its possibile to do this with two STANDARD video cards or does it have to be a dedicated double card?

Is the software already present within windows or does it have to be added?

If so where is it and whats it called?

Tony

 

[shdwsclan]

An operation system is always a console binary.

An x-type shell makes the GUI.

X has the possibility to be split into two graphic buffer heads.

The most complex way would be to install two unlinked video cards.

The easiest way would be to get a video card that support dual monitors, if it already doesnt.

Many video cards already support this -> DVI + Svideo + VGA sockets.

Generally, you can convert the DVI socket to VGA and the VGA socket to DVI.

Unfortuantely, your video card also has to support this.

When you plug in the two monitors, the monitors send in return signal to the video card, therefore if your using windows, you will be able select to broadcast to the second monitor and partition X between the two video heads.

Mac has a gui that also auto detects and edits conf files automatically.
In linux, you will have to run the hardware detection to find your monitor and then you can just easily move one your 4 default workspaces to your second mointor.

 

[Igorian]

Depends what you mean by standard really as we have PCI, AGP and PCI-E. This might help, but try googling "installing multiple video cards" for more.

 

[johnb80]

Assuming XP - Yes.

Two standard video 'cards' - you could for example have an onboard video card and an AGP or PCI card added, plug in two monitors and away you go. You can even set monitor location i.e. 2 nd monitor to left/right/above/below for you virtual desktop to work.

Regards - JB

 

[Agile]

Thats an interesting link. But includes a worrying limitation!

"""and many cards older than 3 years of age do not work properly in this mode"""

But does anyone know how to tell in advance if any particular card will work or not? Particular chipsets?

Yes, we are using Windows XP but the home edition.
Tony

 

[Igorian]

To be totally sure, you would be best to see if the manufacturer site has a support forum or even contact them directly.

I've done it with some really ropey cards, so if you already have spare cards, give it a go. Cards with dual outputs can be really cheap, depending on what you are trying to achieve.

 

[eggplant]

What you want to do is definately doable, multiple displays isnt new by any means. If you card is dual head (you will see 2 monitor sockets on the back) then your all ready to go, if it doesnt, then either replace the card with a dual head card, or add an additional pci graphics card.

 

[Roofer]

Enter 'multiple displays' in Windows Help. Quite a bit of info in there

 

[Dippy]

Agile, you can do both. Support is in the graphics device driver, not in the OS. Depends on why you want two monitors. If it's just to extend your desktop then using a dual output card will suffice. However if you want to run an application which needs GPU power (such as 3D rendering or some sort of graphics package) then this can slow it down, depending on the power of the card. In this case it is better to use two graphics devices. This becomes a bit trickier, especially if the GPUs are from different manufacturers. One extra thing to consider is if you already have integrated graphics (part of the motherboard chipset) in which case you can get a second output with an ultra-cheap single-output graphics card.

If you let me know why you want two outputs I can advise more.