dual monitors?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Ciemny
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David Ciemny

Hi all...been building pc's for a couple years now. Gaming machines for
myself, some basic machines for web surfing and mail. I have a request from
a friend for a pc that can support two monitors. My first question is do I
need a higher end video card for this? If not how do you run it off a
standard video connection (back of pc)?

Secondly is it possible to have dual keyboards? He states that it is. I
never gave the subject much thought. No need to until now.

Just wanted some thoughts before I research some more or dive into this
project.

Dave
 
First of all, you need an OS that support two monitors, like Windows XP.
Then you need a video card that supports two monitors, or two video
cards. I am not sure about two keyboards. As an experiment, I plugged
in two mice on my pc, a USB one and a PS2 one(I booted the system
with the PS2 one and later added the USB one). It worked fine.
 
JK said:
First of all, you need an OS that support two monitors, like Windows XP.
Then you need a video card that supports two monitors, or two video
cards. I am not sure about two keyboards. As an experiment, I plugged
in two mice on my pc, a USB one and a PS2 one(I booted the system
with the PS2 one and later added the USB one). It worked fine.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to put together the leanest (but of good quality) machine
together. I have an ati 9800xt gfx card and it has two adapters on it. One
for a crt, the other for a lcd. Possible to run two crt's? Looking at the
ati site regarding their hydravision but didn't quite see anything other
than dual monitor support. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks again...

Dave
 
David said:
Hi all...been building pc's for a couple years now. Gaming machines for
myself, some basic machines for web surfing and mail. I have a request from
a friend for a pc that can support two monitors. My first question is do I
need a higher end video card for this? If not how do you run it off a
standard video connection (back of pc)?
Click to expand...

I've got this feature with my Asus (ATI) 9600XT. It works well enough,
and I got the card for about $140.
 
I'm trying to put together the leanest (but of good quality) machine
together. I have an ati 9800xt gfx card and it has two adapters on it. One
for a crt, the other for a lcd. Possible to run two crt's? Looking at the
ati site regarding their hydravision but didn't quite see anything other
than dual monitor support. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks again...

Dave
Click to expand...


I had an ati 7500 with the vga and digital connector, one could just use
the digital to vga adapter and use two monitors no problem. Can't see
why they'd change things.
 
In message <[email protected]> "Mark Shaw"
If you want dual monitor support, you have 2 options:
- use a specialised graphics card that supports multiple monitors
- use an operating system 2000/xp (and maybe 98) that supports 2 monitors
and insert 2 monitors in your pc. Normally you'll already have an AGP, so
its a matter of putting in a PCI graphics card.
Click to expand...

NT4 had support, depending on the graphics card. A dualhead G400, or
2xG200s would do the trick.

98 added support for multiple monitors using virtually any low-end PCI
video card and it was sweet, but not all cards (especially 3D cards)
were compatible.

2000's support is sloppy, but useable if you need to.

XP's support is great, almost any video cards work, and it's fairly
seamless.
 
David Ciemny said:
Hi all...been building pc's for a couple years now. Gaming machines for
myself, some basic machines for web surfing and mail. I have a request from
a friend for a pc that can support two monitors. My first question is do I
need a higher end video card for this? If not how do you run it off a
standard video connection (back of pc)?
Click to expand...

If you want dual monitor support, you have 2 options:
- use a specialised graphics card that supports multiple monitors
- use an operating system 2000/xp (and maybe 98) that supports 2 monitors
and insert 2 monitors in your pc. Normally you'll already have an AGP, so
its a matter of putting in a PCI graphics card.

Its been some while since I used a specialised graphics card that supported
multiple monitors but my experiences werent the best. Frequently windows
message boxes would appear in the middle of the screen which would be split
between the monitors. A constant pain. You had to rely on the software that
comes with the graphics card to do all the work, and more often than not it
did not seemlessly integrate well with Windows.
I now use Windows 2000 with AGP and PCI graphics cards, and have never
experienced a dialog to appear split between the two screens. Its much
better. And most likely cheaper as you may have a few old PCI graphics cards
lying around and these can be used no problem.

HTH,
Mark.
 
A workaround may be to use a KVM switch with 2 (or more) user ports. Even
then it all depends on the kvm hardware if the 2 keyboards can have
simultaneous control of a machine. Bit of an expensive solution though.
 
In message <[email protected]> "Mark Shaw"
Ooops. Spot the mistake. I'm sure you can guess what i meant!
Click to expand...

I've actually been debating putting a 4" LCD monitor inside one of my
servers for diagnostics. Would be a fun project, although ultimately
perhaps more cool then useful.
 
Easy, just make all additional keyboards USB. If you want them to operate
independantly, then that is a problem unless you are running Linux. Same
thing with mouse.

JT
 
DaveW said:
Two keyboards = hardware conflict. Not possible.
Click to expand...

Once again DaveW has proven himself to be full of shit on *yet* another issue:
http://www.xkeys.com/ymouse/whym04.php

That is but one solution of several dozens. I have a schematic somewhere around here from some fellow who
threw together a simple gate circuit to allow an extra keyboard to be used as a configurable gaming
controller; IIRC this is how other controllers (like the Nostromo or CH flight throttle) work.

Jon
 
David Ciemny said:
Hi all...been building pc's for a couple years now. Gaming machines for
myself, some basic machines for web surfing and mail. I have a request from
a friend for a pc that can support two monitors. My first question is do I
need a higher end video card for this? If not how do you run it off a
standard video connection (back of pc)?
Click to expand...

David, the best resource *bar none* for multiple monitor setups is this site:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/guide/

Have fun, but if you go into the gallery you might want to put a drool-catcher underneath your chin. ;)

Jon
 
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