Dual Monitors ... dual vid cards

c:::HNsaw · July 1st, 2002, 11:35 PM

I just found out that in W2k I can use my AGP card along with a PCI vid card in order to have dual monitors (guess I'm a little slow sometimes

lol). I really like the set-up, I can keep one screen for total graphics and the other for explorer, word files, text stuff ... whatever. I know this is likely old news to most of you, but I just never realized that I could add a second vid card and monitor. I don't know how long I've had more than one vid card around and an extra monitor, now they don't need to just collect dust, I can put them to use.

c:::HNsaw

tobu · July 1st, 2002, 11:36 PM

Hello

Can you do it in XP pro?

MDS · July 1st, 2002, 11:44 PM

I've been running dual monitor's on my win2kpro system for about a year now and I also and like it alot

Brangwen · July 1st, 2002, 11:49 PM

c:::HNsaw:

"Very cool!"

I've never tried that (2 vidcards) ... I've used a dualhead for 2 displays which is very handy for "stretching" or "expanding" the desktop ... I'm wonderin' if the difference is only using up an extra slot on the mobo with your config ... can you navigate between screens? I'm using Win98se, and I can with Matrox (Powerdesk) ... I don't recall if you can or not. I'd be interested to know. I hope you can. If so, congrats!

Brangwen

c:::HNsaw · July 1st, 2002, 11:58 PM

Yea, it's just an expanded desktop, you can stretch windows across both screens if you want to. I don't really care about the use of an extra PCI slot right now, because I have onboard LAN and sound, so I have 5 PCI slots with only one being used otherwise, for a modem.

I'm pretty sure you could do the same with XP too.

Heck, just give it a try, it's not going to hurt anything, I thought I had to have a special dual output video card, whoda thunk!
Just gave it a try and low and behold, no mixed up IRQs or anything.

Pretty cool huh?

c:::HNsaw

Savant · July 5th, 2002, 12:38 PM

Indeed it works fine in XP pro, as long as the pci card is in the top slot, and you have your bios set to initialize the pci video first. (which unfortunately means that all your bios stuff shows up on the pci video, which probably isn't a problem for normal people, but my second monitor is on a switch and shared with 3 other comps)

c:::HNsaw · July 5th, 2002, 01:26 PM

In W2k, I noticed that if/when you decide to remove the second monitor after trying this, you must do so via the "Expand desktop" pickbox first ... otherwise you will likely experience driver problems, as I did, with the initial vid card. The system would boot with the default VGA driver and not recognize my vid card. An easy fix, when I just put the second card back in, rebooted the system and then unchecked the "Expand desktop" pickbox.

Confused? Well I was, until I figured this out.

c:::HNsaw

AuraEdge · July 5th, 2002, 01:26 PM

Hmm
I run XP Pro and Dual monitors, yet my PCI card is in the 3rd slot, and I have it on Initialize AGP first..works flawless for me. Actually I thought you had to keep the PCI Video card out of the first slot because it usually shares an IRQ with the AGP card, which shouldnt, but might cause conflicts.

ITs a Geforce2 GTS AGP with a Matrox Millenium PCI.

A bonus if you have at least one Nvidia card - You can use the Nview extensions, which allow you to have virtual desktops, transparencies when dragging, and special rules for popups (appear on first screen always, or appear on screen of app, or appear on screen where mouse is) and other stuff like that.

c:::HNsaw · July 5th, 2002, 02:15 PM

Hello AuraEdge,

Do you know it the "Nview extensions" are available for a Riva TNT2 Ultra?

How do you use these? Is this a function of coolbits?

Thanks,
c:::HNsaw

AuraEdge · July 5th, 2002, 04:37 PM

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention it
Simple - Install the latest drivers (Detonator XP's). It will prompt you about nview when it is installed.
They were included with any Detonator driver that came out after the GF4 debuted, which I think were the last two official versions of the Detonator XP driver.