What do u use your 2nd head for?

puk · January 5th, 2003, 01:17 PM

Finally I’ve installed my 2nd monitor and I’m curious about what other ppl use their dual head vid card for.
Maybe u can post some settings and specs.

Here are mine:
W2K sp3 256 Ram
G400 32Mb
1st : Sony Multiscan 20se 1024x768@75Hz
2nd : Dell D825HT 1024x768@75Hz using 4Mb graphic memory.

I’m using the 2nd monitor to display documentation (help file/tutorial/tips) whenever I work (play) with a graphic program.

What about you ppl?

puk

PresterJohn · January 5th, 2003, 01:44 PM

plenty of uses:

i do a lot of remote administration (9 pcs here at home), so opening the screen output on the second monitor is extremely useful.

the 2nd display is also good for comparing registry entries between machines. don't program much anymore but obviously, that would be another good use. various monitoring programs, etc is another. for recreation, i can have my dvd play in the other display while still doing web browsing,etc on my primary.

my specs:

w2k pro on a hp p3-1ghz 512mb ram
matrox g450 vc
two eizo 18" LCDs (thinking about adding a 3rd but real short on desk space)

AuraEdge · January 5th, 2003, 02:19 PM

I used to use mine as a browsing window, but I moved my monitor all the way across the room. It's now always on clone on my desktop. I now use it as a bigger screen to watch DVDs mainly. Nothing really as cool as a DVD being oplayed on a 17.4" LCD and a 21" CRT at the same time. (hey, pick your screen

). It also works for cloning games (In two player non network games, me and a friend can each have our own screens. A couple other stupid uses too, but nothing worth mentioning really. I use this computer as an entertainment center most of the time. (BTW, clone only works when you have one video card with two outputs; it wont work on two seperate video cards.)

It's also hooked up to a switchbox, where it also acts as the second screen for my laptop as well. The laptops actually more of my workhorse. For my laptop, I use it for research purposes; I pull up my browser on the 21" and I leave my paper or presentation on the small screen, so I can look up stuff and type it down without clicking around too much. I'd like to use it to clone sometimes, because 21" beats the heck out of 13.1", but it seems that the secondary screen is stuck at the same refresh that the primary is on when it clones on my laptop, and it gets stuck at 60Hz because the primary is the laptop LCD screen. A 21" monitor at 60Hz is murder on the eyes, so as much as I'd like to do that, it just doesn't work.

The other two ports of my 4 port KVM switch are used so the 21" can easily be hooked up to comps I fix or service...My rooms a comp garage of sorts.

Desktop - Planar 17.4" LCD, Geforce 4 Ti4400
Laptop - IBM 13.1" LCD,....some laptop video card

Switched Secondary Screen - Hitachi SuperScan Elite 802 21"

Also, last year when I first got the LCD, I didnt have a dual capable video card, so I had to use this Matrox Millenium I had lying around. That was a Philips 109P20 hooked up to my Geforce2 GTS and the Planar 17.4" hooked up to the Matrox Millenium. Back then I had the Planar pivoted and used it soley for webbrowsing. Nothing beats a 1024x1280 screen to show a webpage. Its like a huge magazine page.

Kruzin · January 5th, 2003, 02:45 PM

My old G400 is now running my kid's PC, and doubling as a home entertainment rig. Second head is hooked up to our 31" TV for gaming and DVD. When the card was in my main rig, I used the second head for an extended desktop, usefull for countless tasks.

But since, I've moved away from a dual monitor setup on my main rig.
As good as dual monitors is, it just wasn't good enough.
So now, I run a triplehead Parhelia, with my desktop stretched across three monitors

All the benefits of dual monitors, with even more desktop space, plus tri-monitor Surround Gaming.

griobhta · January 5th, 2003, 02:47 PM

finaly got a dual set up working only use the second monitor for watch in tv on while i am working on the other one. Not up to much more than that as its an old 15" monitor but it does leave my main screen somewhat less cluttered.

g

Peter M · January 5th, 2003, 03:06 PM

I use an ancient 14" standard VGA for the full screen output from the TV card - with a custom 768x576@100 Hz interlaced resolution that perfectly mates PAL TV to standard VGA. Linux and XFree let you do so many nice things Windows doesn't

That way, the main screen is fully available for the actual computing work.

puk · January 5th, 2003, 03:16 PM

Kruzin

Quote:

But since, I've moved away from a dual monitor setup on my main rig.
As good as dual monitors is, it just wasn't good enough.
So now, I run a triplehead Parhelia, with my desktop stretched across three monitors
All the benefits of dual monitors, with even more desktop space, plus tri-monitor Surround Gaming.

I just started exploring dual monitor!
TRIPLE MONITOR is only a dream!!!......at least for now!!

puk

Kruzin · January 5th, 2003, 03:39 PM

Well, just image that as much as you like DH over a single display, you would like TH that much more

A few things I have used dualhead on my G400/G450/G550 for:
AutoCAD...graphics editor on main disp, text window/toolbars on secondary.
Phot editing...with zoom mode, you can view a full size version of the pic on one screen, and have a zoomed-in area displayed on the other.
DVD viewing...enable DVDMax in powerdesk, and watch movies fullscreen on your secondary disp, while doing other stuff on your primary.
Gaming...there are games that take advantage of DH (and a fast-growing list for triplehead)