Second monitor, how to install ?

[marc_256]

Hello,

I still developing my 3D game and cad/cam/cae software with one monitor.
So I like to install a second monitor.
How to install this ?
I have one AGP slot for my first GPU card.
Can I install a second GPU card in a PCI slot ?

Thanks,
Marc

[ts-soft]

Can I install a second GPU card in a PCI slot ?

Yes, but only if you have a pci-grafic-card.
Don't mix nvidia and ati, this makes problems.

[void]

It would be much simpler to obtain a dual head GPU. ATI and Nvidia both have offerings that can drive two monitors.

[IdeasVacuum]

...there are some adaptors available but really they are too expensive and do not guarantee performance, best to get a graphics card that has support for two monitors - many do, I'm using an old nVidia GeForce 7900 and that supports two screens. There are some very inexpensive yet excellent cards out there.

[Nituvious]

I finally built my desktop(after like, 2 years?) and am now using my laptop as a secondary monitor. If this interests you, you can do it with software like MaxiVista. It works over LAN.

[PMV]

PureBasic doesn't support Dual-DX-Screens, so no need for a
second monitor to test that. But, new PCs arent't that expensive
today. If you really want a 2x screen, just by a new cheap
one ... even OnBoard-Chips from Nvidia or ATI provide
Dual-Screen-Support.

MFG PMV

[marc_256]

Hi,
thanks for the info,
Yesterday I found my old [MATROX G400 DUAL HEAD - AGP 4x - 32 MB] gpu card back in a box.
Very nice but only 32MB RAM
For that time (+- year 2000) it was the best on the market (1600x1200 x 24bits).
But today

Marc

[blueznl]

I've been using multi monitor setups for years now (search the forum for some related PureBasic code, deprecated by now though ).

If you go multi monitor, the easiest way is to use a vid card with dual outputs, that definitely saves a lot of troubles.

I've had more luck with nVidia than ATI when it came to multi monitor setups in the past, but that was with single output cards. Definitely do not put one of each in your machine, that can cause more troubles than it's worth.

If it's AGP then you might indeed consider a second PCI card (I doubt there are still AGP cards for decent prices, but if you can find a cheap dual head one, why not), but seriously, you might simply consider a new machine, to be honest. Prices have come down so much, it's hard to believe what 300 bucks buys one these days.

Most multi monitor users also use either MultiMon or UltraMon for dual taskbar goodness on Windows XP. Frankly, even though I've got Windows 7 installed on my main dev machine, I cannot even recall if Windows 7 supports multiple taskbars or not