Dual monitors. Any experience?

[vapordub]

I currently have a 7800GT vid card and want to run dual monitor. Will this card be able handle two 22" monitors? Or, do I need to grab another 7800GT and run SLI? If that's the case, I probably won't get another monitor.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Actually, you can't do SLI and dual monitors. You can use them independently, in non-SLI mode, and have dual monitors, but SLI-mode (as of right now) doesn't support dual monitors.

I'm sure that card would do fine on dual monitors. If you are worried, contact the manufacturer, and see what they say.

 

[NexLevel]

From my experience running 4 monitors on a system with 2 cards (a Radeon 9800 AIW) and another Matrox dual head (64mb, just for video and text) card, there usually are no problems.

The point being here is that you drive a given display with a given card, and if you have games on that particular display, you'd better have the powerful card driving that particular display. Make sense?

E.G. if you want two 22" monitors, are you going to game in both screens at the same time? I don't know of any game that supports that outside of some flight sims, which aren't the most taxing on DX9-type rendering requirements, so I think the answer is: probably not.

Thus, your likely scenario will be that the primary display (the first monitor) will power the games and the gaming output. The secondary display will power the other 'stuff' (documents, etc). However, when I usually started gaming, the other two screens blank out during gameplay.

I hope I'm helping here explaining the issues. Final answer: I don't think you're going to need two cards, no.

 

[brikis98]

look at the video card... if it has two dvi outputs or one dvi and one d-sub, it can run two monitors. most modern cards have (at least) two outputs, so i'd bet yours does too.

i run two LCD's at work and two CRT's at home - one is usually for the main reading/email/coding and the other for my gaim windows, windows explorer, menus from eclipse and other junk.

 

[vapordub]

Brikis, that's basically what I'd use the two for as well. I'd like to be able to watch a movie and work in indesign or photoshop at the same time. Stuff like that.

Thanks for all the replies. Much appreciated.

Yes, the 7800GT has two DVI outputs. One that says (1) and the other that says (2).

Looks like C. City and Comp. USA will have good deals on my current monitor the day after Thanksgiving and was thinking of picking another one up, but it wouldn't be worth it if I had to spend an extra $200 on another 7800GT. I personally think my games look amazing on the 7800GT and don't think I'll upgrade to say an 8800 for another year or so.

 

[pkme2]

I ran triple monitors on my Matrox Parhelia card for video editing.
I have now got a Viewsonic 22" LCD for my desktop editing and other lcd for video playback.
I've retired my CRTs and replaced them with my other 2 original lcds.

Using two 22" for video gaming would be super, IMO. The Sceptre 22" was available at Costco for $339.00 for a while. Very popular buy, they were sold out when I checked last month, so I got the 22" Viewsonic.

For the price, Costco might have the Sceptre 22" selling for $299.99 for Xmas. Wouldn't that be grand!!!!!

 

[vapordub]

I got the Samsung. I've never had a problem with Samsung and I liked the stand. I guess C. City may have the Samsung for $279ish on black Friday. Comp. may have it for $300.

 

[Aikouka]

Your setup will do just fine . I did dual 20.1"'s on a 6800GT with no problems.

 

[Lonyo]

Dual 17" on a 7800GT here. A 7800GT supports 1680x1050/1600x1200 on each output, so 2x22" should be no issue at all. It's only at 2660x1600 or so you need to worry, as that res requires dual-link DVI.
You can game across both monitors if you use span mode (doesn't work for FPS or much else, as there is a split down the middle), same with films (as long as you disable overlay), you can also run both monitors independently, one doing say a full-screen film, the other for surfing/documents etc.
I'm writing this on one monitor with an episode of CSI playing on the other

If you are gaming, then both monitors will stay on, the game will boot up on the primary monitor, and the secondary will continue displaying whatever. There is one problem, you absolutely MUST run in the monitors native resolution, or the second screen gets messed up a bit.

 

[ncarbon]

I run dual acer 22 at home with my X1900XT and Dual 19 Viewsonics at work on
a Nvidia 6600GT. They work great for work mostly, my 22 is enough for me at home, and I mainly use duals when working, spread sheets etc, so for work great but at home I would get a bigger monitor, more realestate, and if you chat wile gaming then duals will be great in windowed mode, in full screen if you switch monitors it isnt smooth.


FWIW Ned

 

[Twsmit]

You can't run SLI with dual monitors, the capability is disabled. However you can disable SLI while out of games and it should work fine. I run a dual setup with a 17" LCD and a 20" Widescreen. Its nice to throw music, instant messages, and other apps on the secondary monitor. Go for it!

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
You can game across both monitors if you use span mode (doesn't work for FPS or much else, as there is a split down the middle)

I have never seen this work correctly. I always got the first monitor displaying the game and the second monitor just shutting off (black screening) until I exited the full-screen application/game.

Originally posted by: Lonyo
you can also run both monitors independently, one doing say a full-screen film, the other for surfing/documents etc.
I'm writing this on one monitor with an episode of CSI playing on the other

This, honestly, is the best selling point. You think about doing this and you put it off... ignore it, but once you actually experience how nice it can be. Also, even for doing work, two monitors can be pretty sweet. Having a reference material on the right while having a document on the left... invaluable time saved versus splitting the screen and losing so much space.

Originally posted by: Lonyo
If you are gaming, then both monitors will stay on, the game will boot up on the primary monitor, and the secondary will continue displaying whatever. There is one problem, you absolutely MUST run in the monitors native resolution, or the second screen gets messed up a bit.

Like I mentioned above, I never got this to work in Spans of any sort. However, this did work in DualView and that's what I use. I also keep games in a window to avoid having to alt-tab to access the other desktop (even though it's viewable, the fullscreen-ness keeps you in bounds :/)

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Lonyo
You can game across both monitors if you use span mode (doesn't work for FPS or much else, as there is a split down the middle)

I have never seen this work correctly. I always got the first monitor displaying the game and the second monitor just shutting off (black screening) until I exited the full-screen application/game.

That's very odd. I have on multiple occasions done it and had it work.
I made a comment in an Anandtech article about Matrox's TripleHead2Go and the author of the article said it wasn't possible, so it did it again, just to be sure!
Plus it's worked for me with multiple games. (RTW and UT2004 are the ones I definitely tested). Never had the second monitor switch off.
I guess maybe it's a bit hit and miss.

 

[vapordub]

Cool, thanks everyone.

So, to sum up ...

I CAN def. run two 22" monitors on my 7800GT at their nat. res.
I CAN watch movies/tv on one and work indesign/photoshop/etc. on the other
I CAN'T play Call of Duty 2 on one and watch Band of Brothers on the other.

Correct?

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: vapordub
Cool, thanks everyone.

So, to sum up ...

I CAN def. run two 22" monitors on my 7800GT at their nat. res.
I CAN watch movies/tv on one and work indesign/photoshop/etc. on the other
I CAN'T play Call of Duty 2 on one and watch Band of Brothers on the other.

Correct?

you're right about the first two, the 3rd one is more of a "not likely" rather than a definite "can't"...

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: vapordub
Cool, thanks everyone.

So, to sum up ...

I CAN def. run two 22" monitors on my 7800GT at their nat. res.
I CAN watch movies/tv on one and work indesign/photoshop/etc. on the other
I CAN'T play Call of Duty 2 on one and watch Band of Brothers on the other.

Correct?

you're right about the first two, the 3rd one is more of a "not likely" rather than a definite "can't"...

Not likely as in "I just did it using BS Player (pre-spyware) and UT2004"
It can be done.