Dual Monitors......A great thing to have???

# 1 11-07-2003 , 11:31 PM

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Dual monitors are a somewhat new thing to the computer industry(I dont think 98 supports it). It basically uses 2 video cards(one agp and one pci) in order to get two screens interacting with one computer. When you boot up, you see two desktops(one on each screen). The cursor only appears on one, but when you move it to the far right of the screen, it jumps to the next monitor. You can drag windows into the other screen, and use them as you please. In Maya, you could have the render view on one screen, and the workspace in another. Or you could have all of the menus opened in one window, etc. I do not have a dual monitor setup, but I believe it would be a great thing to have. Does anybody on this site have one, and if so do they think it is a worth investment(all you need is another vid card and monitor)?

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# 2 11-07-2003 , 11:34 PM

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I use dual displays on both of my systems, and it is definitely worth the investment.

BTW, dual monitors aren't really that new. I've been using dual setups for at least 7 years now.

Danny Ngan
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# 3 12-07-2003 , 12:07 AM

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ummmm you need two video cards to do that? dam! i was pretty sure my card could support it but i only have one user added image

anyways, i personally dont think its worth the investment unless you have a spare monitor lying around or could get one cheap. I have like 4 monitors lying around my house so i was planning on setting up a dual monitor but since i need a new vid card, screw it.

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# 4 12-07-2003 , 12:10 AM

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you dont need two cards one with dual outs will do it. I used to run two monitors on my system off two cards but it became really unstable because XP doesnt support the older PCI graphics cards very well and as most cards are now AGP it makes it a bit of a pain when your system crashes in the middle of creating your latest model..... user added image

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# 5 12-07-2003 , 12:16 AM

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awsome but....(next question)
Does having two monitors somehow take up video memory the same way lots of programs take up system memory?

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# 6 12-07-2003 , 12:22 AM

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no should be fine, you wont notice a difference. The only problem occurs when you lose windows onto one monitor. Happened to me when I put the styles window of photoshop on the second monitor and then got rid of the second monitor and i couldnt reset the window position so I had to re-install photoshop! :o

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# 7 12-07-2003 , 12:29 AM

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You could've just deleted the Photoshop preferences file. user added image

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# 8 12-07-2003 , 12:34 AM

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will i notice the difference with a 64 meg card? sorry for asking questions but this has really peaked my interest. what about when i game, will i see it across two screens or can i turn that off? last question, is there any program designed specificly for dual monitors? like a program, when running, will move something from one screen to another with the press of a button. or anything of the sort? user added image

thanks

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# 9 12-07-2003 , 12:42 AM

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You probably won't notice any performance hits with a 64 MB card. When you game, the secondary display will just go black, since there aren't any games that can use 2 monitors (that I'm aware of).

There are a handful of programs that fully utilize dual displays. Softimage and Combustion are a couple that come to mind. In fact, Combustion has different preferences for multi-monitor setups (up to 4 I believe). Final Cut Pro on my Mac has multimonitor settings as well.

Danny Ngan
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# 10 12-07-2003 , 12:47 AM

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no no, what i meant was, like, are there any programs that help make dual monitors easier/better....kinda like trillian is for Instant messaging or mIRC is for IRC user added image

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# 11 12-07-2003 , 12:48 AM

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Oh, well I think I will set one up then. I guess I need two cards or one card with two video out sources. I have 2 24' monitors lying around. I didnt realise how old dual monitors were. Thanks for the infor danny.

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# 12 12-07-2003 , 01:02 AM

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Originally posted by HAL 9000
no no, what i meant was, like, are there any programs that help make dual monitors easier/better....kinda like trillian is for Instant messaging or mIRC is for IRC

Originally Posted by

It depends on your display drivers. nVidia drivers, for example, allow you to have multiple desktop setups. You can set preferences for which display a particular application opens to, where dialog boxes popup, different layouts, etc.

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# 13 12-07-2003 , 01:06 AM

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alright....absolutley last question: what's the words i want to look for when shopping for video cards to make sure it supports dual monitors? like in the specs feature page, what will it say to tell me it can have dual monitors?

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# 14 12-07-2003 , 01:10 AM

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I use Dual monitors and couldn't live without them. They can sometimes be troublesome but it's mostly good. Most GeForce 4 cards support dual monitors, at least the 4600's do i think. 1 DVI and one crt but they come with a converter anyway incase you're not using an LCD with a DVI connector. Maya is great on two monitors. I use the main window on one screen and things like Attribute editor, Hypershade and Outliner all on the 2nd monitor. Always open and never in the way. You should go for it, you won't regret it.

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# 15 12-07-2003 , 01:27 AM

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Just a question. Can the dual support easily be switched off, so if you play a game, it dosent appear streched on both. Also, when you click the Maximize button, the window stretches across both screens. Any way to stop this with out manually changing the size

Yeah, but no but yeah but no....

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Dual Monitors......A great thing to have???

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