Windows 2000 Help

[Phaeton]

I have a question i was hoping that someone might be able to answer.

I heard that windows 2000 supports 2 video cards. Is that true? and if it is, can i run 2 monitors similtaneously off the different cards?

The reason i ask, is that i really would like to buy the Nvidia Personal Cinema system, but it only works with a Geforce4 mx400. I dont want to use that card for my games. So i was hoping what i heard is true about 2 vid card support, so i can watch baseball and game at the same time, but on different monitors.

[pug]

mmm im sure u can have 2 vid cards and switch between them, but as for running both at the same time on diff monitors i dunno , hell u would need alot of cpu power /memory if it was even possible.

[BloodLord]

Phae...take the other vid card and shove it up your *** LOLOLOL ROFL!!!! BUT...if u start seeing spots...take it out and place it neatly on your forehead and hum a rap tune LOL ROFL LOLOL!!!1

[reki]

er.. yeah you can do that in theory, phae - but if you cant run the baseball and a game at the same time now, you wont be able to with a second monitor. that scenario is more dependent on cpu speed/ram/internet speed than having a dual monitor setup. all the extra display card does is extend your desktop to two monitors, i use it at work for editing. if you're trying to play an online game and streaming live baseball at the same time, you're going to be pulling a whole heap of bandwidth so the game will prob lag out. if you're playing a full res movie and playing a game then you probably wont have the processing speed to do it.

you will have to run the game in window mode regardless, or it will try to take over both your monitors.

[GriffinSLS]

LOL as if he's such a good player that he can play games and watch tv at the same time LOLOL

[Metho]

Phae

What ur talking about is possible but you would have to spend some mega bucks on hardware. Basically you would need a twin processor system and both cpu's and ram banks beefy at that.

For the amount of money a system such as that would cost, and believe me- I've looked into it, it's not worth it. It's far more economical to network 2 PC's together. This I've done and multitasking is a piece of piss, but man - you should see the clutter of comp shit in my study!!

If you go for this option, spend some time on house-keeping with cable routing and a decent size desk, otherwise ur study is going to look like a bombed spagetti factory.

[Doc]

Re: Windows 2000 Help

Originally posted by Phaeton
I have a question i was hoping that someone might be able to answer.

I heard that windows 2000 supports 2 video cards. Is that true? and if it is, can i run 2 monitors similtaneously off the different cards?

The reason i ask, is that i really would like to buy the Nvidia Personal Cinema system, but it only works with a Geforce4 mx400. I dont want to use that card for my games. So i was hoping what i heard is true about 2 vid card support, so i can watch baseball and game at the same time, but on different monitors.

my radeon 8500 support dual output, i would sugest a card that does this as two card are more likely to hog the cpu as previously stated. many cards have exelent dvd qualities, get once with dual monitor output.

unless you have 2 agp slots, one is going to be slower than the other, its best to only use the agp slot for graphics cards.

[eclipseSLS]

why dont u get a satelite or digital cable?

u could buy a fairly sized tv(larger than comp monitor) for 250$ and getting satelite or dig cable costs around 40 bucks a month. U could then buy a baseball package which wouldnt be much more a month.

[Phaeton]

Well, the nvidia personal cinema allows you to use two monitors through what they call twin view. I could hook up the second monitor to cable TV and what they call a breakout box and then play live tv on one of the monitors. It's basically a tv tunercard, but has a great deal more options.

I never thought about the 2 agp slots though. I guess i'll see if it's available in pci. It really is an interesting concept though. I would really like to do it if possible. The reason i like it is because of all the features it has. It can play live tv, it acts as a digital video recorder, you can hook up a dvd player, vcr, digital vid cam, and a host of other things. However i dont want to have to use the G4 mx instead of my new card while gaming.

My comp is a 1.4 p4, 512mb rdram, g4 ti 4600, dvd rom, cd/rw rom, with a ADSL connection. The best i could boost the processor to is 1.9 because it's an "older" p4. It is the 423 socket instead of the new 478 that allows up to,the new 2.4's.

I guess i'll email Xtasy and see if it is offered in pci, but i doubt it.

If any of you are interested in this, it's called the Xtasy Everything.

http://www.visiontek.com/everything.shtml

That's the addy if you wanna take a look.

thanx for the help and let me know if you have any other ideas on how i could make this work.

P.S. Metho, my house already looks like a spaghetti factory. We have a LAN set up here and the entire upstairs has patch cords running through it. 8 comps set up on a gigabit network all hooked into ADSL. Makes for some GREAT games but damn you're right, it IS a mess!

[Metho]

Phae - I wanna move into your place.

[Phaeton]

lol

[WildCard]

Contrary to popular belief, YES it can be done and fairly easy too. Every PC in our office as a dual monitor set up! And no it doesn't split the desktop across the 2 monitors but rather gives you 2 independent screens. We did it with a GeForce II card and a TNT 2 card. The trick is that your second card has to be a PCI card and also come with drivers that support a dual monitor set up. You can also get video cards that have dual connections but this would result in what reki discribed as your desktop spanning both monitors. These cards are more geared to the professional and especially users of AVID systems. Most uses for dual monitors aren't used for what you looking for. Mainly they are just used as extra space for application windows or just general short term placement of material. When using programs with a lot of windows it really saves a lot of time from constantly moving them around to see what you are doing.

[Phaeton]

Good, then i can help pioneer this type of true multi-media. it will work....i just dunno how yet.

[Shin]

Go to Windows help and do a search for "multiple monitor support" ;)

Your GF2 will stay in your AGP slot. Just get a good secondary PCI card that has build in MPEG decoders and you can play movies and games together without much trouble... I think. I haven't tried it. Stripe does stuff like this though. However, good luck catching him in anything other than idle mode....

[CptUnreal]

Dual Monitor

AS ppl have said - yes - it is doable. But IMO IF what you want to do is video editing - frankly - get a MAC - Unfortunately most of your PC games will not have version for the MAC. But I have found that MAC's are FAR better to do video editing with then a PC (or a UNIX box) The use of 2 screens and a NTSC (Never The Same Color) [or PAL - Performance Almost L33t] Monitor is a greate setup for such work --- You want 2 monitors for program and preview screens and the extra space to see your edit lits and function boxes. You want the TV monitor to SEE what the finally product will REALLY look like on the "little" screen. BTW: Final Cut Pro for the MAC is very VERY cool S/W.