Quick and hopefully easy question !

I want to run 2 monitors off my PC and split the main screen across them both, hopefully letting me have several windows open at the same time.

What do i need in order to do this, apart from the other monitor ? Do i need another graphics card ?

Any help appreciated.

Rich.

 

Some graphics cards will output to two monitors. Check your manual.

 

You need either: Two cards or using a card with two outputs.

Many high-endish cards can drive two monitors.

Presuming you have XP, Once installed, connected and detetecd it just shows up on your display settings so you can arrange where you want each monitor and at what resolution

 

a salty old radeon 8500 will do this.

Radeon® 8500LE

 

That was high end in its day

 

I paid 250 for one in its day!

Never, ever again!

I think I got that for IGI or HL or something....

Question for you.... say I wanted to play HL or IGI now, I could get away with a fivers worth of 8500...

Say I wanted to play doom3 now, what could I get away with?

 

Don't ask me, 4months back I was still using a Voodoo Banshee to drive my 2nd monitor

But I'd say at least a GF 6800 or x800 of some sort is teh benchmark.

 

Thanks for the answers guys,

the graphics card is an nvidia geforce fx 5500 i think, i think it has two output on it, will have a look

Rich

 

My first proper graphics card

Me, the Banshee, Aureal A3D sound card and Half Life were inseparable

 

Go to Control Panel, Display, Settings, Select screen #2, Tick the option to Extend my Windows Desktop to this monitor.

Easy.

Then drag applications over to second window (take off maximised first)

Very handy utility

 

no, no, no...

you dont need a new graphics card. you need matrox dualhead2go! you can have triple if you fancy

Matrox Graphics - GXM - Home

 

i`m seriously considering the triple version for Liveforspeed S2 to be honest

current duel "setup" with an old radeon 9700 pro GFX card


not sure if the triple version will give me decent FPS with the 9700 pro ?

 

For the price that thing is, you can buy a new graphics card with dual outputs and have a few notes left over to buy beer

 

but the triple version is where its at

 

You might not need two graphics cards if you have a VGA output and S-Video output, for example.

You can also buy USB adapters to drive a second monitor, I have a mate who has one he uses with a laptop to drive two monitors...

 

any chance of finding out what this usb adaptor is?

i have used the matrox dualhead2go and it works good on laptop and desktop.

 

USB 2.0 to VGA Converter CAB.USB2-VGA

One of these... One screen off the VGA port, the other through this off the USB.

Alex