PC and Multiple Displays.

I am considering a multi-monitor (two monitors) solution for my works for next year, starting september. The type of work I will need the setup for, is primarily desktop-based, not games or 3D graphics (although I would be tempted to run 3ds max on that)

I have never had such a setup, and any advice or comments are welcomed.

My current specs aren't stellar, but they work so far without a hitch. they are:

P4 Northwood 1.8 , 1.280MB Dual DDR 266Mhz Memory, enough HDD space, Asus graphics board with GeForce 3 Ti200 (64MB VRAM), and enough peripherals and development hardware to occupy about 40% of the 1.280 memory upon booting Windows XP corp. edition SP1.

My budget is quite strict, and I will be looking to buy a used dual-head video card if possible.

-When not doing dual-monitor related work, I want to turn off the feature and dedicate all the hardware towards a single screen. Is switching back and forth from dual to single, and vice versa , easy?

-What is the VRAM and physical memory requirment to run such a setup smoothly?

-is my processor (should be) fast enough to handle the work?

-How much VRAM do you think (besides the obvious answer the more the merrier) the graphics card should have to satisfy demand and still have some left? (considering that 3ds max on a dual display is an attractive idea, but not my goal)

-What NVIDIA graphics cards would you suggest? (I don't have anything against ATi, but I'm not big about running the latest games either, and the legacy support of my Geforce3 has been good so far)

Experienced users to the interface extra-welcomed to answer

EDIT: running at 1280x1024 each, I forgot to mention

EDIT: Some graphics cards have a D-sub and a DVi output. Is it possible to get a different video screen out of each?or they can't both work together in order to provide dual-display image?

 

To be honest, any of the lower end 5200+ range Nvidia cards would run it fine. Multiple monitors aren't really to resource intensive unless you are running 3D games split over them.

Well, I can't give you an exact spec for it, I'd say any card in about the £50 range should handle it, if its just for work. I mean, I have Dual Monitors and my Analogue TV hooked to my PC and its only got a X600 256mb.

 

When you say work, does that include 3d packages? also, is 50 pounds the price for a used unit? by the way, 256MB of VRAM is quite impressive by my 64MB standard, and as it goes, memory costs,

Finally is there a valid hope to wait until september to make the purchase, for significantly better price?

 

With your current configuration you should be able to run 3Dsmax no problem but indeed to more CPU power and Ram you have the better results you'll get especially while rendering. Regarding pricing yeah you can get a decent card for £50 but I think thedeathcoaster was refering to pricing for a new unit. You can browse ebay and find yourself a good deal. But beware graphic cards are quite fragile IMHO. 256 meg VRAM is quite impressive but on cheap cards like ATI X550-600 it is generally DDR1 RAM which it is quite slow.

Technology price always go down as time goes, it is up to you to make the decision when you need the card, of course in 6 months time you'll get a better card for £50 than today.

If you're tight on budget go fetch a second hand ATI 9700 pro on ebay they are now quite cheap, good for dual screens in my experience, support directx 9 and shall make you happy in 3Ds Max.

BTW Blender is quite a good open source 3D modeler you could try. 3DsMax is quite expensive unless they do student or personal licenses.

Cheers

Sabre

 

I run 1x 1280x1024 and 1x 1024x768 display off a Nvidia GF 5200 128MB. Runs perfectly fine with no performance issues.
With the DVI and D-sub outputs, most cards come with a DVI->D-sub adaptor, so you can run either one digital and one analog display, or 2 analog displays. I don't know anything about 3dmax so I can't really help with what will be required for that.
With Nvidia there is a toolbox in the taskbar which lets you choose the display arrangement you want, to change from one to another is simply a case of right clicking and selecting single display, dual display etc. I expect its the same with ATI, but I don't have much experience with them

Your specs are fine, i run it on something comparable: Athlon 2000+ XP, 1024mb ram.

With graphics cards consider that it is easier to get Nvidia cards working in linux, if thats your thing. Dual displays in linux require changing the xorg.conf, but thats not hard.

 

if you are not into games / 3D.. get a Matrox

(if I got that right)

most Matrox cards deliver a much better video-signal then cheap gamer-oriented cards.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/deutsch/products/home.cfm
I would recommend the Millenium P Series and the Parhelia Series.
2nd hand Parhelias are a bit rare and wanted on Ebay etc. The P Series more affordable and easier to get.

I think all Ps and Parhelias support all combinations of analoge & digital TFTs and RGB monitors.

The Parhelia is a real 3D chip with an ok performance.
(no big breakthrough because it was more expensive then ATi & Nvidia)
The chip is not the newest design anymore. ( ~ GF4 4600 level... but alot faster in all 2D aspects - especially at high(er) res.! )

The Key Features for the cards show that the preferences differ a bit from gamer cards :110:

 

Do you think its worth upgrading (downgrading) from a 9800pro to a matrox?

Ive got a 20.1 widescreen running at 1680x1050 and then also a TV running at 1366x768.

monitor has to run dvi tv has to run vga...

Would i end up getting a much better image quality from a matrox? Mostly of what i do is watch xvid, dvix files with the odd dvd here and there.

 

We use Nvidia Quadro's at my office (you can go up to 4 screens w/ the model we have) and I'm very pleased with them. The driver works well on Linux, and it can even keep up w/ intensive processing like transparencies. If I'm not mistaken, they run about $200 each.

 

Paulo: to be honest, unless you're doing colour-dependent 2D/3D design work you won't notice much difference. You'll lose quite a bit of performance in games too (last time I remember hearing about the Parhelia, it was Carmack saying Doom 3 was never going to run it well).

 

Back in 1999, a friend was using two Voodoo 3s in a... beige G3! Really, anything will do for simply more desktop space.

 

Kyuu who then?

 

Quadro cards work-station class cards, and cost a pretty penny, so they re bound to be professionally lastable and compatible, in the same way 3D LABS' Wildcat series is (a personal favourite).

However , I have never tried to play games on a Quadro or Wildcat card, so I don't know if there's an actual difference from high-end gaming cards.

 

If you just want the xtra desktop space, then getting a basic PCI video card.

Most games only revert to a single screen when you play, they don't expand to both monitors.

But unless you're doing 3D rendering and movie editing, then having a professional level multidisplay videocard is recommended. If you have an Nvidia SLi motherboard and dual video cards, simply disconnect the SLI bridge and depending on the card (if they have VGA and DVI ports), you can end up with quad-display monitors.

If you already have a DVI port, you really don't need to worry. Programs liek Adobe photoshop, AutoCAD and even 3DS max will run just fine on dual displays with a decent videocard.

If your current videocard has a DVI out, then just try some graphic intenive programs on it and see if you notice a difference, most of the time you won't.

I once played BF:1942 Desert Combat mod and it had the ability to use dual display monitors well. One screen I had the FPS view, and the other I had a full screen map view so that I didn't have to switch from map screen back and forth from FPS view. ANd this was on a 9600Pro AIW.

I'd stick with the gaming cards for gaming. THe only thing that makes the quadro and wildcat a better choice is if you'll be doing 3D rendering on Maya or 3DSMax. WHen you use 3DSMax on a high end PC with a gaming card, the rendering is actually done on the CPU, the graphics card really doesn't matter. Whereas if you had a quadro or wildcat, 3dsmax would send the instructions to the videocard to render the models.

Look around for a 9800Pro or nvidia 6600 AGP.

Nowadays you don't ahve to worry about signal strength, etc. between the two video cables.

 

I looked into the Quadro series a few years back, they were identical chipsets to Nvidia's gaming range. There was a quick and easy mod to turn a geforce 2 into the related Quadro card (or at least, to show up as one, I'm not sure what kind of performance gain you'd get, if any). I always wanted to see how a Wildcat would do in a gaming benchmark, but there was never any info available.

 

At 3000 dollars, it's not a card that a gaming site would review I reckon.

 

YOu can pick up older wilcat vp560 (which is dual DVI!) for like £30 new on ebay...

 

I think it's more that Wildcat aren't interested in sending out samples to review sites. This may be because they know the results aren't great on a performance/pound basis (which is what I'd expect), or it may just be that they aren't interested in attracting the gamer crowd in the first place.

 

For everyone running multiple monitors in Windows, check out the MultiMon Taskbar program

http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

It creates a taskbar on each monitor and creates a button on the top of each window so you can move a program between monitors easier. Small footprint and setup.

 

Get a MSI 6600 with dual DVI plugs.

Since you're on budget I suppose you'll se CRTs, then get 2 samsung 17" and a couple of DVItoVGA dongles.

 

Actually i own TFT monitors. I m just not willing to spend money on graphics cards beyond the purpose i need them for