Dual monitor cards

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 6:46 am

Ashton here's what i have setup. I have a radeon 9700 pro running dual monitors (one CTR and one LCD, both VGA and the LCD looks damn good ^_^). I bought my card OEM so it only came with the manual and some cables, but most retail will include a DVI -> VGA adapter or they will send you one for free. and if not they are pretty cheap.

Pwolf

PS: makes editing so much enjoyable ^_^

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 9:19 am

The ultimate in dual monitor card....errrr....tripple monitor card.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/128mb.cfm
It can do dual dual dvi monitors or thre normal ones. Check out the surround gaming. Its crazy silly over the top nonsense. I must own it at some point. Matrox makes other dual monitor cards. Have been for a long time and their software/drivers are top notch as far as features. I have an old school matrox g400 which has done me no wrong. It has many options for the second monitor besides just extending your desktop. For instance it has a mode to output any video to the other monitor fullscreen as long as one pixel was visible on the other monitor. That came in handy when doing a amv dance party. Plus the listing of games that support surround gaming is long and many more compaies are adding support for it in their games. Just need some of those thin bezel samsung tft's

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 9:33 am

It's also possible, depending on what you're running in the way of OS and existing hardware, to just get a cheap 2nd card and add it in and run two monitors that way. That's how I do it- I picked up a cheap (>$10) PCI video card to run the second monitor, and it works quite nicely. If you already have a sufficient primary card for what you want to do gaming-wise and such, this might be a good budget option for getting the sweetness that is a dual-monitor editing setup...

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 4:41 pm

Parhelia is the biggest piece of shit card ever made. If you're into overpriced 2D toys go for it. For people who want to play games it's a big fat no no.

Parhelia was hyped by Matrox, sporting a 512bit memory interface and some awesome sounding specs. People were really thinking Matrox was going to hit hard. But the benchmarks were amazingly lackluster thanks in part to the stupid chip not having any HIDDEN SURFACE REMOVAL. They basically made a POS expensive chip.

Multimonitor gaming is not going to be the wave of the future. It's fucking annoying to have bezel in between your display. Maybe for flight sims it's cool, but for FPS or many other games it's a waste. Not to mention the Parhelia can barely produce good frame rates on a single monitor much less three at once.

It's a bad, overpriced card.

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 5:57 pm

I would tell you to get the newest pharphelia. But that's if you want to use both your monitors while playing games. And their is not a lot of games wish support this. So I'll say you'd better go with buying another PCI graphic card and using it for your seconfd monitor. This way, while playing game it'll use your powerfull card for the game, but you'll just have 1 monitor. And you'll have your dual view for everything else.

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 8:12 pm

its true the parhelia is not a gamer's card. but it is very much a quality piece of manufacturing.

Shop your needs. He didn't say he wanted a gaming card with dual monitors, he wanted a dual monitor car with SOME gaming functionality.

If your primary goal is dual monitors, you can't beat matrox. but if you want any gaming strength you do have to to goto the Parhelia, which is not cheap, and not the strongest for gaming . . .yet. . .

I dont know of any other graphics engine that offeres on the fly 10bit colour gamma correction for each individual display.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 10:39 pm

Ashton wrote:I just want to get all of your suggestions: what video card do you think I should buy if I want one that has dual monitor support and still has some heft in the gaming arena, but isn't ungodly expensive?

Also cost plays a factor.

No one is dying and 40bit color has yet to prove as a MUST HAVE item.

$312 for something that has slightly superior 2D & multi-monitor support, which is not really needed. Along with crap 3D performance. Compared to a all around solution, such as a Radeon 9100 for $70.

The Radeon is the better value.

Parhelia seems to have been made just for flash with no real plan on how it would be marketed. It's mainly marketed to way high end graphics professionals who want "WOW!" factor.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 12:11 pm

Yep, triple monitor support is shit for gaming. The Parhelia 128MB when it came out was $400. If I were Ashton, I'd get either a Radeon 9100/9000 Pro, or keep his current video card and get a cheap PCI card.

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 1:39 pm

geezz....i didn't think this would cause so much ruckus bringing up the matrox card. Yeah its not cost effective solution or great at gaming. I personally don't do much gaming myself I just figured i'd mention it. But having all the processing on one card helps with compatibility. I know when i ran seperate cards for dual I had all sorts of probolem gaming and would have to disable the second monitor every time i wanted to play something. I thought the surround gaming was a neat concept. I mean....get three 18" samsung thin bezel tft's end to end and you only end up with a pretty neat solution. I actually know a few ppl here at the research lab who have this setup. I know i am tired of my 21" taking up so much space on my desktop. Pain to transport as well. But obviously the easiest solution is a cheap pci card and get a good primary video card. But the key is in the drivers. I haven't been impressed with many dual head cards when it came to driver support.

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Sat Jul 05, 2003 11:37 am

eh. .i've got a g550 and dual 17"s.

Personally i have no need for a third monitor, and i don't like PC games, so any kind of 'gaming' card would have been useless and too #@!$#@ expensive. (okay, i play RCT and Civilization, but those are 2-d anyways)

but keep in mind alot of these dual monitor and tv out dual display thingies have been offered on Matrox cards since the 3dFX days. Nvidia and ati are johnny-come-lately.

matrox has released some newer cheaper triple head cards too. Not much gaming, but hey, three monitors, and less than buying a parhelia

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Dual monitor cards

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