Dual monitors with a old PCI card??
 

Hey, I know you can do this, i've known it for a while, but I haven't gotten around to trying it myself. What software do I need to make a old PCI video card work along with my main video card to do dual monitors? I've seen it done....

Thanks.

Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

XP.

Alex what kind of AGP video card are you using. You probably already know this but most newer Nvidia cards support dual monitors on their own- without the need for an additional PCI card.

Yeah, I am sure my crappy video card doesn't support dual monitors. :D

It's a ATI AIW 128 PRO 32MB AGP, from like 2000....no dual monitor support, trust me. :)

I was planning on buying a new videocard, something nice and fast, but then I couldn't see giving up the TV Tuner on this card, for a faster and newer card, plus I don't even play games really.

xp or 2k allow you to use two different types of video cards. It doesn't matter if they are both ati or nvidia. You can get away with both in one box with both os'.


Rob:D

You don't need XP or 2k either. I used two seperate brands of video cards, both VERY cheap, on 98SE and XP pro, and in both cases it worked fine. No additional software is needed.

Don't skimp too bad though, get one that is at least new enough to say, support 3D accelleration. That should ensure that the driver will be robust enough to handle a dual-monitor duty. I tried putting an *old* Matrox Millennium in my machine as a second video card, and had nothing but unstable editing from there on, even when I disabled it. Yanked it back out the next day, after about 10 reboots/lockups the first day. Stable since.

I'd say anything NVidia TNT2 or better or ATI Radeon of any flavor should be good enough.

Billy,

98SE does allow the use of two cards but they must both be PCI. XP and 2000 allow mixing of AGP and PCI as well as specification of which is the primary card.

Alex,

Have a look around for a dual head card, you can pick up something like a Matrox G400/450/500 quite cheap if you take the time to search. I'm still using my G400/16MB card to run my 2 19" monitors for my NLE.

<<<-- Originally posted by Adrian Douglas : Billy,

98SE does allow the use of two cards but they must both be PCI. XP and 2000 allow mixing of AGP and PCI as well as specification of which is the primary card. -->>>

Ah, I had forgotten about the AGI vs. PCI stipulation. It worked for me since both of mine were PCI. Thanks for pointing that out.

I found it out the hard way about 4 years ago. I wanted to add a second monitor to my then 98SE NLE setup so I scoured Brisbane for a PCI card to go with the AGP one I already had. I found one, and PAID for it, took it home and 98 wouldn't recognise it so I took it back. A couple of weeks later I got hold of a Matrox G400 dual head card and have been using it since.