I have read many threads on here on dual monitors with great interest and am impressed with your expertise. I am thinking on getting a second LCD since I have a good size credit with one of the local retailers. I have a regular Dell 17" Sony monitor I use at this time. It works fine for E-Minis, but I would like to have a few other related charts open at the same time without having to toggle separate windows set-ups. I probably missed the answer somewhere and hope you don't mind to repeat it. How do you control what appears on one screen versus the other? Is there a special software package that comes with some of the dual monitor cards or what should I be looking for. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Check this out: http://freepctech.com/pc/001/guide_dual_monitors.shtml I have 1 monitor as the primary & the second one as the secondary. Some traders combine 2 monitor as one space.
I'm using Windows for multiple monitors right now. You can also use specialized software. UltraMon from http://www.realtimesoft.com is one example. Most LCDs use DVI to connect, so if your "regular Dell 17" is a CRT, you may want to do some research on the web before you buy another video card and monitor.
You can get a DVI-to-analog converter pretty cheap, and it's pretty small - about the size of a typical gender-bender. Most DVI cards come with them (such as the Matrox G450, or Geforce4 4600), so don't sweat this point. I suspect that monitors will eventually all be DVI, so get a card with DVI. EDIT: I shoulda said "Chaintech Geforce4", some Geforce4's come with the adapter, and some don't.
Started with one then added two LCDs, 17' NEC analogs nothing fancy but they work. Used a new Nvidia MX440 card dual display with no trouble. Went to 3 then 4 monitors and this time went with two Dell 1800 FP's DVI/Analog capabilities. These 18's are by far better than the 17's but still not the super top end. They work great for now and the folks at Dell couldn't have been quicker to help out on the financing. Powered these two with a Matrox G450 PCI card with no operating conflicts between the two different cards using XP as the OS. Hope this helps. Happy Trails
Still need to be careful. I've heard (but not experienced) that some cards will not be able to use the converters. I think the reason given was they used DVI-D instead of DVI only. This may be an outdated issue and I doubt that it makes much sense, but it gives a good starting point for research.
i'm currently using an ati 7500 card with dual output - one analog and one digital. i've used a dvi adapter for a second analog monitor, which creates an image that is a little fuzzy and out of focus. there are two ways to solve this problem... 1) use the proper monitor to out... analog to analog / digital to digital ~ meaning either you buy a card with the outputs u need or buy a monitor to fit your outputs (this is the option i chose ~ i bought a digital lcd to replace an old analog monitor and use my digital as primary) 2) buy multiple cards... i haven't had any experience with this as i've read on ET and heard from computer guys that this can be rather troublesome and there are no guarantees that it'll work there are lots of postings on ET regarding dual monitors so the best place to start researching is the old threads.
Screen control... simple create an "extended desktop" from windows. Then open and drag the program displays and size them to what/where you want. They should come up there next time you open them. If you mention what brand and model of video card you currently have, someone here will offer a good solution. (I use 4 single analog cards, but others use 2 dualheads or a quad.... still others use one single + a dual.) Save yourself some brain damage and just pick from known solutions that work.
Say Jay, Now that you have analog-analog and DVI-DVI on that 7500 VE, would you say the digital display is sharper? If so, by how much? (50%... 10%??) TIA