Dual 19" monitors! YEAH BABY!!!

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 10:08 pm

Oh man, using Photoshop and Go Live on dual monitors is a friggin' dream!

I'm in hog heaven....

TruckStuff · Post by **TruckStuff** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 11:12 pm

Golly, being able to work without hitting alt+tab every 5 seconds... I don't know if I could adapt to that!

VidmanII · Post by **VidmanII** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 9:07 am

What are ya using for a 2nd adapter, cause I KNOW you ant usin' no Radeon..?

I'm surprised more peeps aren't running dual display. That's the main reason I switched up from win95 to 98 because I couldn't wait to have a dual setup. Been running 2 displays for years now and feel naked if I'm stuck with just one. It's the ONLY way to fly.

At least for me, anyway.

Run a search for a 3rd party dual mon software prog called "Ultramon" and try it. It's sweet. I think you have to buy it tho after a certain time frame. You can dnload the trial version and give it a whirl tho. I'm using the Hydravision that comes with the ATi cause I'm cheap.

I liked Ultramon better tho.

FuNPoLiCe001 · Post by **FuNPoLiCe001** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 4:04 pm

the new version of ultramon is sweet

hows hydravision under win2k/xp?

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 4:12 pm

hydravision at bad under 2k. And I posted on the home page, they released an update for it today. new verson baby. Oh yea.

Greg

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 8:32 pm

Using a (cough... cough) Creative Savage 4 32Mb for my PCI card. Got it for cheap. Decent enough picture quality. I'd LOVE to find a PCI Matrox G series card, though. Nothing looks as sharp in 2D as a Matrox IMO.

Only hassle is that the Savage won't go over 1154 x 864 at True Color - it bumps down to 16-bit.

I was using 1280x 960 on my main monitor and I wanted to keep both the same size.

Need to shop around for better drivers, because there's NO WAY a 32Mb card shouldn't be able to do 32bit at 1280x960, although that was the latest driver from Creative's site.

I can live with it though. Now that I'm running 1154x864 on both I've realized that I was getting a bit of eye strain before. I do miss the bigger desktop but doubling monitors more than makes up for it.

Yes, I'm using Ultramon 2.0 beta. Nice utility.

The sweet part is the 2nd monitor. I was using an old Sony 15" and was hoping to save up for another 19" (or a 17" LCD.... drool). But the other day I worked on a client's system and he'd just bought one of those sexy NEC LCD displays with the built-in television tuner (VERY nice looking image by the way).

He's got vision problems and the glare on his 19" monitor was killing him (he's got the monitor surrounded by flourescent desk lamps).

So anyway, after I fix his problem he GAVE ME his 19" KDS..... WHOO HOO! I offered to give him a credit for it and he insisted I just take it. He said it had a distortion in the corners anyway, and all he cared about was getting it out of his way since he lives in a small mobile home.

The distortion was just a magnetized spot on his tube (probably from the close proximity of the flourecent desk lamp power supplies). Regular degauss didn't clear it, but I have a hand held degausser (used to do TV work) that fixed it fine with a bit of work.

Friggin' thing is only 8 months old (sticker says June 2001).

The picture is a nice match for my year old Mag 800V after fiddling with the color temp a bit.

Best of all, the KDS has a narrow wedge shaped case which allowed it to fit to the right of my monitor. A normal monitor with straight back sides would never have fit in there.

HAPPY! HAPPY! JOY! JOY!

Slugbait · Post by **Slugbait** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 11:27 pm

Nice move up, FP. I recently got a PCI V5 5500 and a RAD-5. So my Marvel is hooked up to the RAD-5 at 1024x768x32, and my 19" is hooked to the Voodoo at 1600x1200x32.

However, I need to disable the Voodoo before starting PC-VCR, and I need to reboot and switch AGP/PCI in the BIOS to play games on my 19"...but it all works out.

It's nice having tools in the LCD (along with TV, email etc) while the app itself is fullscreen in 1600x1200. I really like multi-mon now...

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 12:20 pm

How do those systems work? Is it just like having a big desktop? Sounds like something I may want in the future..

Now if only motherboards came with two AGP slots.....

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 6:29 pm

SEAN: I was a little concerned about compatibility issues, but everything runs smooth with it here on Win2K.

It basically gives you a bigger desktop. You can drag anything over to the second monitor as if it was a continuation of the desktop on the first monitor (which it is).

The desktop is continous across both monitors. You can, for instance, have a spreadsheet running fullscreen across BOTH monitors, doubling the number of columns you can see at one time (works best when both screens are at the same resolution).

Most apps work fine with it. Some don't properly remember their position on the screen when you restart them if they were on the 2nd monitor (Winamp for instance has this problem).

If you install Ultramon - a very nifty utility, it gives you even more features like a taskbar on both screens (Windows natively only supports the taskbar on the primary display) and the taskbar can show just the apps visible on that particular screen.

Ultramon also lets you setup different wallpapers on each monitor or one big wallpapert he size of the full desktop across both monitors (Windows by default just repeats the same wallpaper on each monitor).

Ultamon also adds the ability to click on an icon in any window's header to toggle it between both monitors to save you the trouble of dragging it around.

So what do I use it for? I do web page design and use Photoshop and GoLive. Both have floating tool bars and menus and you can move them to the 2nd monitor (see photo I posted above) to give you a larger workspace on the main monitor.

As I mentioned previously, you can have one window span across both monitors (handy for spreadsheets).

If you're a power user like me, and you often have several Windows open, it's nice to be able to move something over to the 2nd monitor out of your way. For example I can have an HTML editor on one monitor and a browser on the 2nd monitor.

I have a WinTV USB interface for watching TV on my computer. Now I can put the TV image on my 2nd monitor while I work on the first.

I'm running both my monitors at 1152x864 so I essentially have a 2304x864 desktop.

So far I've had no problems with 3D games. 3D games always run on my primary display. The cool thing is that the secondary display stays on the desktop while playing. So you can leave Outlook running on the 2nd display, for instance, and watch your mail come in while you play.

As for AGP slots, it doesn't matter except that you're limited in the choice of video cards for the second card (unless you get a dual head card for your primary). For desktop work PCI is MORE than fast enough - you'll never notice any difference. AGP only really benefits 3D applications.

Schwartz · Post by **Schwartz** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:46 pm

I've got some XP dual display action going on here too. It's great for when I'm on-call (like now

). I can be working on a couple of devices on the main display and monitoring other connectivity to devices on the other monitor. I am using a ViewSonic VG191b 19" LCD for my primary display and a KDS RAD-5 15" LCD for the secondary. I'm using a Geforce 3 for the primary display and a Voodoo3 PCI for the secondary. Once I get a Geforce 4 I have been considering picking up another RAD-5 for some 3 headed action.

:

FuNPoLiCe001 · Post by **FuNPoLiCe001** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 10:44 pm

woah, thats sweet

me wants an LCD...but i dont like how they supposedly only last 3-4 years

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 5:19 pm

Nice digital cam u have Schwartz. The image looks really good and detailed.

Multimonitors would be cool, I might look into for when I become more serious at web developing.

golfreak · Post by **golfreak** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 2:30 am

I'm about to go dual myself.

I just bought 2 19 Samsung 955DF from gateway access for $193 each.
And I'm just waiting for my GF4 4400 to get here.

Schwartz · Post by **Schwartz** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 11:48 pm

For desktop work PCI is MORE than fast enough - you'll never notice any difference.

I always thought it was fine until I downloaded the new nvidia drivers and enabled window transparency when dragging. The window skips all over the place on the second display. I don't think my 2.7Ghz CPU is holding me back.

Then again the PCI card is a Voodoo3 so I can't really complain. But there are some things like this that having a slower PCI card will show. If I wasn't getting a Geforce 4 here shortly I would probably pick up a cheap PCI MX card and see how it does with the transparency compared to the V3.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 12:28 am

I always thought it was fine until I downloaded the new nvidia drivers and enabled window transparency when dragging.

BAH! Waste of valuable processing power. I don't even have "Windows contents visible while dragging" enabled.

All that eye candy bloat in XP is a big conspiracy (IMO) to create the illusion of a need for more powerful computers in the consumer market.

Fact of the matter is that for the average consumer (granted most of us HERE aren't average users) who justs browses, emails, writes letters, uses Quicken and plays games like backgammon and Deer Hunter, a figgin' P2-400 with a TNT1 card is more horse power than he'll ever use.

I DID see a slow down when dragging Winamp across the 2nd monitor when I was using an old 2Mb Matrox card, but the Savage seems to be holding it's own just fine.