3 Monitors 2 cards How/Can do?

epirb wrote on 12/10/2005, 7:09 AM
After just taking the plunge and getting a 24" 1980x1200 display ,I'm wondering if I can now run 3 displays. I'm looking for a temporary solution until my wallet recovers so I can buy a Decklink HD card.
But for now I have a X300 PCI express dual monitor card and was wondering if I can install a std PCI VGA card to drive my 3rd monitor.
If so will I be able to designate what the 3rd will display? Or will it get screwed up.

Or should I get a geforce 6600 card, then can you use the HDTV out as the external monitor preview in Vegas?

Comments

Nat wrote on 12/10/2005, 10:38 AM
I guess it should work fine, I currently have 3 monitors, 2 hooked to an AGP Geforce 4 TI4800 card and 1 hooked to a PCI Geforce 4MX card. Works great.
I guess it's best not to mix brands
epirb wrote on 12/10/2005, 10:49 AM
I guess I'll go get and inexpensive PCI card and try.
Or hold out for a Parhelia AVPe
goshep wrote on 12/10/2005, 11:16 AM
That's a good question epirb. I'd be interested in seeing the results. My guess is there should be no conflict. You can run as many PCI cards as you have slots without conflict so I would imagine PCI-E will not fight for PCI resources. Let us know what happens...

RBartlett wrote on 12/10/2005, 12:40 PM
You usually select the dedicated video slot or PCI in the BIOSsettings to determine the initial boot adapter. Dual, triple and above on a single card tend to clone until windows starts.
Otherwise move the monitor hookups to suit the layout around whatever the PC decides.

Bewarned that sticking with a chipset vendor with generic drivers is recommended and the model in the same series isn't such a bad idea either. Check the restocking arrangements if you think or hear that I am wrong in your case.

PCI cards on gamer/home PC class systems will reduce your peak disk access and might upset the status quo for DV-firewire print-to-tape. However as this is temporary - disabling the extra "head" would be a reasonable action if this turned out to be the case.


There is also a non-internal solution to this that might suit others without ATI or NVIDIA AGP/PCIE cards in their existing systems:



Matrox have a device that sits on a VGA socket and allows you to subsequently generate two separate/independent 60Hz monitors with high resolution on both. Great if you want triple displays on a laptop, now or down the track. However you need integrated (typically) Intel chipset oriented graphics functions on your mainboard for this to work.

It is about US$150 online from resellers.
http://shopmatrox.com/usa/products/datasheet.asp?ID=788
epirb wrote on 12/13/2005, 11:15 AM
Well result is good so far ended up picking up a PNY geforce 128 pci card for about 50 bucks. Had a couple of driver confilts at first but uninstalled and reinstalled and all seems ok.
Now for the age old HDV preview questions. Using the 1980x1200 display on secondary monitor output.
what gives the best frame rate? Iknow I will achieve full 29.97 unless in auto, but of course resolution suffers big time if your preview window is small.
Im trying to figure out if I make my preview window full size, and set it to preview auto , then click external preview, what sort of frame rate I'm getting but i cant tell because I cant see the fps partion of the screen.
right now if the frames are recompressed ie. smaller preview window playback is about 10-12 fps on ext mon , no effects CFDI.