[wang259]

The other day I was thinking how my 21" sony crt monitor was just sitting there, getting dusty with no use. Then i thought it would not be that expensive to upgrade my video card on my comp to support dual monitor capability. Thus, I have a question. What is a relatively cheap video card that you guys can recommend me that will support dual-monitor capability yet still be functional for playing games such as counter-strike and ut2k4 (with the settings turned down of course). I'm looking for something around or less than the $100 mark. Thanks

[Aphex_Tom_9]

refurbed 9600/9700? not sure though

[Lejend]

I use a pci Geforce 2 in addition to my Geforce 5200. (soon to be a 6800 :P) It works great, although it does not support mirroring the monitors. (A feature I never use) Since I never run graphic intensive programs on it, it suits my needs perfectly. Plus I figure I'd rather have my main card working on just 1 monitor, instead of 2. 3Dmark03 scores are the same with the device enabled or disabled. If you are really looking for a cheap route, this is it. You can find a cheap pci graphics card on www.pricewatch.com. If you have an ATI card, I would buy an ATI pci card to go along with it, because nVidia and ATI drivers don't play nice with each other.

If you don't have a spare pci slot, (or just flat out think I'm wrong :P) You could go with a radeon 9600, or a nVidia 5600 ultra. Both of which can be found on pricewatch for less than $100 dollars. I'm not really too familar with these cards so I'm not sure if they even compare (so please don't flame me)

oh and BTW


Welcome to the Forums!!!

[wang259]

lol, thanks for the welcome

anyway, I have a hp pavilion pretty much left stock. I dont know if this matters but the graphics card currently in the system is an integrated 64 mb Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV

That PCI card solution sounds a lot easier than a new video card since i dont even know if i have a spare AGP slot. Do you have any suggestions for certain online retailers in which I should buy one? Also, since my video card is neither nvidia or ati, would a PCI card of either brand work well with this?

Actually...what does a PCI slot even look like? I think my laptop has one but I don't know about this HP

Oh one more thing...What is the technical name for the feature which allows dual-monitor support? I need this to figure out if the card I'm looking at has this dual monitor capability

[ajrettke]

Hey, welcome to the forums!

Your best bet is just to buy a new (or refurbed) AGP card. You will only have 1 AGP slot, but almost all video cards that around over 50 will have dual monitor support.

At newegg.com goto the refurbished section...here is a link to two cards I think would be great....first is a ti4600 for 78 bucks (this is a steal, and a very powerful card)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...type=Refurbish

Next is a 9600pro which can do dx9 but I believe is slower than a ti4600 in dx8 games...in dx9 games the ti4600 just doesn't give quite the eye candy and I'm not sur eon which one is faster....it's very close.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...type=Refurbish
that one is 97

Kinda a hard decision, the ti4600 is a steal at that price...but the 9600pro is DX9 capable which some people like....I'd go with the 4600 because I think it may be faster and it's cheaper...doesn't have the image quality, but I could never really tell.

If you want to buy new, then under 100 your gonna need to go with the ti4200 (get 128mb) which is still a GREAT card....talk to OC550 and he'll try to convince you it's better than a ti4600 (that was a joke)

[wang259]

thanks for the advice, I think i'm going to go with the 9600 since i think i'm going to be playing games which require dx9.

however i'm wondering why that 9600 is refurbished yet still 97 dollars. I found this similar card which is new and only 2 dollars more, with also 256mb memory.

[Lejend]

Was it a pro, or just a regular 9600?

Also with your integrated graphics I would recommend buying a new AGP card with dual heads.

As to what pci slots look like... If you open up your computer, you should see a bunch of slots on the lower part of the board. Don't look for something like you use with your laptop, as the interface is completly different. It should look something like the attached picture. You might not have an agp slot, but you probably will have pci slots. If you don't have an AGP slot, you would be forced to use a pci card for your 2nd monitor. One thing I'm not sure of tho... I know on most mobos with integrated graphics, when you insert an agp card the onboard video card disables itself. What I'm not sure is if the same would happen with a pci card. I don't think it would because the reason the onboard video disables itself is because the agp bus was only designed for 1 card. Its something you'd want to look into regardless.

[wang259]

ohh man..

I realized after this whole thread that I had a 5900 ultra lying around that i didn't use, which had dual monitor capabilities. Thus i installed it in my HP pavilion computer. The card was huge and was hard to fit in the small case of the HP. I think i bumped around one too many times or screwed something up because after i installed it and i turned on my computer, no visual would be displayed on the monitor and instead my computer would continuously beep. I thought i had installed the card wrong so i took it out and put everything back the way it was. However, when i turned the comp on it STILL made that beeping noise and refused to work. whats goin on??? i hope ih ave not permanently damaged my computer somehow...

i did tamper with the molexs in my computer if that has somehting to do with it. The 5900 requires its own molex so i unplugged some molexs to try and get one to fit in the 5900. however after the computer made the beeping noise i put the molexs back the way it was

[ajrettke]

hmm...how many computers do you have?

For the HP I'd take the 5900u out, reset the CMOS, make sure there is a video output (if it's onboard then use that, otherwise use any AGP or PCI card you got (not the 5900u if at all possible to avoid). Then fire it up. and see what happens.

[wang259]

i have 3 computers in my room...only 2 of which are functional (lappy and this desktop)

I took the 5900 out of the non-functional one.

anyway, my problem seems to have fixed it by itself. After getting frustrated, i decided to let my computer relax for about 15 minutes. Then i started it up again and everything seemed fine, so i put the card back in and for some weird reason it started working.

well i've got 2 monitor goodness now

btw...what settings do you guys like to do? dualview or horizontal span? I can't tell what the difference between the two is.

[ajrettke]

download a program called ultramon....
I put my primary monitor on the right, and my secondary on the left (so the start menu taskbar is on the right monitor) then I put all my desktop icons on the left. I have trillian (AIM, MSN, yahoo etc combined in one app) on the left along with winamp. I cruise the web on the right monitor, and If I need to type a post like this for example and need to reference material I pop move the window I need to reference to the left.

Also with ultramon it puts a taskbar on your other monitor....you can have it so only apps on the left monitor show up on the taskbar in the left and vice versa for the right, but I like having all of them on each taskbar (you have to change the settings in ultramon to do what I do...the first one I mentioned is default). It also adds an icon next to the maximize/minimize/close buttons that will switch the app from one monitor to the other (or next in case of 3+ monitors), as well as full span the app.

If you want a pic of what my desktop looks like just PM me your email and I'll send ya some.

Oh....and once you go dual monitors you'll never go back ;p