Using 2 monitors (with a geforce 2)

Biomechanoid · August 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">I can't get these songs out of my mind</div>actually, it's 1 monitor and a TV.... I've been frustrated by lack of screen space when I'm using various mixing and sound editing progz, and saw a diagram of Ian's setup (www.machall.com) for his computer for doing drawing shiznit.... He's got 3 monitors hooked up to 2 machines, therefore, on one of those computers he has two monitors hooked up. <i>*interruption for a song "we bring peace to the world... come and join our street parade..."*</i>

so... I've got a GeForce 2 (the Hercules 3D prophet 2 ultra 64) and it has... a monitor out, TV out, and DVI out. now... I only own one monitor, but There's a TV that's about 4 feet away from my b0x0r. I've been trying to figure out how to make my desktop span the TV and the monitor- I have the GeForce tweak utility (er... gtu_3_1) and with it, I can right click on an application and it has a send to and I can select monitor 1...
<i>*song interrupt "I'm in a wide open space.... I'm standing... all alone, I'm staring into space.... It's always quiet for miles around..."*</i>
erm... yea NEways.... anyone know of a way that I can get the nview extnesions to recognize my TV (it IS plugged into my card) so I can send the progs to my TV screen?
I can (through the properties->settings->advanced->device selections) get ONLY the TV to show my screen. (in 800x600 mode I believe)

thanks for any help and bearing with my mind "why are you laughing as if you were my friend... I'm gonna slap you again and again..." argh! too many voices must use l337 +r0u7 of d34th...

<b>*WHAM!!!!*</b>

ahhh.. much better.

Silver_Fox · August 2002

even though it has both a tv out and the monitor outputs, I believe you need two Video cards to run duel monitors.

Think of it as the card is using all its resources on one output, be it the monitor or the TV, but not both.

However, my knowledge is 0 on this subject, so, someone else may be better to answer.

Legionnaired · August 2002

I know you can have multi-monitor spanning, however.. I'm not sure how...

I'm pretty sure it would work, try an e-mail to nvidia...

I'll poke around my driver settings, hang on a bit...

Legionnaired · August 2002

k, through your advanced properties in your drivers, there should be a section labeled GeForce 2, or something.

Now, under that tab, look for advanced properties...

Now, there should be something about a desktop manager, look at that...

coil · August 2002

If my computer has a built-in video card and a GeForce2 as well, can I do dual monitors?

SmokeMasta · August 2002

only the geforce 4 has Nview compatebility (multiscreens)
other card can do TV or monitor not both

Silver_Fox · August 2002

Coil, as long as they are both working, I believe so.

If you can plug a monitor into either socket and they both work then I'm sure its capable.

Try it, if it doesn't work - eh ...

Biomechanoid · August 2002

Thanks smoke....

I SORTA... found a way, but it kinda sux... I found a prog tool tv which can have it display the SAME desktop on your monitor AND your TV at the same time, but... it's useless for me 'cause I'd see the same clutter twice...
I suppose that since NVidia isn't coming out with a new chip anytime soon I'd better get that GeForce4 4600 with dual monitor, tv in/out shiznit... $400... ouch...

I DO have a video out on my motherboard, but... I'd have to run my monitor off of that, and I'm sorry, but the resolution/bit depth just sucks ### and... yea...

coil · August 2002

Bio, you *could* just pick up a 2nd GeForce2, I think...

SmokeMasta · August 2002

actualy the GF4 can run on your TV in a resolution of 1024x788
and Nview (max 16 screens)

Biomechanoid · August 2002

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (coil @ Aug. 14 2002,22:36)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Bio, you *could* just pick up a 2nd GeForce2, I think...</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
That'd be nice, but I only have one AGP slot on my motherboard (it's 4x thou) (went with a cheap biostar for $45)

actually.... I found a decent GeForce 4 ti 4600 for $280 that has video in and out, along with digital out and a port for my monitor so I can play vids on my TV and record TV shows on my computer.

Relic25 · August 2002

If you intend to run dual displays with any NVidia-based card, as I do, you'll need the TwinView drivers that were avaliable through NVidia's site last I checked. We have 6 workstations that are all running dual displays using single GeForce2 cards with 2 rgb monitor outs. I also have a spare workstation that is set up for recording TV out onto my DV camera. It has a single GeForce2 card with 1 rgb out and 1 TV (S-Video) out. All these workstations use the TwinView drivers.

You will probably find out on your own that you cannot output to TV at a resolution greater than 640x480. Even high-end TVs (that aren't HD) cannot display more than around 800 horizontal lines of resolution, and that's interlaced. What will happen if you try to output to a TV at a higher resolution than 640x480 is that you will only be able to see a 640x480 area on-screen. The rest is still there, but it is off the edges of the viewable area.

DruBo · August 2002

Yes, regardless of how high a resolution your tv-out chip supports, most TVs only support 640x480. Digital TVs support 800x600, I think, and HDTVs have a maximum of 1600x1200 or so.

Also, bio, you can get a PCI geforce2 for something like $30 to use as your second card.

Biomechanoid · August 2002

Actually relic, my TV supports a wierd 740xsomething that you can see all of the screen on. but... I can't show two different desktops at the same time with my GeForce 2, just two of the same desktops (twinview).

What I'd LOVE to do would be to run this in 2048x780, and adjust my screen so that half was on my monitor and half was on my TV, but... that flies like a tortise with a fear of heights.

coil · August 2002

That's what I want to do - a double-wide desktop (for Photoshopping, mostly). Can I do that with the twinview drivers?

Relic25 · August 2002

Yes, you can if you have a card with more than 1 monitor output (or 2 cards).

Bio: You are correct, in that a tv can really support 720x480. This is the size you will get (for an NTSC image anyway) when doing a standard video capture from a TV source. Normally though, this is not a resultion that you can select from in display properties. That's why I said 640x480.

SmokeMasta · August 2002

coil : yes you can create from 2 monitors 1 big desktop with Nview (upto 19 monitors)

Relic25 · August 2002

Here's a screenshot of mine at work (the other 5 here are used like this too).

coil · August 2002

Must... obtain... 2nd... monitor!!!

Scythe · August 2002

I'll assume you all haven't seen <a href="http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia512/technology/surround_gaming.cfm" target="_blank">Matrox Parhelia TripleHead Arangement</a>. This is what I dream of men (and women).

My Dad is buying a widescreen 83cm HD TV tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to hook up my GeForce 2 to it and have a bit of mighty fine gaming.

--Scythe--
<a href="mailto:the_only_scythe@subdimension.com">the_only_scythe@subdimension.com</a>

coil · August 2002

One GeForce2... One Voodoo Banshee... one quick (ahem) Windows reinstall... and I give you this:

(PS - the alignment and sizing is odd because one of my monitors sucks significantly. The largest resolution it supports is 1024x768, but anything larger than 800x600 is headache-inducing-ly blurry. So I've got one at 1152, and one at 800. q: Hopefully the 2nd monitor will be replaced shortly.)

pielemuis · August 2002

now that's just nifty, i'm gonna try and use a TV as second monitor s:)

Hand_Me_The_Gun_And_Ask_Me_Again · August 2002

Multihead's great. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

If you've got the monitors, it might be worth looking around for some cheap old PCI graphics cards. I got a Matrox Millennium II for £5 a while ago; the card's 3D is almost non-existent but it runs beautifully in 2D.

I haven't got multihead running at the moment, since there's one (potentially major) problem - when using multiple cards, you're unlikely to get <b>any</b> 3D acceleration. It's great for 2D work, though, and I imagine someone like Relic25 will know more about higher-end hardware which <b>will</b> do multi-head 3D acceleration.

Relic25 · August 2002

That is a bit of a sticky problem. We went the cheap route to do our dual monitor setups ($77 dual monitor output cards), but we do still use them for gaming during breaks and after work. To get 3D acceleration on these, the trick is that you can only run the 3D app on the primary monitor. For some older games (like HL), I have to temporarily disable the secondary monitor, or the game will mistakenly think that opengl is not supported. It's as easy as unchecking and checking a single box in the display properties to toggle this, so it really hasn't been a huge deal. Newer games (serious sam comes to mind) are smart enough to simply disable the secondary for you. With a bigger budget and some newer hardware/drivers, I'm sure it's probably possible to run a full extended display with opengl across all the monitors. I know we had put together 1 workstation for a client with dual 21" sony trinitrons and a new ATI card that handled the extended desktop differently. It allowed the user to select a single resolution that applied to all the available monitor areas, so I would bet that an opengl app would span both monitors freely. The NVidia twinview drivers allow separate resolutions on each display (which I actually prefer).

In case anyone is interested, here is a link to the card we use at work. It's even cheaper now, but it's been a good, reliable card that runs HL beautifully. Plus, you can always ask me if you have any trouble with the install or want to know about any little quirks (none serious).

<a href="http://www.pricescan.com/items/item126980.asp" target="_blank">http://www.pricescan.com/items/item126980.asp</a>

coil · August 2002

Actually, I've been experimenting on which of my games like the 2-monitor setup... I think my mixing a Voodoo Banshee (hey, it was the first card I found) with a GeForce2 has ###### the GF2 off. (:

HL: no way.
GTA3: a little laggy; it's happier with #2 disabled.
Warcraft3: ditto GTA3.
Q3 Demo: ditto HL.
Oni: *super* lagged unless you disable #2.

coil · August 2002

OK, got a decent monitor, and I'm now running at 2304x864. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>
I also, for fun, opened up a pic in photoshop... I included my trillian contact list and an instant message for scale. (:

SirLagz · August 2002

so thers no way to use a tv + mon at the same time then?

if ther is please explain in an email to sirlagz@hotmail.com

Scythe · August 2002

I'm trying to track down a second el-cheapo video card and another monitor. I've got an ASUS V7700 GeForce 2 GTS 32meg currently. I have two spare PCI slots, I'm planning to stick the cheap video card into one of the spare slots and hook the other monitor up to it. I've been poking around in the nView settings and there's this "Enable window spanning across multiple monitors" thing. Will this be able to stretch the desktop across the two monitors? I don't want to use it for gaming particularly, just browsing, flashing and other screen-space intensive programs. Will I need any other third party software or will the latest detonator drivers to the trick?

--Scythe--
the_only_scythe@subdimension.com

Sono · August 2002

Wow coil, that is just amazing.
God, i fantanize what happens if you put up something with 4 screens or so, so you got one _BIG_ screen. <img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

Using 2 monitors (with a geforce 2)

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