Well, If I can’t sell my monitor, I’m going to keep it for a dual display setup. My problem is, one monitor is a 28" and the second is a 22" and both have different native resolutions. The 22" is 16:10 1680X1050 , the 28" is 16:10 1920X1200. Will this be a problem with running duals? Is there software designed for a setup like this? Or are they geared for monitors of the same size/resolution? I’d rather not run the larger one and 1680X1050.
Are there any caveats to doing this?
Also, since I’ll need more power to run both (if I can) what is a good vid card to run? I currently have an 8800GT but have my doubts how well it will run them, especially on demanding 3D apps. Are the GX2 cards any good? Seems like a good solution to an SLI setup without having an SLI mobo. The nVidia 260/280’s are too expensive imo.
Windows can handle this pretty well actually. I had a PCI video card and my onboard running a 19" and a 15" screen with different native resolutions. In windows you setup the positioning and set how you want the smaller monitor positioned along with each resolution.
If I were to drag my mouse from one setup to the next though, will I be “loosing” my mouse in space? For instance, dragging from the top of the larger mon. to the smaller, will it be hitting a virtual wall? or will it automatically move it to the top position of the smaller display? (if that makes sense)
those things are crazy expensive though. Can’t you flash the geforce firmware to a quadro, and vice versa? I thought I read about someone doing that before.
What are you going to be using it for? If it’s just shits-n-giggles; then a G-force card will work fine. I had 2 22" Samsungs running off a 8600GT for a while.
Only time you need to step up to a Quadro is if you’re doing 3D design and rendering; But I will warn you, they suck (when compared to a gaming card) for gaming because they’re NOT designed for it. You can pick up a Quadro for a decent price off ebay as a “new” pull. I picked up a FX4500 for ~$400; it’s a $1500+ new card, mine had been used for power-on test, then removed. I got mine because I mainly do 3D design work, and rarely game. And you don’t need a 5500 unless you’re doing crazy shit (But if you want, they run ~$1200 on ebay). I design and render aircraft interiors and the 4500 works just fine.
The rendering is almost ALL done in the video card, and very little is done in the CPU actually.
Really depends on what you want to do on the 2nd monitor.
The setup I had at work had the good video card running the primary monitor and then some shitty 8 meg PCI card I found in a drawer running the secondary monitor.
I used the main monitor for video, development or anything graphics intensive. On the second monitor I’d have specs, word docs, emails etc and it worked just fine. I could drag notepad windows between the two perfectly, or even split them between both monitors. The 2nd monitor couldn’t run full screen video though because of the crappy video card.
Windows will handle this natively with video cards dating back many years. It is quite seamless. You can set the resolution and positioning of each monitor in Windows’ display properties.
Also, since I’ll need more power to run both (if I can) what is a good vid card to run? I currently have an 8800GT but have my doubts how well it will run them, especially on demanding 3D apps.
Your 8800GT will handle them flawlessly. In many 3D apps, especially games, your secondary display will be blanked out, and the app will run on whichever display you have designated as primary.
I had no trouble with 3DSMax on an x1950Pro with dual monitors, I cannot envision my 8800GT having any trouble, so by extension, I’d imagine yours will be quite fine.
If I’m wildly misinterpreting something here, ignore me.
Really? What are you using as a renderer? Is it realtime? Anytime I use Vray or Brazil to render a scene, my CPU usage on all 4 cores will jump to 100%… maybe it’s the software? I always assumed that with things like raytracing and subsurface scattering, GPU’s weren’t/aren’t designed to compute that kind of workload. I think the NVidia renderer might use the GPU though (gelato?)
Your 8800GT will handle them flawlessly. In many 3D apps, especially games, your secondary display will be blanked out, and the app will run on whichever display you have designated as primary.
I had no trouble with 3DSMax on an x1950Pro with dual monitors, I cannot envision my 8800GT having any trouble, so by extension, I’d imagine yours will be quite fine.
Even with one display running @ 1680X1050 with the 8800, I notice on large models it gets pretty sluggish. I can only imagine powering 2 displays and the primary running @ 1920X1200, it would slow it down even more. I’ll try the 8800 before jumping the gun.
Yeah, the quadro’s are nice units, but price is a problem. Plus I do a bit of gaming on the side and would hate to hurt that with an expensive card lol. I do a lot of CAD and 3D modeling (along with photoshop and illustrator) but also like having native DX support. Not sure if I want to give that up, or just go to a faster geforce/Radeon card
What version of max are you running? Post up some of your work in the 3dsmax/renderings thread. What do you use it for primarily? Always cool to see someone else into it. :tup:
I have a 4 year old 6600GT running two different resolutions, 1024x768 on my dinky CRT and 640x480 on my TV as two independent displays(not cloned). If it can do it, yours can.
What I’m talking has to be different rendering codecs/etc. I’m not doing a lot of 3Dmax/etc stuff, most of mine is Pro/E and Solidworks.
My biggest thing is real-time shading/low-end rendering for modeling; when doing the models I’m dealing with, I notice a HUGE difference in how the PC works with different cards. With my 8600GT; I’d open a model and to go from Shaded to a hidden wireframe would take upwards of 30-40 seconds; and rotating a hidden wireframe model was a nightmare, might as well just click, move your mouse and walk away. With the FX4500, it’s almost instantaneous.
I have an old version of max - 4.2 - and I’m not really into it. Just something I’ve farted around with here and there when I’m bored. Mainly I’ve used it to render stuff my friends have done. I always intended to learn it and use it in designing a 3D game engine, but I’ve never quite gotten around to it. I’m a code monkey - the nuances of 3D design leave me scratching my head. I’m sorry to say I have nothing at all that would impress anyone.
