Dual Monitor

[Don Majoros]

I would like to hook up a smaller 2nd monitor to my system,but not sure how to do it.Could anyone help?
My system is:
Gateway 933 w/348 mb Ram,30 gb hard drive,Pentium III processor,64mb nvidia geforce 2 gts graphics card w/tv out.All on Windows ME.
Could anyone help lead me in the right direction,eg. what card or type of card to buy?I called Gateway support,but all their tech had to say was [Dah?] I also asked for help on Adobe User to User forums.Had no reply yet.Thanks in advance.

[jeaniesa]

I recently (2 months ago?) purchased a Matrox G450 (based on advice from this forum) on eBay for a decent price and have been very happy with it. I had no problems installing it. (I have a PIII 800 with an "old-style" motherboard.) I don't (yet) have two monitors, but I can see from the display setup that this would be very easy to accomplish.

I've read that this isn't the best card for gaming however, so if that is important to you, you'll want to find a different card.

Hope this helps,
Jeanie

[Don Majoros]

Dual Monitors

Thanks a bunch Jeanie I'll give it a try.

[gland]

You can also use two separate cards. One in the AGP slot and one in a PCI slot.

I've seen a couple of setups with an older card in a PCI slot set up for the Photoshop toolbars-etc. and the newer card just for the graphics window.

[Don Majoros]

Dual Monitors

I'm sorry to be such a pest,but I checked the web for the G450 graphics card and found a whole bunch of different ones.For example G450 milleium,G450vga,abc,xyz.I'm at a loss as to the one I need.Please help.

[jeaniesa]

Hi Don,
Yes, it does get a bit confusing. What you should get depends on your setup. From what I can tell, the board comes with two variations of the "dual setup". Either two analog (HD-15) connectors or one digital (DVI) and one analog (HD-15) connector. My layman's understanding is that the DVI connection will give you a sharper picture on LCD displays, but can't be used on CRTs. DVI also allows you to output to the newer TVs with digital input. You can hook up an LCD to the analog connector, it's just not quite as clear. (Again, this is my layman's understanding and I could easily be corrected.) When I purchased my card on eBay, the only version being sold was the two analog connectors.

More memory is better, so you'll probably want to get the 32MB version of the card as opposed to the 16 MB.

There appear to be some models with "PCI" after the number. I'm assuming this means the card will fit in a PCI slot rather than the "traditional" AGP slot for graphics cards. Unless you're hoping to use your old card with the new one, you'll most likely just be replacing the card in your AGP slot.


Hope this helps,
Jeanie