multiple monitors

[willawake]

i am trying to set up a multiple monitor system.
i am thinking its necessary to use two ATI cards rather than the main ATI and one NVDIA i am trying to use. is that correct?

i have one card main monitor and lcd tv
then i will add two monitors with the other card.

[mariushm]

Re: multiple monitors

Newer AMD cards support lots of monitors - the cheaper ones support at least 2 or 3.

My old Radeon 4850 supported two monitors (2 dvi or 1dvi 1 hdmi)
My current Radeon 7770 supports 3 monitors (1 dvi, 1 hdmi, 1 displayport)

AFAIK nvidia cards only support 2 monitors.

[Elysarian]

Re: multiple monitors

The Radeon 7950 I had [that blew itself to bits] supports up to 6 but IIRC 4 of them have to be displayport devices (with the remaining two driven by HDMI/DVI).

For multiple display from multiple cards in windows though I'm fairly certain that for extending desktop and the like you have to be using matched cards. YMMV with linux as I recall I used onboard Intel gfx to drive one monitor and a GeForce to drive a second (though if I recall I was using the Intel just to drive a text-based console output for debuggery).

[willawake]

Re: multiple monitors

yes i think it cant be done mixing nvdia and ati.

i will get a new ati card with DVI,DVI, HDMI and use that for the desk 3 monitor setup with the relevant adapter cos i need one RGB. that will be one display

i will use the existing ati to connect the lcd tv via hdmi which is only for showing stuff when people visit. so that will duplicate.

i will need another 2 monitor arms. maybe i will upgrade the monitors later but at the moment i will use existing stuff.

this will be very cool. i need it to have documents and images to refer to when i am using word.