How do I run 2 graphic cards? (1 Viewer)

[Richard_T]

I recently bought an HP media center which has an NVIDIA GeForce 6200SE graphics card in it. I would like to run my computer to both a monitor and my Sony KLVS19A10 LCD TV. I want to be able to watch DVDs and see my digital pictures on my TV while still being able to do work on my PC. (Not necessarily at the same time though) but my graphics card only has one VGA output and I am only able to connect either the TV or the monitor or the tv. Not both.

Now I was given an ATI FireGL V3100 dual output graphics card from a friend and I'd like to use it because or it's dual output abilities but I'm not sure if it is good enough for gaming (my wife loves The Sims 2) which works very well on the Ge Force) Firstly does any know how good a card this ATI card is and secondly, if it isn't good enough to play games with can someone help me with using both cards and setting up which card does what. (GE Force for gaming through the monitor and ATI for watching DVDs pictures etc on my TV??

 

[Dennis*G]

The FireGL card beats the GeForce card. Just go with the ATI and be done.

 

[Richard_T]

Really? I thought the Ge Force card was a 256 MB card and since the ATI card was a 128 MB card that the GE Force would be better. What makes the ATI better than the Ge Force?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i'm not certain which card beats which in this case, but dennis seems to know. i do want to say, don't think in terms of video memory, a card with more video memory isn't automatically "better" than one with. lots of factors come into play, but the speed of the GPU is most important. video memory is important, but it is mostly used to store textures for your game (walls, character models, building faces, etc). faster cards usually have more memory, but more memory does not always mean a faster card.

CJ

 

[Dennis*G]

It's not much of a win for ATI, they are nearly identicle performance wise, ATI has just a tad more performance (it is a workstation card, optimized for openGL, but will run Sims 2 with no problems), but the win is that the ATI is already dual vid capable, so you have your solution right there.

 

[JasonWW]

When running cards a game usually won't allow you to use them both. Unless it supports 2 video cards or a dualhead card, it will ususally ask you to deactivate one of the outputs.

XP is the better OS to use, as 2000 doesn't have as good multiple monitor support.

 

[Christian Behrens]

I'm not sure why you say that, I run a card with two DVI outputs just fine on Win2K.

-Christian

 

[JasonWW]

It's true. XP is better at running more combinations of cards and multiple output cards than 2000. If you build a dual card system with WN98se, 2000 and XP you'll see what I mean.

Now dual heads cards are another story. A lot depends on the card and the driver. Matrox is very good with their dual head cards and works well in 98, 2000 and XP. In fact a lot of dual head cards will work fine in 2000 and so-so in 98, but it all depends.

The original poster didn't say what OS he was using, so I thought I'd mention some of the differences. Best thing to do is try it and see if it works.