Video card recommendations for dual monitors (1 Viewer)

[John Wilson]

I have 2 19-inch Samsung monitors that I'd like to connect to my P3-800 currently running a VooDoo 3 card and WinXP Pro. A fellow HTF'er who sold me the latest monitor suggested a Matrox G400 but I can only find them on Ebay. Is this my best best for the under $75 range or can I find a newer model which will work as well? I plan to use it for video editing and power surfing.

Suggestions/advice is welcomed!

 

[John Wilson]

No Ideas?

 

[JeremyFr]

The Radeon 7000ve is pretty nice thats the one I've got and I use it for Avid, premiere etc and it works quite nicely. 64meg DDR not a great 3d performer but it really wasn't intended for gaming etc.

 

[DarrenH]

Hi John,
I believe Matrox discontinued the G400, which is why you can't find them. We have a few at work, they are very nice cards. Looks like the entry level Matrox dual head card is now the G550. This is a few bucks more than your $75 range, more like $100. Though I haven't seen a G550, if it is anything like the G400, you should be very happy.

Darren H

 

[John Wilson]

I have a followup question. I managed to procure a G400 with dual monitor capability and 32 MB mmy on Ebay. I will receive it today. Its supposed to come with the driver disk that would cover XP as well. My plan of attack is as follows:

- Power down and remove current VooDoo3 card. Install G400 and connect both monitors.

- Power up and let XP find card and monitors. Both of my monitors currently work individually with my card so XP has the lates drivers, yes?

- Update the XP driver for the Matrox from the hopefully included CD.

- Figure out how to use card with two monitors. Any suggestions? Bill B?

Am i missing or do things in the wrong order here? I'd like for this to go as smooth as possible. Yeah, right!:b

 

[Chad Ellinger]

Before powering down and removing the Voodoo3, uninstall any Voodoo3 drivers that exist and change your display adapter to "Standard VGA." Reboot and you should be in 640x480x256 (read: ugly) mode. Then power down and swap cards.

XP may have built-in drivers for the G400. Here's the link for the latest Matrox drivers.

 

[DarrenH]

Hi John,
Plan of attack sounds pretty good. Note that on the G400 card the monitor ports are numbered 1 and 2. Port 1 is the port that the BIOS of the computer activates (prior to Windows starting). Port 2 does not activate until the drivers for the card are loaded (by Windows). So, basically, the monitor you want to start first plug into Port 1.

Would be best to download the drivers from Matrox's website as they are most likely more recent than the ones on the CD. Grab them from http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/dr...atest/home.cfm before swapping out the cards.

As for how to use the card, there will be a little icon in your system tray (next to your clock) that allows you to set up the placement of the monitors as well as screen resolution etc.

Good luck!

Darren H

 

[MikeM]

Well, yesterday, I bought this video card from newegg:
Jaton nVidia GeForce 4 MX440 64MB Dual. It was $71.00. (They have both PCI and AGP cards for this.)

Then again, I'm not a gamer, and really don't know a whole hell of a lot about PCs, but the price was right, the dual monitor support was there, and the specs seemed solid for what I want to use it for. It's also 2 standard VGA ports, so no adapter is needed for standard CRT monitors.

Hope that info helps.