Using two monitors

[ultra big al]

Hi everybody I'm looking for some help on hooking up two monitors at the same time to my computer.
What is the best way to do this?
Will I be able to run two programs at once?
Do I need anything in additiion to the cables I already have?
Any help with this would really be appreciated. Thanks to all.
Alan

[snails]

Hi everybody I'm looking for some help on hooking up two monitors at the same time to my computer.
What is the best way to do this?
Will I be able to run two programs at once?
Do I need anything in additiion to the cables I already have?
Any help with this would really be appreciated. Thanks to all.
Alan

This is a very broad question, you could get a variety of answers.

It depends on what kind of computer you are running, a laptop or a desktop. Most laptops will let you attach a monitor and leave the laptop open at the same time, giving you two monitors. I haven't purchased a desktop in a while but I imagine that most desktops with a discrete graphics card should have two monitor ports. If either of these are the case, you probably just need to choose a monitor.

If your desktop computer doesn't have two video ports in some configuration. You will need to see if your computer has an older PCI interface or a newer PCI-e interface. They are not compatible, so it's important you are sure of which one you have. Once you know which interface you need to match the card to, you need to buy a card with two video ports. Cards with a VGA and a DVI port can be had for $50 MSRP, if you need two DVI ports you're looking at $100 MSRP. Which ports you need will be dictated by what monitors you have.

Most monitors will come with the cables you need to connect them to your computer. You need to be sure you choose a monitor with a DVI or VGA connection that will match your computer. Again, I haven't bought one in a while so I'm not sure if VGA is still supported on all LCDs.

There are alternate methods, with varying degrees of success, including USB monitor ports. But the method I described above is the most straightforward in my opinion. If anything I mentioned sounds over your head, I strongly advise you to seek help from a professional computer technician in your area. I built a top of the line desktop computer in 2007, so I know what I'm doing, but I'm not patient enough to run hands-off tech support.

[tim]

Most modern video cards let you plug in two monitors, you just configure it to make one big desktop, or a mirrored desktop. You can do anything on either of the monitors.

[BeritOlam]

It really depends on what video card you are running right now, which will determine whether your existing (one) vid card can push two monitors....OR if you need to get a second vid card to do so.

In Windows, it's not terribly hard to configure. Under the 'display' settings, it should automatically recognize if there's a 2nd monitor hooked up to it (once you get your hook-ups sorted out). And it should be as simple as clicking on the dual-monitor display option from there.

As I Mac user, I haven't done this in a while on Windows. It was very simple to hook up on my dad's computer a couple years ago.

[ultra big al]

Thank you everybody for your replies
Alan