PC trouble, Dual monitor and slower performance?

6 of one, have-dozen of the other...

Glad to hear it Moppie! And congrats on the gainful employment .

I’m “Pro” Parhelia (I own two; an AGP and a PCIe), but I think there’s a common misunderstanding in what it takes to do multiple monitors and the benefits each configuration provides.

There is a difference between an extended desktop and a ‘surround desktop’; which is also slightly different from a dual monitor desktop when considering certain aspects of a "surround" experience. Dual Monitor configs are fairly straight forward and both ATI and Nvidia have nice apps that maximize Dual Monitor real estate. There are also a few apps noted below that can further enhance the experience.

*The Parhelia is currently the best ‘consumer’ product for running Surround triple monitors from a single add-in card. There are more expensive single cards that’ll do quad+ and there are motherboards that have built-in dual monitor and surround triple monitor capability (more info noted below).

*Current Microsoft OS’s extend your desktop to multiple monitors natively as a function of the OS. You simply add additional PCI cards per capacity of your motherboard and extend your desktop to these monitors within the desktop configuration. Your monitor limitation literally is the capacity of how many cards you can add to your system.

*Regarding the new motherboards with ‘built-in’ multi-monitor capability. Mobo’s with an ATI Express 200 series chipset and similar have built-in dual-monitor and surround triple-monitor (with an add-in card) support. Nvidia has dual-SLI architecture that allows two video cards to either power the same monitor in concert for the ultimate in graphics power or opt to drive multiple monitors as a function of the multi-monitor output of each graphics card.

*The least expensive way to go “Multi” is to add additional cards. The best way to go Multi with a single card is to go with the Parhelia. But if you’re building a new system or even purchasing an OEM and have the option of choosing a motherboard that has a new ATI or Nvidia multi-monitor chipset built-in; your options become even tastier. You can potentially build a new computer and essentially spend less for a multi-monitor configuration than if you just purchase a Parhelia.

*There are also multi-monitor solutions for Laptop users, but I'll leave those interests to the google inclined.

Now, the difference between an “Extended Desktop” and a “Surround Desktop” is where the rubber meets the road; and in some cases gets a little confusing. An Extended Desktop is a function of the Operating System and it simply gives you more desktop space to spread out your apps. You can stretch your apps across multiple screens or neatly separate them. Your toolbar however resides on only one screen. The background wallpaper [regarding triple monitor setups] is confined to each screen because Microsoft Windows sees each monitor separately. So, by default you cannot stretch a background wallpaper across all three screens for that awesome panoramic view (caveat: 3rd party apps noted below) nor can you run true wide screen apps or perform real-time panoramic tasking. Surround Desktop configurations on the other hand trick the OS into thinking of the three displays as one big mutha so you can put a single panoramic background up for wallpaper, stretch toolbars across all monitors and run apps that seamlessly incorporate true panoramic views such as “Surround Gaming” or Panoramic viewing.

I mentioned the caveat of 3rd party apps. Some are free, others a relatively inexpensive; but either way there are apps such as UltraMon, MaxiVista, PowerStrip (a google search brings up quite a few more) that enable quite a bit of “Surround” functionality to an OS configured extended desktop. I’ve personally run UltraMon and would definitely buy it if I didn’t upgrade to hardware solutions for my triple monitor desktops. It might be worth noting that the next version of Windows (Longhorn) has multi-toolbar and better multiple monitor functionality built in... I think I read that and saw the screen shots somewhere.

You CAN do everything that Rob612 mentions in his post simply by adding additional cards as mentioned above, you don’t need the Parhelia to do it. It’s just that the Parhelia does it so much better. And Rob612’s absolutely correct in that once you’ve gotten used to triple-headed goodness you just aren’t satisfied with anything less.

Here’s a good link to multi-monitor resources; but google for a more extensive search of what’s out there because some of the references in this link are outdated:

http://www.realtimesof​t.com/multimon/product​s.asp

**Not all is Roses** There can be numerous issues with each of the configurations that both detract and enhance a multiple monitor configuration. Using multiple cards can present unique driver installation issues (though I've successfully worked through approximately a dozen installs). With varying graphics card, drivers and monitor specs you can experience a variance in color representation between monitors (calibrating does not always resolve the variance). Even with hardware solutions such as the Parhelia, there can be color variance between identical monitors simply because of which chipset on the card is powering the different monitors. I mention this because this issue (if you're not able to calibrate it out) will drive you photo editing enthusiasts crazy.

BTW, Unreal Tournament Surround Gaming is enough reason for any moderate FPS enthusiast to sell body organs to achieve.

***CLIFF'S NOTES***

1. Adding additional graphics cards are a logical (and inexpensive) multi-monitor solution.

2. If I want basic “Surround” functionality I’d add in a software app such as UltraMon.

3. If I wanted real Surround real estate not just an extended desktop I’d get a Parhelia.

4. If I was building a system from scratch, I’d compare a multi-monitor Mobo vs a Parhelia solution and weigh the specs and performance between the two.

Feel free to correct me if I've misrepresented or incorrectly identified product or capability of any of the items mentioned.

Cheers!

im running a dual monitor setup with an Nvidia card, but haven't notice any signifficant performance changes... hmmm

Fantastic information Sketcher.


I hope I don't sound to niave, but I gather from what your saying that I can simply add a second card to my set up, and then run one monitor off of each card?
Do they have to be the same spec card?
Or could I install say a Matrox card for my PS work on a primary monitor, and something more flashy and 3D for gaming on the other monitor?

Ditto on what Sketcher said. Id rather prefer a single multihead board for several reasons, the main one being the fact that if you split among several boards you realli clog the bus a little bit tooo much. Plus, I like to have homogeneous stuff and usually you only have one AGP or PCI-X slot for video card.

If you use a single multihead solution - as per any other solution, perhaps - all the VGA traffic goes to the dedicated slot and the video hardware will take care of the rest. Sure, its a single point of failure, but if you really need it its quite more practical to have a spare single board instead of several, IMHO.

Moreover, if - as for most of us - you reach te point at which you became interested in NLE (Non Linear Editing) its much easier to plug in a single specialized board (I use a Matrox RTx.100 Xtreme) and have it working flawlessy with only one VGA card instead of several. NLE boards can be really tricky and keeping the system as much plain vanilla as possible helps a lot.

Moppie,

Not naive at all. Yes, you can add a second+ card to your setup if you're running Windows 2000 or some flavor of XP (It's doable in '98 but I don't remember the hoops to jump through). It's "usually" simple, but sometimes driver installation can make you regret having tried it in the first place.

They don't have to be the same brand or spec card (though it's almost always preferrable to use similar brand hardware if you're able to). Sometimes it's just more difficult to get drivers loaded properly if using different brand cards. Depending on the card, the driver installation might overwrite other drivers. It's a good practice when installing additional cards not to install the included software packages but to manually update the drivers on a particular card once windows recognizes the device (XP actually does a pretty good job at providing MS approved drivers "WHQL") so give the defaults a try before updating drivers.

I believe you'll want your gaming card to be the primary video card. Unless a game runs in "windowed" (mode allowing you to move it to a separate card) your game will default to the primary graphics card. Typically, you'd want your most intensive application running off your more powerful card -> from the primary video card slot on the motherboard. The additional PCI card slots won't operate as efficienctly as that primary graphics pipeline. You can move Photoshop to whichever monitor you'd like it to be on. I'd recommend running the main PS window on your primary monitor with the tools palettes or preview windows on the second; though I'm not a heavy PS user so we can count on our resident graphics artists for representation there.

Here's a link to a pic of an article on adding additional cards that I came across in a gaming forum.
Though motherboard and driver options are different between manufacturers, the article is basically the method to incorporate the madness.

http://www.pbase.com/s​ketcher/image/42324879

Good luck!

(as usual, if anyone's personal graphics experience lends to more clear thinking or a correction of the information I've presented; please feel free to
jump in!)

Rob612, what kind of NLE do you do?

Basically, I am doing NLE for my own pleasure. I like to bring a camcorder with me on every trip, but i really hate what the "vacation filming" usually looks like. So a long time ago i decided that it was time to do some editing. I like dthe results, and now when I have time, I try to edit some more serious stuff (i.e. our IPSC/IDPA matches, this is not a risk exempt filming ). I ended up with a semipro system because... its like digital cameras... once you're hooked well... there is nothing you can do about it. Just learn to live with it (and teach your wallet...)