Dual Monitors under Win 2k and XP..
2002-06-20 by Editor P.O.V. Image Service
This was a discussion back a bit and I would like to offer some experience I have garnered in setting up a new system... I was using Win2k and XP (dual boot) and decided to go with an ATI RADEON 8500DV AGP card as the primary card.. The system has 2gB of RAM and dual PIIIe 1000mHz CPU's It installed without a problem under both OS's.. I first tried a RADEON 7000 PCI card as the second video card... (keep in mind the 8500DV will already drive an HDTV as a second display).... No luck with that card under Win 2k or XP.. Eventually ATI tech support informed me it was a driver issue they were already aware of.. I then decided to go with a Visiontek Xtasy GeForce4 MX420 PCI card as the second card.. With a different GPU, I was certain drivers would not be the problem... Well, under Win2k, that wouldn't work either.. It became a problem of the PCI card wanting the IRQ (11) that the AGP card gets as a default assignment.. No way to alter either under Win2k... However, under XP the drivers and cards loaded beautifully, except for the bizarre quirk that the PCI card's attached monitor needs to have "cloning" to a second TV screen turned on to actually get the regular monitor to turn on.. With these cards, I can even watch cable TV on my system while doing Pshop work and send the palettes, etc. to the second monitor.. The ONLY app that I cannot send the main program area to the second screen from is actually the TV tuner display component from the 8500 DV.. Essentially, my "picture in a picture" TV has to stay on the main screen.. I can make it translucent though... All in all I have to say, I like the new cards and both have a plethora of color control options built into the drivers.. This will be a plus when I re-calibrate the new main monitor with Optical, as Optical will only work with the main monitor.. So, I'll have to tune the second monitor to match the first as much as possible.. [Keith] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]