PCI graphic cards

[shamus21]

Anybody no if you can put more than one pci Graphic card in your rig or how many pci graphic cards and thats on top of AGP for a real big multi monitor show.

[Shogun]

You can put more than one pci video card running with your agp card.

[SilentDeath]

I know technically its possible but ive had some problems trying to find the right card. Matrox cards should be good at it but nowhere sells the old ones, and I cba using ebay.

I own a 9700 and have vga out to my 21" crt. Uisng the second ouput at a differnt res, on any gfx card makes it unplayable in games (the second screen gets moved over) so id like a second pci card for my sony 5" lcd (for winamp and stuff).

Having win2k is a problem though, most pci cards only have win9x drivers, for example ATI rage pro does have drivers, but they arnt multimonitor compatable (= I cant use it as a secondry).

Ive tryed it with the ati rage pro, that resulted in bsods. Ive also tryed with a s3 virge 2mb (really old 2d only card), windows gave me error that it couldnt initilise the card (no multimonitor again...)

I have a 3dfx bashee but im doubtfull that will work (very large lack of drivers), so can someone suggest a good cheap pci card that can be used with multimonitor support alongside a 9700.

Also Im after a semi-decent card for my second pc, needs to be agp and atleast 32mb but wont be used for much gaming (probably cs but nothing else...), can someone suggest something for that..

[Shogun]

Ive seen people running with geforce 4 pci cards for extra monitors. I think the problems you are running into is because they are really old cards and xp doesnt like that.

[Rythmic]

The limit within windows is 16 monitors - though if you run ultramon, you can up this to be ~32 (the 16 monitor limit is only in the windows display properties). So you can run as many display adaptors as you can fit in the average motherboard.

I'd recommend you run all the same manufacturors card. I personnally run a 9200SE PCI alongside my AGP 9700Pro - and have no problems at all Costs around 35 quid online and supports two monitors (currently running 2x19"CRT, 1x15"CRT and a PSOne)

Unless it's a fairly new card - it'll want to be primary in BIOS. Both the Millenium II and the Banshee I tried before buying the 9200 needed this - both had driver niggles. The S3Virge form an old dell wouldn't work at all.

Don't try and run Nvidia + anything else. Nvidia drivers don't seem to like the presence of any other manufacturors cards. My GF2MX200 worked fine with my old GF4 4200 - but will not work at all with the 9700Pro.

The problem with windows moving anything to the right of, or below the primary display will happen no matter what card it's connected to. The easy way around it is to tell windows the screen is to the left (my PSOne screen is set up like this - even though it's actually to the right)

Hope this helps! Found most of it the hard way

[SilentDeath]

Yes it helps a lot!! thanks!
How do you set it to the left? that should fix my problem (then I can run it on my 9700 and no ned for extra card )

so even if I got a second card,I will still get the screen moving problem, even if only two screens on different cards?

Ive made a csync cicuit for my lcd, so can use it on any graphics cards that the timings can be lowered on, I was going to get a really cheap nvidia card second hand but now youve told me that nvidia + 9700 = bad, and that it wouldnt solve it anyway, I wont, so youve saved me a few quid and for that have some reputation points

Hmm found out how to move it, which is also v usefull, now I get a task bar and stuff like everyone else with this mod in screenshots! more points for you with your next post I think

[shamus21]

The limit within windows is 16 monitors - though if you run ultramon, you can up this to be ~32 (the 16 monitor limit is only in the windows display properties). So you can run as many display adaptors as you can fit in the average motherboard.

I'd recommend you run all the same manufacturors card. I personnally run a 9200SE PCI alongside my AGP 9700Pro - and have no problems at all Costs around 35 quid online and supports two monitors (currently running 2x19"CRT, 1x15"CRT and a PSOne)

Unless it's a fairly new card - it'll want to be primary in BIOS. Both the Millenium II and the Banshee I tried before buying the 9200 needed this - both had driver niggles. The S3Virge form an old dell wouldn't work at all.

Don't try and run Nvidia + anything else. Nvidia drivers don't seem to like the presence of any other manufacturors cards. My GF2MX200 worked fine with my old GF4 4200 - but will not work at all with the 9700Pro.

The problem with windows moving anything to the right of, or below the primary display will happen no matter what card it's connected to. The easy way around it is to tell windows the screen is to the left (my PSOne screen is set up like this - even though it's actually to the right)

Hope this helps! Found most of it the hard way

Hi Rythmic

Yes i was thinking getting 2x ATI 9200 pci to give it a go. I agree with you on the nvidia cards not running with ATI cards.( i wonder why) also you need to watch out for the spec on the RAMDAC`s 300 or less on the old cards will show up a difference on your monitors plugged into that card at Hi res primarily19" & 21" monitors

Any one knows of a AGP card that will do 4 monitors that don`t come in at the £500.00 mark.

And will ATI be doing a 9600 PCI all AGP from what i can see.

[Rythmic]

Thanx for the rep For anyone else, to set your monitor to the left -simply pick it up and drag it in display properties

I did a fair amount of research on the Nvidia/ATi problem - seems that some people have got them working together, providing you use detonators earlier than ~3.6 and haven't every loaded any later detonators on that install of windows. I tried and tried and tried, and eventually gave up.

Absolutely right on the RAMDAC speeds - also watch out for some older cards such as the geforce 4, in which the secondary RAMDAC is slower than the primary.

Unfortunately most manufacturors tend to look at PCI cards as upgrades for old computers rather than for people wanting a secondary card - so most tend to be the low end of the range. TBH - the cards are very much throttled by the PCI bus as well.

I was hoping that the introduction of PCIE would get us multiple graphics slots - but this sadly doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, I worry that gfx manufacturors will stop making PCI compatible slots altogether. On the plus side, it appears that intregrated graphics are becoming more capable of working as secondary cards