3 or more monitors?

[sammorris]

Yes, but it's cheaper from scan:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DVI-I-S-Video

[nightkhaos]

Well I think I'll go for a second nVidia card as that is nice and straight forward however, I've never purchased a PCI card before - always AGP8x or PCIe - so would something like this be suitable, bearing in mind of course this card will not be for my main gaming or media watching useage:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PNY-NVIDIA-GeF...d=p3286.c0.m14

Yep. That will be perfectly acceptable. Just check with the reseller that it IS PCI and not PCIe... it is eBay afterall.

[scaryjim]

That'd do the job, but I recommend buying it from a reliable etailer for less moneys

EDIT: I also recommend that I learn to post quicker

[nightkhaos]

On another note, if you have a laptop or another PC you wouldn't mind running and would like to keep the systems independent, you could use Synergy like I do.

Here is my current setup... still working out the bugs with things like keyboard shortcuts, but for the most part it works quite well.

It is, from left to right 22" at 1440x900, 24" at 1720x1200 and 15.4" at 1440x900.

[mcfstep]

How about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GEFORCE-84...d=p3286.c0.m14

Whoops, just realised that's PCI express... lets see what else I can find!

[nightkhaos]

How about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GEFORCE-84...d=p3286.c0.m14

Interface: PCI Express

Nope. Not a PCI graphics card... see what I mean about checking around particulary when using eBay? You'll be better off going with Scan, that way you can be assured of what you are getting, and yell at them on these forums if you don't get what your ordered!

Oh and did I mention the free shipping if you make over 20 posts?

[mcfstep]

Free shipping you say? Sold! I think I'll go with that one :-) How do I get the free shipping?

[nightkhaos]

Free shipping you say? Sold! I think I'll go with that one :-) How do I get the free shipping?

The guide will tell you what you need to know.

[mcfstep]

Lovely, all done! Thanks to everyone I believe that has well and truely answered all of my questions... Although now I'm looking at new monitors to go with the setup despite not really being able to afford to buy new ones!!

[Kata]

That Synergy thing looks rather sexy...will it work on 2 Vista Machines?

[nightkhaos]

That Synergy thing looks rather sexy...will it work on 2 Vista Machines?

Most certeinly. It support, in order of comptability, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and Mac OS X. And even the Mac OS X version is usable enough.

[Kata]

I sense a 4 screen beast coming on...

[mcfstep]

4 monitor beast is the plan! Although, I have now installed the card and had three screens running at once but I've noticed a lag in display on all screens. For example video is very jumpy and when opening new windows or browsers etc they take longer to open and the opening animation if you will seems jerky. Any ideas as to why? If I disable any screens on the pci card it goes back to normal so I'm starting to think my motherboard can't handle that much desktop space?

[TheAnimus]

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

[nightkhaos]

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

Great man... great... completely ignore the entirety of the post, including the bit that said he has no free PCIe x16 slots... I gotta love your style there.

On a more serious note.... mcfstep, sounds like you will need to replace to motherboard with one with two PCIe x16 slots (don't worry if they're only 8x enabled, 8x at 2.0 is still plenty fast for graphics. )

What is your processor and motherboard chipset, etc... and do you have anything nasty like a RAID setup, and finally, are you willing to spend a week setting up a fresh install of Windows?

[sammorris]

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

Because it takes so much graphics power to render the desktop... o_o
Honestly...