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Dual LCD graphics card ?

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mrgadget

Member
Dual LCD graphics card ?

Can anyone recommend a graphics card that will drive a second monitor at full speed? I have tried a 3D Labs Wildcat vp880 and an ATI Radeon 9600XT. The 3d Labs card was great except it didn't support Direct X past ver 8. I replaced it with the best card they had in stock at the local CompUSA, the 9600XT, but Alibre is all but non-functional on the secondary screen. The recommended card list is not available online anymore as far as I know. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with a similar configuration that is enjoying good performance. I hear that the third time is a charm but...

Pentium 4 3.0Ghz 1M Cache
2 Gigs Crucial PC3200 Ram
ASUS PC4-800c motherboard
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128m
2- Viewsonic VX900 LCDs @ 1280x1024
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


1. Start buying your computer hardware somewhere OTHER than CompUSA. Ugh. Not only do I not like Best Buy, CompUSA, et al. for computer related purchases, but, you also are virtually guaranteed to be paying too much for a video card there. Check out newegg.com. The premier on-line vendor for computer related hardware. Both in volume and customer service (in my opinion). There are certainly other sites that have as good or maybe even better ratings, but the to be of such great size and still have superb overall customer satisfaction ratings (and a statitically siginifcant cross-section as well) bodes well.

But, enough e-commerce advice.
What you need to make sure of, first of all, is that the purchased card has dual DVI outputs since I am assuming you are using those to connect to your LCD screen. If you are currently using an analog out to your second monitor, that could be the source of your unusableness.

On-board memory. While 128MB covers 99% of usage for most computer users, CAD apps can benefit from more as the card has to page the regular memory less frequently that way. With dual monitor systems, the memory needed doubles. So make sure your card is spec'd with an adequate ammount of memory, I'd say at least 256MB.

That's my $.02 from a techincal standpoint. As I don't use a dual monitor set-up myself, that's about as far as my advice goes! Cheers!

Jim
 
M

mrgadget

Member


Thanks for the reply Jim.

Funny you should mention Newegg... I bought all of my components from them to build this machine including the higher end 3D Labs Wilcat card. The wildcat was basically Open GL only. My quest for instant gratification (and paycheck) led me to the local Comp USA. To avoid more downtime I purchased what was left on the shelf. It does work OK and I know they sell better models, just didn't have any in stock. This card was supposed to be just a temporary fix. It does have 1 DVI and 1 D-Sub output by the way.
I was about to purchase an ATI FireGL X3 -256 but I just read a comment by another user on this forum suggesting that his FireGL did not perform very well with Alibre.

I seek empirical data :)
 
M

mrgadget

Member


I just got a response from ATI regarding this issue:

"40% drop is expected on all cards when 3D rendering is being done on secondary monitor. Only FireGL 8800 and FireGL4 will not have any problem."

I think both of those cards are discontinued items.
 
F

fiddler

Member


Hi
I use a Matrox Parhelia vid card and it performs great on 2 x 22 inch Phillips CRT monitors. However it was not on the recommended list on the old AD site.
Actually the card supports 3 monitors ( 2 have to be indentical as they run in parralel).
Great for running a spreadsheet on second monitor instad of flipping screens.
I beleive that the Matrox has 128MB ram.
Never had any issues apart from some games.

Cheers
Kim
 
J

jemmej

Senior Member


40% drop is to be expected, really. You are talking about halving your processing power for each monitor (roughly). I would try hooking up one LCD through the d-sub and see if you still get problems. If you do, then its a connector issue. If you don't then it's most likely a driver or hardware limitation. Have you tried dropping the color depth on both monitors?

Jim
 
M

mrgadget

Member


Hi Kim,

Does your Parhelia support direct x 9? I looked on their website and it looks like that card suffers from the same problem as my 3D Labs card..."Supports up to directx 8.1" What version of directx are you running? You can check by typing dxdiag in your run window. (You probably already knew that) Does anyone know if Alibre 8 is fully functional if I roll back directx to 8.1?

Jim,

The performance improves greatly if I set the color depth at 16bit but on these LCD monitors, everything looks slighlty pixelated.

Anyone using a 3d Labs Realizm 100?
 
M

mrgadget

Member
Update...

I ended up purchasing a 3dLabs Realism 100 Graphics card ($600)hoping that it would solve my problems. Not only did it not solve my problems but was so slow with Alibre that it was basically non-functional. (It was fantastic with all of my openGL programs however and their customer service is outstanding.) Alibre customer service suggested that consumer level cards worked better with Alibre due to their design being geared towards the DirectX API, and suggested I go with an Nvidia 6600gt or better. I ended up with an Nvidia 6800 Ultra ($500) that has 1 ramdac for each screen. This card did the trick. Both monitors display at blazing speed with Alibre and the OpenGL performance seems acceptable. (OpenGL 1.5 and below only) So what have I learned through trial and error?

3dLabs Wildcat VP880 Pro - Doesn't work if DirectX is above 8.1 but worked great before the upgrade. Super OpenGL card. I will be glad to sell 1 lightly used if anyone needs it :)

ATI 9600XT- Works and looks great on a single monitor; Second monitor very slow.

3DLabs Realism 100 - Great card for Solidworks and Algor, sucks for Alibre Design.

Nvidia 6800 Ultra- Great card for Alibre Design running on dual displays, acceptable OpenGL performance.

Maybe we should start our own recommended hardware list that stays pinned to the top of this board so other won't have to go through $1900 worth of video cards to find the right card. Alibre used to have a list but it is missing from the new website.
 
F

fiddler

Member


Hi Jim

I like the idea of a recommended HW list.

BTW I run Directx 9 and the latest hardware driver for the Matrox Parhelia and there are no problems (yet).

Kim
 
P

peterepeat

Member
Re:

Hi,
I have just recently changed to dual LCD. I have had mixed experiences, Radeon 9550 128MB gives acceptable performance on screen 1, but jerky movement of 3D solids on screen 2. However, it does allow both screens to be updated at 75Hz.
I also tested a FX5500 256MB, and it had better (but still degraded) performance on screen 2, but it would only allow 60Hz refresh on screen2, but 75Hz on screen1.
Anyhow, I reckon next time I will save the angst and shell out for the 6800 GT or somethign similar
Regards,
Peter
 
G

garethconner

Member


mrgadget:

My current card (GeForce fx5500) works OK in assembly views, but has difficulties in drawing windows. Specifically, if a drawing view has "Show Hidden Lines" checked, all of the dimension text disappears (or sometimes shows up on another part of the screen). Did you try using the ATI 9600XT card in a drawing window by any chance? I'm curious because I wouldn't mind buying another relatively cheap card like the 9600XT, but would hate to find out that it has the same issues.

Thanks
 
M

mrgadget

Member


Hi Gareth,

I do not recall any problems with the 9600XT while working in drawing mode. I rarely use the show hidden line command however, so I'm afraid I can't give you a glowing recommendation that the 9600 will work properly in that aspect.
I just did a test with my home desktop (GeForce 5200) and did not have the problems you mentioned.
 
E

esingleton

Senior Member
Re:

jemmej said:
But, enough e-commerce advice.
What you need to make sure ... that the purchased card has dual DVI outputs ... If you are currently using an analog out to your second monitor, that could be the source of your unusableness.

Jim
Click to expand...

What would be the problem with using 1 DVI and 1 Analog? The reason I am asking I have just hooked up a second LCD to my ATI 9800 Pro. Up until I did this everything was running at blazing speed even with 400+ part assemblies. With the 9800 Pro the only way to hook up two monitors is one DVI and one Analog.

I was thinking of adding a second video card to drive monitor #2.
 
M

macinc

Member


I use an XFX nVidia 6600GT. It has 2x digital outputs, but I use analog out to display #2, an older Hitachi CRT. Display #2 is just as quick as display #1, no lag at all. $125 at Newegg.
 
R

rbrian

Senior Member
Dual Analog - to two 17" Tubes

Hi - Since this thread is still going - I wall add - I recently added (Switched actually from two PCI Video cards, an older 32MB nVidia, and a newer ATI 128MB 9200) to an nVidia GeForce FX5700LE with 256MB<I think they are no longer available - I got nearly the last one - so it's not the latest stuff, but it was sub $150>. It has one D-Sub that feeds my first 17" Nokia 447Pro, and one DVI - which I use with a D-Sub converter plug to feed my second 17" Nokia 447Pro. Having Matched monitors is good - one set of software to deal with.

Both monitors are set at the moment at 32 Bit color. I have not done enough to say if it has Issues with Alibre - but - it did cause issues with my Matrox Video Capture Card (RT2500) that cost me a bundle a while back. Still have to work that out!

As to Alibre - looks decent on both monitors, I am running an Intel P4 - 3 GHz LGA775 CPU <1 MB L2 Cache> on an ABit AS8 Mobo, with 1GB OCZ Value PC3200 Dual DDR, single 160GB SATA Maxtor, USB external LG DVDRW, WinXP Pro. Not a real Speed Demon, but seems to do the job without a lot of delays!

Robert
 
E

esingleton

Senior Member


I ended up dumping the ATI 9800 Pro, was a great card for a single monitor, and installed an ATI X 850 PRO and everything is running smoothly again.
 
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