trouble finding a graphics card

[-Vormav-]

Those cards that have both a VGA and DVI slot can do dual monitor displays just fine (If both of your monitors are vga, the cards usually come with an additional dvi->vga converter). The round slot you were speaking of is for s-video output (to use a TV screen, for example).

Dual screens are nice and all, but I hope you're looking to use it for more than just stretching painter across two screens...That may not work too well. For one, unless both of your monitors are perfectly calibrated to match each other, you're going to have coloring issues working on the canvas in different displays. But also, wacoms tend to not play so nice with dual-displays. Fortunately there are plenty of other reasons to have dual screens (keeping all of your toolbars on one screen to keep the other completely freed up for your canvas, for example.)

[chrismoose]

hey Vormav,

thanks for the reply.
are you sure about your first bit - the 'guy' i spoke to said just because there are two slots it doesnt mean i can plug 2 monitors into them (1 vga, 1 dvi) and carry on as dual screen?
he said it was so you had the choice, incase you could connect up a dvi monitor cable (like my dell one sitting in my drawer) or use the standard vga cable because of the port on my computer.

now you see where im confused. i finally found a matrox 550 card and a radeon fire gl that are both pretty cheap #£60. - are they suitable? i dont care if it becomes just 2 vga's. as long as i can get dual screen working.

dont worry about the painter work around bit, its sorted - i know you cant drag the palletes out of the workspace so i will maximise painter across the 2 screens (both the same size), have all the tools etc on 1 screen and have a canvas manually enlarged to the size of one screen, you know just click and drag it so it fills up as much of the available horizontal and vertical painter space (on 1 monitor) as possible. i compared it too double clicking the canvas blue bar at the top and there wasnt any loss of canvas size.
colour probs - i'll take my chances, and deal with any probs later!:)
wacon Intous 2; if it can be left to work only on one monitor then thats what i want, i'll use my trackball mouse to quickly click any commands coz now all the tools will be open, ready to click with my free hand i wont have to have my free hand hovering, memorizing shortcuts!

But its getting a grahpics card in the first place that has caused so much hassle!!

chris.

[chrismoose]

what about this one:

http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-ATI_Hightech_ATI_Radeon_7000_64MB_DDR_Memory_TV_Out_Retail_Box

it has two slots? can it be used for dual screen? if it can then im sure i can find some with more than 64mb ram on it.
chris

[kwshipman]

if a card has two slots, it can run two monitors. How well it will run two is another matter. Remember that that amount of power is now split in two, so you may not get as good of a refresh rate on the vga monitor. (refresh rate isn't an issue on LCD screens if I recall corectly)

I looked at ATI's website and it shows the 7000 as only having a vga port, so it would only use one monitor. This is an example of why you need to be very careful when ordering online. Also, the 7000 is the lowest card being made by ATI at the moment. Is there any reason that you are looking for such a cheap card?

Take a look at this card. (http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-PNY_Verto_geforce_Fx5500_8xAGP_128MB_DDR_TV_Out_Retail_Box)

[imashination]

Any gfx card you buy that has 2 ports on can run 2 screens at once unless its some mega budget £20 abomination. How much are you looking to spend on the card? and what screens will you be connecting to it.

[XanderFX]

The little round port is either svideo or in the case of my Fire GL X1 256 and my Quadro 4 750 it is a stereo 3D port for connecting stereo 3d glasses. Here's a link to the ATI Fire GL Matrix

http://www.ati.com/products/workstation/fireglmatrix.html

I would recommend going with an Nvidia card, in my experience my Quadro at home and the Geforce cards here at work handle Dual screens better than my FireGL X1 256

Couple of the systems at work have these running dual monitors

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=190100&Category_Code=VC-NV

[chrismoose]

kwshipman and imashination. the card you linked has only got one vga slot, so how can it be used for dual monitor use?

i will be using tfts, 17" dells that come with a spare dvi cable. like i said before it is currently in the cupboard because i only have a vga connetion in the back of my 'puter.

seeing as you are familiar with dealtime, where is the info that tells you if you can use the card for dual screen use? is it the Display Interface section?

i'm on a budget, but a bit flexible up to £100 max,if it has a good bit of ram on it aswell.

any more ideas...

And why do you guys say different things to what i had been told already about the amount of slots on the card?

chris.

[imashination]

kwshipman and imashination. the card you linked has only got one vga slot, so how can it be used for dual monitor use?

i will be using tfts, 17" dells that come with a spare dvi cable. like i said before it is currently in the cupboard because i only have a vga connetion in the back of my 'puter.

seeing as you are familiar with dealtime, where is the info that tells you if you can use the card for dual screen use? is it the Display Interface section?

i'm on a budget, but a bit flexible up to £100 max,if it has a good bit of ram on it aswell.

any more ideas...

And why do you guys say different things to what i had been told already about the amount of slots on the card?

chris.

Different to who? the pcworld monkey? Pcworld staff are generally among the thickest examples of human beings you will find. Think of it this way, would you ask a sainsburys or asda employee for suggestions on which beef would be suitable for a pie? Just because they work there doesnt mean they have a clue about anything they're selling. No offence to anyone that works there ;-)

Ideally you are after a card with 2 dvi sockets, take a look at this for example:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=170228

This gives you twin dvi connections for your tft screens and will give you more graphics power than you're ever likely to need. Just a slight word of warning, it will increase the volume of your machine, but then any gfx card will. Its slightly over your budget, but then you'll be very lucky to find any dual dvi card for under a ton.

[alanmac]

That is a good deal shown by Imashinations link. I've only seen 6600's with 128 mb's of ram at that price, not 256 mb, and you could do with that so that each get allocated 128 in a dual monitor set up.

Alan

[chrismoose]

imashination;
"it will increase the volume of your machine"

What do you mean by that? me no understand?

and thanks for the link man!! i'll have to check out that store.:thumbsup:

even though you are going to laugh then lynch(?) me, i did only try to find out from the supposed 'technical helpline' people!! - twice!! when they gave me conflicting info!!

so in recap: even though your link does not state in any words that it can use dual monitors, you're saying it can because of the two slots? regardless of the fact that a card might have any mixture of connection types; u know,1 agp & 1dvi OR 2 of either type?
so could i get this one?:
http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-ATI_Sapphire_Radeon_9250_256MB_DDR_128bit_AGP_ATI_9250_TV_Out_DVI_I_Lite_Retail

enen though it has one of each slot.
can you confirm that im looking at its spec's correctly?
its cheap and quite powerful (compared to a 32mb gpu!)
i know it aint 2 dvi but i have only been using vga so far..?

thanks for your help.
chris

[alanmac]

The increase in volume refers to the fact the card has a fan onboard, as most do these days, to cool the components and as such will be noisy but no more so, in general terms, than other fan cooled cards.

The card you refer to is a lower spec than the one recommended. The Ramdac is slower which is important to consider more than the fact it sayes 256 mb of ram.

I think I'm right in saying a card with a higher Ramdac but only 128 mb of memory ram will be faster than a card with lower Ramdac but say 256 of memory ram.

The card Imashination recommended is twice the price but much better . I know you did say a max £100 but go that lttle extra if you can, as I've not seen a card with that spec at that price.

Alan

[imashination]

Your onboard gfx has no fan , the geforce graphics card will have a fan spinning on the back. Depending how noisey the computer is now, you may or may not notice it.

As I said, any card will support dual screens. In this case it has 2 identical DVI sockets; what would be the use of 2 identical ports if it didnt run dual screens? ;-)

The card you have listed only has a single analogue connection and a video connector for a standard TV set. you will not be able to connect this to 2 digital lcd screens. You cannot get a decent graphics card for £26, so stop trying.

Technically you need a graphics card with at least 64megs and which has 2 monitor connections. Monitor connections will be listed as

15 pin / Dsub
and
DVI

Connections named s-video will be useless.

Ideally you want one with dual dvi connections for your lcd screens (assuming they have dvi connectors) but most cards will have one dvi and one 15 pin connection. This will be perfectly adequate. I myself have a graphics card with one of each and the difference between the digital connection and the older analogue connection isnt all that great.

For example any of these cards will be fine for you:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.asp?CatID=15&Category=Graphics+Cards&ThumbNails=Yes&FilterCategories=373&FilterMinPrice=&FilterMaxPrice=&FilterKeywords=

[chrismoose]

alanmac; thanks for the info.

imashination:

The card you have listed only has a single analogue connection and a video connector for a standard TV set. you will not be able to connect this to 2 digital lcd screens. You cannot get a decent graphics card for £26, so stop trying.

Technically you need a graphics card with at least 64megs and which has 2 monitor connections. Monitor connections will be listed as

15 pin / Dsub
and
DVI


but on dealtime it says this in the info bit:

Input / OutputDisplay Interface VGA - 15 pin D-Sub x 1 • DVI x 1
Output Interface S-Video • TV Out


am i supposed to be looking at the display interface details? doesnt this say it has 1 vga and 1 dvi slot?

like you said, most cards will have one dvi and one 15 pin connection. so when i went into Maplin electronics shop last weekend 4 more info, you would assume that they had these kind of cards, similar to one of your choices:128Mb XFX AGP GeForce 6200A TV/DVI?

but they also said i need a dual headed card and that they did not stock any!! also pcworlds web site shows cards with 3 similar slots. check this one out:http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0861247682.1114771318@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdgaddehkjflkdcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=050691&category_oid=-9928&fm=2&sm=8&tm=undefined
look at the enlarged picture option. is it suitable?

and pcworld has the stupidity to tell me that they dont have any dual monitor cards!!GRRR! Now you know why the headless chicken is out and about!!

i like this one from scan.co.uk;
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfoZoom.asp?WebProductID=200313

guess why?muulaaa!

as a p.s (b4 i sign off) i have to say that this has been one of the only times that i have had a decent, indepth but relevant answer to my badly worded questions. So i'd just like to thank all you guys who have and are continuing to help.
regards
chris.

P.p.s. Maplins tried to sell me a splitter box as an answer to my question!! even i knew that it wouldnt do what i wanted!:rolleyes:

[chrismoose]

i was just about to say that i had just looked on pc worlds site again and noticed it said this:

DVI & TV-out
it was part of this card:http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0861247682.1114771318@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdgaddehkjflkdcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=338197&category_oid=-9928&fm=2&sm=8&tm=undefined
its picture looks like it could have three slots, so you can see where ive been going wrong..

when i found another card:http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0861247682.1114771318@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdgaddehkjflkdcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=135699&category_oid=-9928&fm=2&sm=8&tm=undefined
and it states :

I/O Interface : DVI-I + TV-Out + VGA
is this right?or not?

cheers
chris.

[alanmac]

Chris

Stop calling them slots, they are connections. I'm not being grumpy its just if you say slots you may confuse people, and it sounds like the people you spoke to are confused enough already ;~)

Slots are usually refered to as what the card sits in such as agp or pci slot on your motherboard.

If you've only got £50 to spend say so, but you did say up to £100.

You'll get what you pay for and in my opinion what you have shown is not worth the money in the context of improving your system significantly over what you have now, compared to what has been recommended.

I have the ATI 9600 in my machine and its fine, but its an average card, no great shakes.

But you just choose what you want, the ones you listed in your last email are dual monitor capable to do the dual monitor you are thinking of.

Alan

[imashination]

Im not sure about the dealtime card. The link you gave was broken and the only card by the same name had a single 15-pin connection and an svideo connection

Forget maplins, they know squat about pcs, they are staffed by spotty teenagers who want to sell you sub woofers and speaker cable for £100 per metre. Theyre good for audio and electronics but thats about it.

That card you listed on scan should be fine for what you want to do.

[kwshipman]

am i supposed to be looking at the display interface details? doesnt this say it has 1 vga and 1 dvi slot?

like you said, most cards will have one dvi and one 15 pin connection. so when i went into Maplin electronics shop last weekend 4 more info, you would assume that they had these kind of cards, similar to one of your choices:128Mb XFX AGP GeForce 6200A TV/DVI?
if you get a card with 1 VGA and 1 DVI, you can still do dual monitors just fine. I've been doing it for a while. The card will usually come with an adapter that will let you plug a VGA monitor into the DVI connector. If you need it the other way around, I'm sure you cna find one of those.

Ignore the svideo/TV-out connector unless you do a lot of video editing.



P.p.s. Maplins tried to sell me a splitter box as an answer to my question!! even i knew that it wouldnt do what i wanted!:rolleyes:

hahahahaha! well, it would give you two monitors, they would be displaying the exact same thing, but you would have two monitors running. (thats worse than the guy at Best Buy that tried to get me to spen an extra $100 for a network print server to add to my home network so I could use my printer from both computers)

[chrismoose]

LOOK. their slots RIGHT!?!

..and when i go to Vegas, I'll be playing the connection machines!:scream:

Seriously, thanks for all of it.
my last questiion is about ; how good is the scan.co.uk site/company. i've never heard of them?
are they reliable etc..
it looks like that 128Mb XFX AGP GeForce 6200A TV/DVI card is the one for me or maybe the 256mb one.
i like the idea of a heat sink instead of a fan (for now, untill i change my mind.)
coz it should be quieter. and as long as the ambient temperature inside the case does'nt rise and activate the main fan(?), i'll be happy.

now to look seriously at the scan web site.
thanks guys.
chris.

[chrismoose]

kwshipman (http://www.cgtalk.com/member.php?u=5939)
if you get a card with 1 VGA and 1 DVI, you can still do dual monitors just fine. I've been doing it for a while. The card will usually come with an adapter that will let you plug a VGA monitor into the DVI connector. If you need it the other way around, I'm sure you cna find one of those


yep.okay.
i'm really thinking now of going back into maplins this weekend to annoy them and ask to see if they have any graphics cards that come with 1 VGA and 1 DVI (probably the most common in a shop).!!

it is annoying though that there are no professional shops around me or that any of the shops that stock computing products dont stock enough.
I suppose they are all like john lewis and catering for the 'rich' folk. There was one time i went in and spent ages pricing, comparing differerent things and likewise in other shops! and whilst there, we noticed an older couple talking to the sales monkey 4 about 2 minutes, and they ended up buying a whole system just like that - snap of the fingers!! i could tell they were buying it for there kid - probably a student!!:) . i found it incredulous that they spent soo little time researching anything - and after they went happily on their way i noticed they could have gotten another one, better at just about the same price!!:shrug:

chris.

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