kainoa Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 Please forgive me for the redundancy of this topic, but Im torn between the two choices below and Im seeking any advise, suggestions, or opinions. Will be used primarily for work (CAD/3D) with an occansional round or two of CS. TIA. Dual 17" LCDs (SAMSUNG 170N - 2560x1024 - $800) or Single 20" LCD (Dell 2001FP - 1600x1200 - $900) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 2 monitors all the way. Once you use them, you will wonder how you ever worked with a single monitor. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graphix Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 What Chad said. graphix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bussell Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 Dual 17s - MUCH better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 Monitors are like significant others... The more the merrier!!! I went to duals in '99 and will never go back. For Max, I have actually been considering 3 monitors. Are soooo mmmmaaannnnnyyy floating dialogue boxes really required??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johncassel Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 Kainoa, Definatly go with the dual monitors. I just picked up a pair of Princeton 19" LCDs from Costco for about $1150 for both to replace my two Nokia 21" CRTs. The monitors seem pretty good. I went to a dual monitor setup a few years ago and I'm never going back. In the next year I hope to add a third LCD. BTW I have three 21" CRTs that I'm looking to part with. I understand that we are both UH alumni. I miss the Art Department more than the School of Architecture. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 Always wondered about this too, never tried it though. What do I need to hook 2 crt's or lcd's to a pc? Is it as simple as getting 2 PCI or AGP video cards and XP detects it? Can I mix and match a PCI and AGP card with no problems? I got two CRT's and a few videocards that I can test now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 Generally you would need an agp card and a pci card. Either that or two pci cards, or a single agp card with two outputs. XP should be able to detect that you have two cards and two monitors. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bussell Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 I'd really recommend 1-AGP card with 2 outputs. Seems less issues arise when doing this versus 1-AGP and 1-PCI. I work with a very inexpensive Quadro with one DVI & one VGA - downloaded the new drivers from NVidia yesterday - my AutoCAD toolbars finally stay where I put them - so I've got maximized work space on the left and all my toolbars on the right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 That is awesome, can't wait to try. I think I'll have time tomorrow night to test this and report how it goes. I think I have 2 AGP and 1 PCI card to play with. If it doesn't work, then I'll get a dual AGP card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Knourek Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I would have to agree with Allen, If you dont already you can get a dual head Nvidia card for a fairly deasent price. most agp cards released in the last year and a half already have dual head and if you are running 2 CRT monitors then all you need is a cheep DVI-Analog converter and again theres lots of newer cards that come with those also. Thanks to Greg H Im running dual Samsung 191T's and love them I have a hard time functioning on a single system now since Ive been using 2 to 3 monitors per workstation since about 98' or 99' -dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Hi, I must be the only one who does NOT want the dual monitors, but that must be because I do far more photoshop-work than modelling... For photoshop I prefer High Resolution... 'Extreme' some say... That's why I wonder how you come up with a Single 20" LCD (Dell 2001FP - 1600x1200 - $900)... For about the same price (I guess) you can have a superb, color calibrated CRT with a 2048x1440 resolution: http://www.mpl.be/productinfo/LAC-IVBLUE.pdf just my thoughts... rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bussell Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I too do a lot of photoshop work - what I love about 2 monitors is the tool bars are out of the way of my workspace. But 2K resolution is pretty awesome and hard to argue with... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Tool bars??? TAB and shortcuts do wonderful things! And if you need them... at 2K, the layers palette is about 2 cm wide on a 22inch monitor... ,-) (But don't read small text!) rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 Well, I checked my videocards and all of them are AGP! So I can't set it up at all. What do you guys recommend for a decent videocard with dual CRT capabilities? It's for an older PC, so I'm not going to do any heavy gaming or rendering. Mostly to test this out and maybe for modeling in AutoCAD. Right now I have a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 100/200 32mb AGP card. Is it cheaper just to find a PCI card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 Depends...do you want a performance upgrade as well? http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-179&depa=1 A geforce 5700 FX goes for around 133 (about twice as much as 5200 FX) and isn't too bad of a budget solution. A geforce 5200 FX will suffice, but just make sure its got DVI-I and HD15 if you want dualhead support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Thanks Greg, I'll look into my local shop for one of those cards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isagreg Posted June 4, 2004 Share Posted June 4, 2004 To Allen Bussell: RE: "I work with a very inexpensive Quadro with one DVI & one VGA - downloaded the new drivers from NVidia yesterday - my AutoCAD toolbars finally stay where I put them - so I've got maximized work space on the left and all my toolbars on the right." I have exact same problem. What driver do you use? Also what version of AutoCAD? I have Quadro FX 1100 with 2 monitors, and AutoCAD 2002 always returns the toolbars from the second ("right side") monitor to the first one. AutoCAD 2004 works fine though. Also is PowerDraft driver for AutoCAD 2004/2005 out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 I'm curious too, which version of AutoCAD do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bussell Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 I'm working with AutoCAD 2000. Here's the deal - I just reformatted my drive - and when reinstalling all of my drivers, installed the latest nvidia's - that's all I changed - but wow - sure is nice having all of those dialog boxes come up at the right place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpico Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 That is cool, I use AutoCAD 2000 ADT2, so this should work too for me. Just need another video card first! Three cards and all AGP! I'm waiting to get paid first from a client and thinking of upgrading my whole system instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johncassel Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 Ive been using 2 to 3 monitors per workstation since about 98' or 99' -daveI have a new Dell Dimension (P4 3.2mhz, 2 gb ram) with a 256MB DDR ATI Radeon 9800 XT Graphics Card. I'm running two 19" Princeton LCD monitors. What do I need to run a third monitor? Will I be able to keep the Windows Taskbar and Startmenu on the middle monitor? Will the third monitor tax my system's power or speed? Thanks, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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