Using two flat screen monitors on one PC

[ViolentCheese]

Where I work, there are a few people that have two flat screen monitors attached to one PC. This effectively gives them a widescreen presentation. They can move the mouse cursor from one screen to another and have multiple applications open. How do I set up my home PC to do this?

[Gonzo]

There are people that have that set up where I am working at the moment too (a fund manager). I just think that they do that to make themselves look more important than they really are - I have not been able to work out a reason why I would need the same.

[VectraMan]

I've been doing it for years (mostly two CRTs of course). You used to have two graphics cards, i.e. one AGP and one PCI, though it can be a bit difficult to find an old style PCI card that will work as a second card (ATI ones used to be the best).

These days though there are pleanty of graphics cards that have two outputs. My ATI Radeon AGP card does. Unfortunately it's knackered, and I've had to put an old card in and so my home PC is down to 1 monitor only.

Reason why: not sure how much it's worth it for "normal" users, but for a developer being able to run the application you're developing on one screen whilst being able to run the debugger on the other makes a huge difference.

[mcquiggd]

Most modern graphics cards have the outputs to support two monitors - only budget models leave out such a feature... and in combination with two widescreen 19" TFT monitors (which can cost as little as £120 each), they are really useful.

[chubba]

Two screens?

Only two - are you peasant permies?

I have three

Just as described above before dual head cards were widely available, get a good dual head AGP card and then a PCI one too. I got two ATI ones and they use the same drivers so peice of cake to set up. I could have four monitors using this set up but have run out of desk space!

One pain in the ass with any multiple monitor set up is that the task bar is only usually on one screen and this still leads to all the open apps having the slot in the task bar on the one monitor so you still end up searching for what progs are open. There is a lush little prog Ultramon that gives a separate task bar for each monitor you have plus allows you to save display set ups for different scenarios and have different wallpapers for each screen etc. At $40 a bit of a bargain.

Also helps with productivity, no more alt-tabbing or searching for the app you want to look at. I have email client in one screen, dev tools in the middle monitor and browsers in the third so easy to make changes to code, check changes in browser and keep an eye on incoming mail all at the same time.

Out of hours I play games or watch vids on one monitor, read news or mess about on the web on another and still keep an eye on mail in the third. Hate single screen set ups now.

Once you have a multi-monitor set up you will never go back.

I am Bill Gates and I claim my crisp, shiny fiver.

[mcquiggd]

Still using AGP... I think you really do need that fiver

[VectraMan]

Still using AGP... I think you really do need that fiver

It's all PCI now again.

I went to an Intel developer conference where they told us how great AGP was because it meant graphics cards no longer needed on board memory as they could use the system memory at full speed, and this was the future of graphics.

[chubba]

Still using AGP... I think you really do need that fiver

Caught me out - bah. PCI Express looks OK but not had a go yet - next upgrade maybe...

[wc2]

Only two - are you peasant permies?

I have three

I use 4 70" LCD's

Threaded

[TheMonkey]

Who needs anything other than the 30" Apple studio display I'm parked in front of. It's so big, you only need one!