On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:23:54 GMT, "John Weidenfeller" <>
wrote:
>Sorry for cross posting but I don't know where to start with this
>question...
>
>Can someone please point me in a direction as far as connecting multiple
>monitors to a single PC.
>
>I'm assuming I will need a pretty powerful PC, but I have accumulated quite
>a few monitors...
>
>2 PC
>1 Apple
>And
>2 Apple PowerBooks 2300c (which I'd like to get the LCD out of an utilize as
>well)
>
>I would also like to play different images some moving video, some still
>shots and some fractal artwork done to music... hopefully I can play
>different images on different monitors at the same time as well.... so any
>s/w and PC recomendations would be great as well.
>
>If I can get this to work I will try to add more cheap monitors as I find
>them... not sure what the limit/bottleneck would be.
>
>Thanks and sorry if this is a dumb question or wrong place to post... this
>is the first place I asked.
>
>John
>
>
Assuming your PC is running Windows, on Microsoft's website you can
search for multiple display adapters supported by the OS you're using.
That list will give you an idea of which video cards will work, though
IIRC the list isn't all-inclusive. Basically you just use single
video cards with multple monitor support (more than 2 monitor support
is very expensive) or compatible separate video cards. You do not
need a powerful PC at all, on the contrary, any PC that's using an AGP
and/or PCI bus will do fine. Rather the speed of the PC is dictated
by how demanding these tasks are thatyou'll be running, though using
multiple PCI video cards at higher refresh rate and resolution may
consume a lot of the PCI bus bandwidth, enough to interfere with
optimal function of some (especially RAID or sound) other PCI cards.
Ideally you'd want an AGP card that can drive two monitors and a PCI
for a third, or if you really need 4, a PCI card with dual outputs
also.
If the secondary monitors aren't doing something demanding (like
modern 3D games, I don't know about your "fractal" or other special
graphic display) ) then you might as well use the slower, basic
versions of cards, which will use less power and create less heat.
One example of such a card is an ATI Rage Pro or Rage XL, though they
probably don't have very crisp output at very high resolutions, but
I'm guessing you won't have all monitors at high resolutions.
You will not be able to remove the LCDs from laptops and use them as
displays, they use a proprietary output driver (hardware driver, not
software driver) ) module that is non-duplicatable.
Dave
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