[p_mii_nawy]

ok, i know this is kind of basic but i want some info from other people. i have a spare monitor and want to use it. my main vid card is a radeon 9550 256mb apg. the card has an extra plug for an lcd screen but i dont have one. so i want to use my old nvida card (pci) ; will it cause problems with the other card? i dont want to plug it into the onboard plug because that takes away ram.

thanks to all
happy Thanksgiving to every on the boards today.
PMN

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Hi there

In theory, you should be able to get an agp video card to work alongside a PCI video card without too much problem. Just make sure that after installing the PCI card, that the two video cards are not sharing the same IRQ etc. If they are, you will have to move the PCI video to a different slot.

The link below contains a pretty good guide to setting up dual monitors in this way :
http://freepctech.co..._monitors.shtml

[Samm]

Hi there

In theory, you should be able to get an agp video card to work alongside a PCI video card without too much problem. Just make sure that after installing the PCI card, that the two video cards are not sharing the same IRQ etc. If they are, you will have to move the PCI video to a different slot.

The link below contains a pretty good guide to setting up dual monitors in this way :
http://freepctech.co..._monitors.shtml

[p_mii_nawy]

thanks for the guide. now i have a wee problem. the pci card that i am usin is a geforce mx 4000 64 mb. thr thing is that on its option panel i can only get a settin of 4 colors and a size of 800x600. i used to run it at 32 and a size of 1024x768. i have the latest drivers from nvidia. any ideas to how i can get the most out of the card?

[Samm]

What do mean '4 colors'?

[p_mii_nawy]

it looks very bad here is a pic of how it looks

[Samm]

Hmmm, I see what you mean.
Have you checked the resources assigned to both cards to see if they are sharing the same ones at all?

[p_mii_nawy]

i checked it out and the cards do not have same resources. the location of the agp card comes up PCI bus.
the nvidia card has an extra memory range
the first pic is the one that shows my agp card as pci bus
http://img347.images...esource11nz.jpg

the 2nd and 3rd pic show the mem range and other resources

2nd. http://img347.images...source021yi.jpg

3rd. http://img410.images...source032um.jpg

one more thing, when i used thr nvidia card by it self i could asccess the panel to chage setting for games. now i cant. is there a way where i can acess both the nvidia and ati panel?

thanks
PMN

[Samm]

The PCI bus thing is normal. You will notice that the AGP card is specified as PCI Bus 1, device 0. Whereas, the PCI card is on PCI bus 0.
Essentially, PCI bus 1 is the AGP bus.

To be honest with you, I'm not really sure what you should do next. I've only ever set up dual video cards a couple of times before & have never had much problem with them.

I'll ask a couple of the other staff members on here to see if they can help you further.

[p_mii_nawy]

thanks for your time and help Samm. in the mean time i'll keep lookin on google for some info.
thanks

[dsenette]

hello...you say your radeon has a plug for an lcd monitor?....could you describe this plug to me?

[dsenette]

http://www.ati.com/p...50/gallery.html

i think i found a picture of y our card here...

if i'm correct please let me know..

the machine or card (if you bought the card seperately) should have come with a converter for that white port on the back of the card..the converter would convert that port to a db15 connection..i have a couple here at work...let me see if i can get the numbers off of them and let you know what you need to have dual monitors on the one card (always easier than having two cards)

[dsenette]

ok..i found what i was talking about..you need a dvi to vga converter..

if you google dvi to vga you'll get a whole ton of stuff..here's one site
http://sewelldirect....CFSCCLAodcmjOmQ

using this would allow you to simply hook two vga monitors to the one card...after which you can have your desktop continue over to the otoher monitor...or you can have it mirror your monitor...or whatever you want to do..

[p_mii_nawy]

yup its that card. i bought the card from some one so it did not have the converter. i got the driver cd and thats all. one more thing i was thinking of buying need for speed, will having two monitors hooked up to the card give me less FPS?

ok just to make sure, i need this

http://cgi.ebay.com/...item=5802257410

i'll pick one up this weekend. thanks for the help

Edited by p_mii_nawy, 29 November 2005 - 10:55 AM.

[dsenette]

it depends on how you set it up.....if you have it mirroring the desktop (same image on both monitors) then yes...if you are just expanding the desktop to the other monitor...then no

[p_mii_nawy]

i just wanted to extend my desk top over. so no drop in frames is good. everytime i reset my pc i can see other settings for the nvidia card. when i try to change the setting i get on error mesage saying i do not have the needed admin right. is there any way around this? i am the only user/admin on this pc. is there something in the regitry that i can change?
thanks for the help
PMN