Dual Monitor setup, trying to add a TV to it

dvdfan

I have a dual monitor setup, it has 2 dvi's and an Svideo connection, i hooked up my projector to the Svideo and it works great (well its only 1024 x 768) except for it can only display 2 of the 3 at any one time.

I had an old graphics card around somewhere but i cant find it, i was just going to pickup a cheap graphics card and pop it in the PC and use that to hook the Svideo/Projector up to. Before i waste my money is there any reason this wouldnt work.

My goal is to be able to work on my 2 screens and use the projector as a 3rd screen, will i still be able to move windows from any of the 3 monitors to the other monitors or will the 3rd monitor be limited to just being a duplicate of one of the other two?

lmimmfn

dvdfan wrote: »

I have a dual monitor setup, it has 2 dvi's and an Svideo connection, i hooked up my projector to the Svideo and it works great (well its only 1024 x 768) except for it can only display 2 of the 3 at any one time.

I had an old graphics card around somewhere but i cant find it, i was just going to pickup a cheap graphics card and pop it in the PC and use that to hook the Svideo/Projector up to. Before i waste my money is there any reason this wouldnt work.

My goal is to be able to work on my 2 screens and use the projector as a 3rd screen, will i still be able to move windows from any of the 3 monitors to the other monitors or will the 3rd monitor be limited to just being a duplicate of one of the other two?

Yes the reason is its limited by bandwidth( video bandwidth ) and the requirements of most users( i.e. 1 screen ) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface#Specifications
Most cards support a dual link setup( 2 DVI connectors connected to 1 monitor with a resolution higher than 1920x1080 ) or 2 seperate single link screens e,g, 2 screens with a resolution of 1980x1080.
The cards dont have the extra chips required for 3 seperate screens. So you need 2 cards or an eyefinity setup( whereby one of the screens must be a display port or an adapter has to be used ) or e.g. Sapphires special 5770 eyefinity card which supports 4 displays( 1 on Display port the others standard DVI connectors ).

dvdfan

Ok thanks for my info, my main concern is now with my dual monitor setup i can drag any window between the 2 monitors, if i add in another graphics card will the 3rd monitor be the same, can i move windows across all 3 monitors?

Never having any experience with using 2 graphics cards the doubt i had was that maybe the 2 different cards cant communicate with eachother to pass the windows from monitor A on Graphics Card 1 to Monitor C on Graphics card 2. I dont know if it would help or not but i have Ultramon which helps with multimonitor setups.

lmimmfn

dvdfan wrote: »

Ok thanks for my info, my main concern is now with my dual monitor setup i can drag any window between the 2 monitors, if i add in another graphics card will the 3rd monitor be the same, can i move windows across all 3 monitors?

yes, its treated like the 1 big screen, so the 3rd screen will just be an extended desktop

dvdfan wrote: »

Never having any experience with using 2 graphics cards the doubt i had was that maybe the 2 different cards cant communicate with eachother to pass the windows from monitor A on Graphics Card 1 to Monitor C on Graphics card 2. I dont know if it would help or not but i have Ultramon which helps with multimonitor setups.

no, it should be fine, i have a 3 screen setup and was using an ati and nvidia card together in both Vista and Windows 7.

As far as i remember Ultramon will just add the task bar to the other 2 screens which i guess is good, it didnt bother me not having it on the extra screens tbh but im using eyefinity now so the 3 screens are just like 1 screen( i.e. taskbar is stretched across all 3 screens )