A third monitor?!

[DemonWithin]

Ok this isnt a keyclone thing but more of just "will this work" type of question.

I currently run 3 wows over 2 montors, 1 being plugged into the motherboard and the other into my awesmeo graphics card
I would like to add a third, and ive been told two ways and im not sure if either will work,

The first was to buy an adaptor that would plug into the graphics card and gives two 'outbound' images, or in otherwords split into two ends for two monitors, what im wondering is will it send the same pictures to both monitors so its as if i had two monitors plugged in showing the same thing? <-- obviously not what im after

The second was to put a cheap ass stingy graphics card with monitor output so that would/should give me a working 3rd monitor output, HOWEVER atm i use 8800GT so doesnt that only work with other 8800GT''s? im no graphics card expert as you can probably guess but im thinking two different graphics cards wouldnt work well together.

If you have another idea I'd LOVE to hear it, also plz post reccomended specs for quadboxing and 5 boxing, and what I need to upgrade,

Currently running:
Intel Core duo 2.4 (i think 2.4?)
8800GT 512
2 GiG ram (i know that needs to rise)
'
with 3 i get pretty good frames, and i can run 4 but i usually do that with one completely minamised because i run out of screen room XD that runs fine too but maximised would be different (or so i would suspect)

[davedontmind]

I have no personal experience of them, but Matrox do clever widgets that let you connect 2 or 3 monitors to a single-head graphics card.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Alternatively (and again I speak from no experience at all) I believe you should be able to add a second graphics card to your PC (as you mention). I don't think it needs to be the same as your existing one, but I'm afraid I'm no expert here.

[DemonWithin]

ok tyvm for your reply!

[Ozbert]

The output splitters that Matrox make are for their own cards only.

Matrox cards aren't very good for 3D gaming.

[mikekim]

I have no personal experience of them, but Matrox do clever widgets that let you connect 2 or 3 monitors to a single-head graphics card.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

Alternatively (and again I speak from no experience at all) I believe you should be able to add a second graphics card to your PC (as you mention). I don't think it needs to be the same as your existing one, but I'm afraid I'm no expert here.

the matrox splitter only works with their own cards.

you can add an additional graphics card to your system as long as it uses the same manufacturer of chipset ie. both nvidia or both ATI - not a mixture of both.

if your system supports 2 cards (ie 2x agp or 2x pci-e slots) then you would be better running all your screens off these (2x off the better card and one the lesser) and diabling the onboard output

[davedontmind]

the matrox splitter only works with their own cards.

Not according to the matrox site.

If you use the GXM System Compatability link you'll find it'll work fine with other graphics cards.

Apparently on my nVidia 8800GTX I could have 3 screens at 1280x1024 each.

[zanthor]

The output splitters that Matrox make are for their own cards only.

Matrox cards aren't very good for 3D gaming.

FUD.

The DoublePlay and TriplePlay devices from matrox support just about any graphics card known on the planet. The fact that they simply lie to your video card about the monitor settings and present multiple monitors as a single monitor they should be compatable with ANY video card. Matrox of course wouldn't support this statement but thats simply an "in case it doesn't work" stance.

[Drizzit]

Wow those things are not that cheap. About $265 for DualHead2Go.

If i do decide to go that route then i might just buy a second computer, that will at least cut down the lag issues. Plus if you get a good graphic card in the new computer you can go to 4 screens.

[Thulos]

I have one of the TripleHead2Go devices just sitting on my desk at work and have yet to test it out. If I can get off my lazy butt tomorrow when I go in the office I'll bring it home and test it out to give some feedback.

[Marious]

As far as video cards are concerned you have to worry about the video card being the same if you are running SLI, it is recommended that for best performance when running SLI it be identical cards, you can probably run SLI with different cards its just not recommended you do that since it could potentialy screw stuff up.

One other thing you will need to take into consideration is the fact that you will need a beefier power supply for your machine the card will suck up some juice and since you are going to be running multiple monitors and at such high resolution you will again start to use up more power.

I would recommend you going with at least another 1G of RAM since you will be pushing your machine quite a lot with the setup you have and I am unsure how well your CPU will take all this at 2.4GHz being dual core, it could probably take it but you will be taxing it since there is a lot going on.

As far as the splitters it also depends on the cards themselves, at work I have an ATI in one of the lab machines and it is being split and running 2, 24" Samsung LCD's there great, though I dont really get to use them much, wish I had the set up for my house but they would not fit on my desk.