I realized that my video card can use two monitors, and I happened to have an extra 14" flat screen laying around, so there you go....
It makes working in Poser so much better, one screen for the layout window and the little screen for all the tools. Way cool! ;)

Green with envy... If you have the necessary vid card and extra monitor, is this kind of thing hard to set up?

Once you go dual,you will never go back. Tom

Yes very easy to set up. Just plug it all in and set the desktop prefs.

running a Geforce FX 5200 here with Dual 19" CRT's.. I love it.. most (not all) modern Geforces and ATI's have dual monitor capabilty these days..

Anyone want to recommend a video card that's especially well suited for this? I feel the urge to go shopping.

how do you check to see if your video card will allow duel monitors?

Well, the main thing is that you have to plug the second monitor into something. So the easiest way is to see if it has two monitor connectors on the back. If not, it doesn't. Then again, if you have a second monitor and a slot for a second video card, I think you can go that route as well.

I'm using a Radeon 9800 - I think most of the top end ATI's feature dual monitor If you have the necessary vid card and extra monitor, is this kind of thing hard to set up? Morphy - just plug them in and go, I know the ATI comes with software for the purpose, but it's not really needed as Windows supports dual monitors natively, the hardest thing is working out which monitor to make your primary :) I also would never go back to a single monitor again...

If it has dual outputs.

I use the 3DLabs Wildcat VP 880 Pro
Tom

Message edited on: 07/21/2005 15:21

well duh.. guess that was kinda silly of me.. of course don't think to just look.. hehehe Thanks for the responses..

Yippee! My vid card has dual outputs, and I have an old monitor in the cupboard! I'm gonna do this!!

Not silly at all. I think you can just add more video cards and monitors and add as many as you want (Up to nine I think under Windows XP) Hell I could add more if I wanted to but I'm too lazy to go find my extra cards and drag the old monitors out of the shed...lol Tom

How weird! I just bought a new machine and monitor, and I never even thought of doing this. I currently have 2 machines and 3 monitors. The primary machine has 2 monitor outlets and it has an Nvidia 6600GT, so I guess I'm good to go. Heh, heh. I'm off to try this out. Thanks for posting. Otherwise I'd gone happily on using one monitor. mac

WOW, I was gone for a few hours and I come back to everyone wanting to have dual monitors! What have I started?!?! :)

Mac,...you will happily use a dual setup and find scenarios that you never thought of that will be helpful to you. PhotoShop,for example...I drag all the tools and pallets to monitor 2 and have an un-obstructed workspace. You will find,if utilized correctly, that your workflow in many apps will improve. Ever had the frustration of toggling back and forth while doing(or writing) a tutorial? Well worry no more, keep the tutorial on one monitor while you work on the other. It's great for building web pages too. Drag and drop between monitors is an adventure in efficiency. Have fun. Tom

a good idea is to put the windows taskbar on monitor 2. leaving monitor 1 (your primary workspace) clear.. with Photoshop I do the same as tom.. but poser 6.. oh the joys the best part is, having the material room on 1 monitor and the renderspace on the other...

Yes you can even have two desktops with twice as many icons! :rolleyes:

Has anyone with dual monitors noticed that rendering seems slower? It seems that way to me.

no dual for me pout is Svideo of any use for this sort of thing.. guessing all that stuff on the front side of my computer is only useful for vhs and camcorder huh.. ah well.. green with envy

I want three monitors. The problem with two monitors is that for things like gaming, you end up with the division right in the middle of the field of view, which is majorly annoying. Three monitors works a lot better.

I have no problem with gaming on dual monitors but a friend of mine does. It's gotta be some setting in the driver that corrects this, or it's the card itself. Tom

Hmmm.... I've been doing some net searching on this. Nvidia has NO help at all on the subject, and I can't seem to find what I want to know. The pages I googled were all about TVs, games and DVDs. Basically, what do I need to do? Plug in the 2nd monitor and reboot, then shift screens around? The 6600GT has dual-monitor support, but I don't want to make some stupid blunder with a brand-new machine. mac

"The problem with two monitors is that for things like gaming, you end up with the division right in the middle of the field of view, which is majorly annoying." try adjusting your card settings.. here, every game opens on monitor 1...

"Basically, what do I need to do? Plug in the 2nd monitor and reboot, then shift screens around?" basically.. yes, tho you can assign which monitor is which in the drivers.

In Windows, when you have two monitors plugged in, your display setup window will look something like this. You can move the second monitor icon around and place it where you want it to "connect" to the first monitor. Here you can also control what resolutions and other settings you want for each screen.

But I want the game displayed across more than one screen. It can be incredibly immersive, with three or more screens around you. :-)

the only game I know of that supports that is X2- the threat...

As far as gaming,....it may be the way the games resolution defaults. fiddle with the games settings first and then the video cards driver. There are some games I can not play because my card does not support 800 X 600 resolution. Which sux because I really wanna play Star Craft. Tom

if you are using 2 monitors, are you using one mouse or a mouse for each monitor?

only one mouse. you can drag and drop between monitors as well. Tom

Yep dragging and dropping between the two monitors is fun. Not enough room on one monitor? Just drag it over to the other monitor....wheeeeeee!!! (having too much fun)

You can also stretch your desktop to fill both (all) monitors, but I don't recommend it. I only turn on the second monitor when using applications setup to utilize them or things need to be dispersed a little to retain sanity.

OK, people. I'm set up, but I have a question. I've set 'horizontal span' in the Nvidia propeties. This just doubles my screen to 2560 x 1024. There's another option called 'dualview' which I haven't tried yet (requires a reboot), but the horizontal span is a bit of a pain. All the default dialogs open in the split between the 2 screens. Yep, I can move them, but frankly, I couldn't be bothered with doing that 10 hours a day. It looks cool at first, and maybe it takes a bit of getting used to, but I've tried a few apps and I'm beginning to wonder if I don't prefer a single monitor. I'm going to try 'dualview' now. Will let y'all know how it looks. mac

kuroyame, X-posted with you. I think you just answered my question. Thanks. mac

Dualview is best you get 1 desktop but split into 2 areas. lets you say run 1 at 1280x1024 and the other at 800x600 or both at 1280 and have the menu bar on the left.. or the right...

Thanks, khai. I've got it now. Just as you say, dualview splits it into 2 areas. Much better. The horizontal span was way too confusing. I figured out that by using the restore (non-maximised) setting on apps, I can move them to the 2nd screen, so I can arrange my workspace the way I want. Yep, I have to say it..... pretty cool way to work. Thanks for the help, folks! mac

Am I th'only one runnin' 2 vidcards? Just wanted to mention that if anyone wants to run 2 cards, ya might hafta go into yr BIOS & enable AGP or PCI support (I had to, anyway)

Probably 2 video cards will help rendering faster? Maybe? As I said, I've noticed a considerable increase in rendering time ever since I added the second monitor. Not sure what that's all about though.

Nope. Video cards have nothing to do with rendering. Rendering is all done on the CPU and in RAM. Maybe adding the second monitor caused a different set of drivers to run and removed some sort of HAL contention (?).

Never noticed increased render time here with dual monitors. Like Rob said..redering is handled by the processor crunching numbers. Tom

There's a thread over at Daz called "Show your Workspace" in the common section... with some pretty cool home setups - one with a tri monitor setup. The hardest thing for me with duel monitors was making a cool enough wallpaper images. I'll post mine later tonight. Doug

Okay, I have two monitors and a geforce 5200 card capable of doing the job. I've got it all hooked up and set to dual mode. Problem: Poser doesn't want to work with it. The toolbars won't move over to the 17" at all, only thing I can really move is the document window, the library and perhaps the H.editor and joint editor (haven't tried but I imagine I could) So the ideal solution then would be to move the document window over to the 17" but when I do, there is no longer a display. It just blacks out. I'm guessing that monitor number two has no direct X. Is this the problem? -WTB

I'm keeping an eye on this topic. I've been thinking of getting a second monitor and I don't want to end up with the same problem as -WTB. And with my luck, it would.

actually I saw from an example above that the idea is to unexpend the main poser window and move it (and thus all the tools) to the smaller monitor and leave the preview window on the main. That works! Yay. -WTB

Glad you got it workin for ya WTB. You'll never go back now..lol Tom

William the Bloody - what version of poser are you using? In P6 I have not problem draggin menues across the two. Do you have the latest drivers? Doug

Agreed with all of the above: I've run dual monitors at home for well over a year now, a 20" main and an older 17" beside that I use to hold my tools for apps that support it, some apps that always open there (like Winzip and Winamp), and that I throw a second browser window or document on when I need it. I just ordered a new computer that will come with a 20" flatscreen, so I'll run the 2 20s. We run desktop replacement laptops at work and I'm agitating to make sure the next one I get runs dual outputs. Just because of the work I do, I spend a ton of time comparing documents and right now, when crunch time comes, it's often faster for my to bring the files home and work from there just in terms of the reduction in scrolling and window-flipping that has to go on.