I am finding the Poser window getting very busy and I am wondering if it is worth investing in a second monitor. I am not sure if you can run functions such as Library etc. in a second monitor to free up the desktop. Has any one else found it an advantage?

Huge advantage IMHO.  Dual 20" monitors work great.  Can't imagine going back to working on a dinky single monitor.   Go for it!

I always use a 2 monitor system.  Your real estate becomes expansive, you can move most of your desktop components to one monitor and leave the other monitor available for just your render window.

 Since losing my 2nd monitor I'm lost. (Graphic card glitch)

Quote -  Since losing my 2nd monitor I'm lost. (Graphic card glitch)

2nd Monitor gone dead! I sympathize.

Not only is a dual setup great for Poser, but for modeling (or at least learning how to).
Program in open one, the tutorials/manuals/reference guide open in the other!

Quote - I am not sure if you can run functions such as Library etc. in a second monitor to free up the desktop. Has any one else found it an advantage?

You can move almost all parts of the poser UI (as well as any window/app on your desktop) to the second monitor. The only disadvantage, like others have said is that it will totally spoil you and you'll have a very hard time going back to a single monitor.

If you've not used a dual system before, it really does work the same as a single desktop, just really big, (albeit, with that pesky bar down the middle from the monitors' cases).

You need to have a video card with enough capacity to drive two monitors.  Given that caveat, dual monitors are a glorious luxury, for most any 3D program.  In Poser Pro 2010, you can have a massive scene preview window, and drag the control panels to the second monitor.  Same for Vue and Silo.

I couldn't go back to using a single monitor either, I have the main posing window on one & all the tool panels on the other with enough room for videos, tutorials & whatever else I want on screen at the same time.

You won't regret going dual monitor.

ps I'm using Poser 8 & Poser Pro 2010.

"You need to have a video card with enough capacity to drive two monitors." 

Back in the olden times, we used two video cards. Living in the hardware museum, I didn't even know dual heads were the standard now, sigh.  

I have 2 monitors and 2 video cards. Go to your local computer guru and see if he has an old POS video card for use on your second monitor. heck- they'll often give it to you for free just to get ride of it :)

Consider- the second monitor dosen't need a high refresh rate for things like poser of photoshop or what-ever control panels.
 Rendering and videos are almost allways done on the main screen  :)

On mine the programs control panels and all my shortcuts are over on the side monitor.

I'll never go back myself. Wonderfull must have system :)

Ken

 Same here.  I could not live without my dual monitor setup.  I especially like it for  Poser as I can have the library full screen on one monitor and Poser on the other.  It also has great advantages when working in multiple programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as you can drag and drop items between screens.

I worked on a 30 inch monitor for a couple of years and I'd rather have two medium sized monitors then one large one.  If you have the budget, go for it.

From my experience most right handed people prefer the main monitor in front of them (mostly slightly to the left) with the other monitor the same size to the right. Not enough left handed people around to figure out a trend there. One monitor above the other isn't appreciated at all (requires too much head movement with the neck). At lot of people are using their secondary monitor also for watching streamed video (so it should have that capability).
When using Poser the posing window is generally on the main screen with the library on the secondary screen. It's often too much work to move the posing window over to the other screen so when rendering (and not using all available threads) I tend to use the secondary screen for some text editing (story board writing).
In my work I often do the work on the main screen and use the secondary screen for whatever reference material is required (quite often multiple overlapping windows).
After working with different monitor setups and sizes for a long time I prefer two equally sized monitors side by side of 22" or 24" (wide screen). Multiple bigger screens mean too much movement required to actuall see what's on them. One big screen just doesn't work for me (you still tend to maximize the window defeating the purpose of the big screen). More than two screens might be great for games but it doesn't really add anything for anything else (I tend to lose things on the screens and have to start searching, so I didn't use the third screen when I had it available).

So in short a second screen is always an advantage when it can be placed next to the existing one and try to stick to the same size (no need to use the model of screen).

That's odd, I'm right handed & I prefer the main larger monitor slightly to my right & the smaller to my left, I guess there has to be at least one awkward s*d in every batch to prove the trend.

Never used Poser in a dual monitor environment but for Maya there is no other way. Main viewpane on one, all the "torn off" windows on the other.

Quote - "You need to have a video card with enough capacity to drive two monitors." 

Back in the olden times, we used two video cards. Living in the hardware museum, I didn't even know dual heads were the standard now, sigh.  

You can get cards with six outputs. You can get external devices that'll take a single input and split it out across three... Lots of screen estate...

Poser 7 over four screens a couple of years back - just trying as an experiment...

My next build is going to take advantage of one of those 6 output ATI Eyefinity cards and add an additional three 24"... and then I take over the world! ;)

I have a dual output video card but didn't have two monitors - only my 20" LCD. So I got a bright idea and dug out my old 17" crt and hooked that up. Man, I'm so glad I did. I was giddy over all the screen real estate ;o). All my palettes on the crt, just one big rendering screen on the LCD.

Laurie

Magic_Man that's just amazing, I wish I had the space to do something like.

and you what's cute, when you the hit the PrintScreen key and paste it into Word, it captures both monitors like one widescreen shot.

I have a 28" widescreen LCD, which I treated myself to when I sold some work recently.  I swear I had it more than 3 months before I realised that I could also be using the 19" LCD I had relegated to a box under the desk...!  I can't imagine going back to a single monitor now.  In Poser/Photoshop you can have your libraries on the second monitor.  Also I just found out that my Vista widgets which show temperatures and CPU useage, which always disappear under Poser, work just fine on the second monitor, so I can actually see them while rendering.

Good budget solution, you get crt monitors thrown after you, I doubt you can find a pci express graphic card with only one video output today. The two monitors can have different size resolution and refresh rate. At work I use a 24" and a 17" secondary, at home 2*22".

I was running dual 20", then went to a 24"-20" combo, and now run dual 24".  And that's my limit for the foreseeable future.

At work, I have a 24" and and use my laptop as the second monitor.

And it does spoil you.  When I'm on the road, like now, and only have the laptop screen I have to stop myself from going to buy a monitor just to get back to a multiple screen setup.