It's Christmas time, and I'd like to buy a new monitor (screen ?) Can poser 5 take advantage of a dual screen display (by putting the tools on one monitor, and the picture on the other) ?

This is independent of the software and is controlled by Windows. Poser or any other program can take advantage of a two monitor setup. Basically, Windows creates a screen size that stretches across two monitors and moving the cursor off the edge of one monitor brings it onto the next as if the monitors were connected. Tools could be moved to the second monitor and provide a full screen on the other for posing. Do use a Poser memory dot to save your single monitor configuration and another for your preferred two monitor state for Poser. That way, you can go back and forth easily between the setups depending whether you want to use one monitor or two.

Yep .... when I do animations I use all of the right hand screen for the keyframe editor and graph window.

You mean like this?? But of course. That's one of the advantages of having dual monitors

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Woaw. Thanks a lot. I hope my old monitor will be OK to team up with a flat screen LCD monitor...

OK, here's a dumb question: do you use two video cards if you have two monitors?! How do you tell Windows this is what you'll be doing?

I only have one video card. It has two outlets, one to each monitor. I can adjust the set up by right clicking my desktop and selecting Properties.

You can use two video cards (one AGP and one PCI), but it works much better and more reliably with a single card that supports two monitors. Once you use two monitors, you'll never want to go back to one :)

OK, I have a "builtin" AGP Video card, and no AGP slots on the motherboard. I do have one or two PCI video cards around somewhere. I intend one day to replace my CPU and motherboard, but currently have no video cards which have two outputs. So where could I get such a videocard, and how much could I expect to pay?

You can get them at any electronics store like circuit city, best buy, compusa, etc but I believe they are all AGP so you may be out of luck for now. The Geoforce Ti 4600 is a good choice (though I think they have a newer model now maybe 5200). I use a quadro fx1000. -Mark

Thanks for the info. I have a new "computer in the works," and only need a new motherboard and memory to complete the package. Now I'll be adding a new video card to the mix. If anyone sees any real good prices, I'd appreciate the new. Unfortunately I likely won't be able to spend much money till January or February.

http://www.pricewatch.com is a good site for online shopping of peripherals. I got an NVidia GeForce 128 meg w/tv out for under $60. The GeForce Ti 4600 there is currently around $138. Pricewatch has retail clients that offer the parts for considerably less than you'd pay at the retailers site had you just surfed on in. Use the "buy now" link at pricewatch's site for the better deal. You can get awesome memory deals there too. And yes Bobbie, they have great motherboard deals too. ;) Look in the "motherboard combos" section. And no, I don't work for pricewatch.com. =oP

So far none of the product descriptions I've seen says "dual monitor support." I have to practically click on every video card and look, or just search for the TI4600. Unfortunately most of the sites I'd visited so far have no option for what I'd call a helpful search. I'll try Pricewatch now.

Bobbie Butcher says: "So far none of the product descriptions I've seen says "dual monitor support." You should look for the term "dual head" That means that you can connect two monitors.

Do any of you use OpenGL programs on your dual set-up. Does it work OK. I've heard mixed things. If you have a stretched desktop and use an OpenGL app the Windows Software OpenGL is used instead of the cards.

I'm throwing my support in for an ATI card since everyone seems to love nvidia (I love my Radeon 9800 Pro!). Most any ATI card these days supports dual monitors, and there's several in the ~$100 range that are very good cards.

A tip for those of you who use dual monitors AND play games (ignore this if you don't): set your primary monitor (1) on the right (yes right) of your secondary monitor (so the setup screen looks like "2 1" (look at Phil's picture above). The reason? When you play games, it tries to switch the resolutions and it'll crash games and force you to play in windowed mode because the second monitor doesn't want to play nice (stupid Windows feature). However, when the secondary monitor is on the left, it's not affected by the resolution changes, so everything works normally. Odd, no? (Don't forget to reboot after changing them. Logging out doesn't work, gotta reboot.)

And yes, I realize it can be a bit weird having their orders reversed. I have mine that way, and my primary monitor is physically on the left, while the secondary is physically on the right. So to drag something to the second monitor, I drag left, even though it's right. You get used to it. :) Now, I just need to get another LCD so my monitors can be set to the same resolution. :(

Does anyone know if Windows XP Home Edition supports dual monitors? I thought it didn't?!

I'm pretty sure XP supports it. Unless only the pro version does. That a sham if thats true. As far as I know, most of the newer dual cards work best with XP.

xp home supports dual monitors, i have a matrox g450 dual head display

Thanks. I've seen many video cards that appear to have dual heads, but one seems to be something called DVI. I don't see anything in the description that clearly states you can hookup two VGA monitors to the card. So what is DVI?!

DVI is digital transmission of video data, as opposed to analogic VGA. On my ATI Radeon, I have a DVI and a VGA output. To connect 2 VGA monitors, I've got a connector that transforms DVI to VGA.

I'm easily confused. Shouldn't the product description clearly state that the video card can handle two VGA monitors?

Can anyone that has an ATI Radeon and UV Mapper tell me what the start-up screen says as far as OpenGL drivers. Does it say ATI Drivers or Generic Microsoft drivers (Software OpenGL). I have a system with 2 cards and share the moniters, but dont get ATI OpenGL. ATI told me if I had one like the ones you're mentioning with a VGA and DVI all in one card it would work on the Primary. I'd like proof! It can work fine with one display, but with 2 allot of times Windows loads the software drivers instead of your cards. I dont know of any other way to truelly check without UV Mapper's start screen. Thanks if anyone could check.