Setting Up Dual Monitors

[Dobbie03]

Hello,

I have a spare 1gb nvidia graphics card laying around and a spare 20" lcd monitor, I would like to have dual monitors but the graphics card in my pc is an ATI.

Would it create issues if I put the nvidia card in alongside the ATI? Am I correct in assuming I need to cards for a dual screen set up?

Anyway, if any one has some steps on how to set this up please let me know.

[livit]

Actually I run dual monitors right now, without having two graphic cards. If you have two DVI (or HDMI) outputs it's just to connect the two screens. Then go to System > Preferences > Monitors, and change the settings. If you get an error message, try to restart the computer with the screen connected. That was a recent problem for me...

[Dobbie03]

Oh sweet. I'll try it out.

Thanks!

[livit]

No problem! :)

But I got unsure if DVI where the standard connection, so I googled a bit and it seems like VGA still is the most common connection. However, it should work perfectly well with either.

[Dobbie03]

It worked perfect. Thanks for your help.

[Lateralis]

You don't need two graphics cards to run two monitors these days. All graphics cards that I care to think of come with dual monitor support.

Before I got my big widescreen monitor, I was using two monitors with an ATI card, then an nVidia card. One was using a DVI, the other a VGA. So the actual connection time is immaterial. Provided you have a newish card and two outputs that are compatible with your monitor inputs, then literally plug 'n' play!