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Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Help configuring 3 monitors with NVidia cards (6800 & 5200)
khariv   2004-12-14 12:36
Well, I finally broke down and ditched my matrox 3 head setup (Parhelia and G450) in favor of a better performing solution. I went with NVidia because Ive had screwy results with ATI on my work PC (triple head 9800 and 9200). Anyway, here's
what Ive got now:

6800 GT AGP
5200 PCI

When I hook these cards up, the NVidia drivers (have latest and greatest) only sees two displays. All three turn on and work, but there are only 2 windows displays.

I end up with this configuration

[1] [2] [3]

1 & 2 running in Stretched mode from AGP
3 running from PCI

So far soo good - Now here's the problem. I'd like the Center monitor [2] to have the task bar. However, the only options I see are:

[1] only
[1] and [2] spanned
[3] only

I cannot physically switch the monitor ports because I want the center monitor running on the DVI port of the 6800. Furthermore, when I have it in [1] only, Ultramon cant put a virtual taskbar on [2] because windows only sees two total monitors.

So, does NVidia support "independent" mode for two displays? Only thing I can do seems to be stretched mode for [1] and [2]. My other option is to buy another 5200 and use it to drive [1], but I'd really rather not do that if I dont have to. The other issue I see here is that it does not seem that a single NVidia card can run two monitors at different resolutions, since spanned mode is the only one available.

thanks in advance
khariV
khariv   2004-12-14 12:56
Update on this - when I had initially posted this message, the only options I had in the NView Diplay Mode were:

Single Display
Clone
Horizontal Span
Vertical Span

I uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and now, after a few reboots, I have DualView, which is what I need.

So, FYI for anyone who doesnt see DualView, you might need to reinstall the drivers - for some reason it had decided not to show up the first time around.

thanks
khariV
ECarlson   2004-12-14 13:49
Thanks for the update. I've also had other NVidia issues in the past that required me to uninstall the drivers more than once, with lots of rebooting, to resolve.

- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
Seahorse   2004-12-15 04:41
Why don't you simply dag the task bar to the monitor you want it on?

Mine from L/R ar 3 1 & 2. PCI runs 3. BI can put the taskbar anywhere on any of the monitors...

---
Rgds
Mike
Dead-Fish.Com - Deep sea Daddies...
Smaulz   2004-12-17 16:12
How'd you get the Nvidia cards to work together at all? I had the same setup, (Parhelia & 2xG450's) but needed something with a little more ummph. Haven't had much luck going with the 6600GT and a 5200. What version of drivers are you using?
Seahorse   2004-12-18 03:10
Detonators/Forceware drivers have supported it for a long time. A clean install of the 66.xx or even 77.20s should sort you out. The nView wizard does the work for you...

--
Rgds
Mike
Dead-Fish.Com Deep sea Daddies...
khariv   2004-12-21 13:59
Seahorse:

the problem with just dragging the taskbar was that the system thought of the two monitors hooked up to the 6800 as a single monitor (Horizontal Span mode). Windows only saw two monitors total, the spanned 6800 running at 2560x1024 and the 5200 at 1280x1024.

The result was that the task bar could be on the first one (left most #1 above) or both. It could not be on #2 exclusively.

The problem was resolved when I had uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and the "DualView" option magically showed up. With that option selected, Windows sees three independent monitors and I can drag the taskbar wherever I need it.

Smaulz:

I am using the latest WHQL drivers from NVidia (66.93). One other thing - in order to get my computer to boot, I had to switch the BIOS to initialize the PCI card as the primary display. If I have this setting set to AGP, then the windows goes to start, but it reboots before it gets to initializing the display.
Smaulz   2004-12-22 04:20
khariv,

Thanks for the reply. I've tried setting the PCI to primary and Windows boots okay, but the AGP won't initialize at all. Device manager tells me there aren't enough resources. To that end, I've attempted removing EVERYTHING from the case excluding the videocards, and I still get the error. I really don't understand what the problem is, since the AGP card works fine with 2 Matrox G450PCI's. I was hoping to use the 5200's for a slight increase in performance, but I'm thinking I may just be out of luck. :(
Seahorse   2004-12-23 13:38
Odd boots either way here happily un XP Home.

Only under XP 64 do I have to have AGP as primary or card hanging off PCI fails....

--
Rgds
Mike
Dead-Fish.Com Deep sea Daddies...
Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Help configuring 3 monitors with NVidia cards (6800 & 5200)

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