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Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
For anyone getting a Vista machine or thinking of....
Maybe this is old news but it took me some digging and may save someone some time and/or $$. Follow on from a previous thread where I was being told by Dell that my Vista machine could not run 2 video cards to have more than the 2 displays I already have running off my PCI-express slot; the PC could only address one of the slots. I didnt really believe the phone people, so I spent a couple of hours trawling the internets. It seems like Vista constrains the system such that you can have multiple video cards addressed by your machine, but only so long as the cards are run using the same drivers; basically, get the same brand and check they're compatible. I ordered a PCI card that should hopefully work w/ my current PCI-e card to get 3 monitors going; haven't got it yet, but fingers crossed.... Links I found (there are prolly better/more informative ones out there, but...): http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/11...r-restriction/ http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...imonVista.mspx http://ilikeellipses.com/2007/11/07/...tors-in-vista/ http://forums.legitreviews.com/about10730.html Bottom line: dunno, but I'd prolly get a machine w/ 2 PCI-express slots & 2 identical video cards if I went back and ordered again. But, anyway, just make sure the video cards match with respect to their drivers; Vista isn't forgiving like XP when it comes to multiple video cards. Edit: Here's a pertinent quote from a post in 1st link: "I haven't had problems with Vista & multi-monitors yet, even when using four cards in the same system. (6800 PCI-e, 6600GT PCI-e, 5200FX PCI, 5200FX PCI) Course they are the same driver. I've not had any luck with vista & ATI cards at all. My R9200SE's don't work, my friend's Xpress 200 didn't work. The "Control Centers" that ATI & nVidia use now do nothing but waste space and anger me. " |
#2
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Re: Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
Let us know how it goes. Is this in a new dell?
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#3
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Re: Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
Yes, new dell inspiron 530 desktop.
Dell Inspiron 530 Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6550 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT-DDR3. I ordered a PNY Geforce FX5200 256MB PCI card after reading all that stuff. Will update this thread when it arrives. |
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Re: Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
if you are right that vista can't use video cards from different manufacturers, this is a really, really, bad flaw in vista.
i quite happily ran an AGP ATI card, and a maxtor PCI card and a nVIDIA PCI video card in xp without any troubles. |
#5
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Re: Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
samiam made a similar post quite a while ago and drew the same conclusion. i agree its a pretty crappy downgrade.
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#6
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Re: Vista and 3+ displays. FYI type post
[ QUOTE ]
samiam made a similar post quite a while ago and drew the same conclusion. i agree its a pretty crappy downgrade. [/ QUOTE ] Apparently if you use legacy drivers in vista it will allow multiple drivers to coexist. The downside is all the graphics drivers have to be legacy. I'm not sure if this means that XP drivers will work, or that you need vista drivers that use the legacy windows video display stack. |
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