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darkmoment Certificates/Ratings/Crew Stations: "Twin View / Dual Display" 06-26-01, 14:16z  Hey High Flyers Rather than turn my last thread into the Encyclopedia Brittanica 2, herewith a new one on a subject that is possibly of more general interest to forum members. Although I'll probably discover I'm in the dark ages again ... In my hunt for The Holy Grail Of Video Cards (affordable version thereof) I find that even having determined to go for a GeForce2 MX, there are many different and almost undecipherable configurations. The one that I can understand and that interests me is 'Twin View', enabling dual monitor display support by a single card. Now what is the deal here? Windows 98 SE, which I run, supports dual monitors, does it not, and so when you add a card to a default system - without disabling the incumbent card - and bung a box on each port, CONTROL PANEL/DISPLAY brings up a pretty piccie of two screens across which you can, so it seems, spread application windows. So ... 1. If a standard GeForce2 MX is added, does the above work for FS2000? Can one, say, have cockpit view on one, and external view and/or FSNav on the other? Or will the two cards trip over each other? 2. If a twin view card is installed, enabling both monitors to be plugged in to that card, does this work better, or at all? Or is it a massive system drain? I can imagine that the more windows that are open, the more memory is consumed, but am curious to whether there are other penalties. 3. If either, or both, of the above work, then why are things like Peter Dowson's WIDEVIEW and WIDECLIENT necessary? These require, I think, separate installations of FS2000 on secondary computers for every new screen; is it that they facilitate multiple, rather than just dual, monitors? Oh, it's all so bogglesome. The particular card I'm focusing on is a: eVGA GeForce2 MX 32MB PCI Twin View Plus w/TV out Whether that's a 200 or a 400, I haven't a clue. What's the difference there, anyway? I'd appreciate any feedback before committing my tattered VISA card to an online purchase tomorrow. I hope this posting produces some comments that are useful to all, in any case, rather than hogging the forum myself. Incidentally, for those who have not seen how multiple set-ups <I>can</I> be arranged, and think that a CH yoke and a 2GB Compaq is as far as it goes, boggle your mind at: <a href="http"//www.schiratti.com/magenta/users/index.html";>http://www.schiratti.com/magenta/users/index.html<;/A> With kind regards Mark Beaumont "Stay between the green bits" P.S. Forgot to log in again before posting this, Ben, so I'm a passenger again. Sorry. When does the drinks trolley come around, anyway, and what's the movie? Top

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Subject      Author      Message Date     ID      RE: Twin View / Dual Display darkmoment 06-26-01 1    RE: Twin View / Dual Display Madape 06-26-01 2         RE: Twin View / Dual Display Madape 06-26-01 3   RE: Twin View / Dual Display Ben Chiu 06-26-01 4

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darkmoment Certificates/Ratings/Crew Stations: 1. "RE: Twin View / Dual Display" 06-26-01, 14:23z  I must have been typing too fast or putting too much Vodka on my cornflakes. First of all, the link I included was: http://www.schiratti.com/magenta/users/index.html Secondly, I was not a passenger, after all. Just a wing walker. Thirdly, thanks, Ben, for mentioning my little Cathay Pacific page elsewhere in the forum. Cathay have now ordered Lear 45s for training; I wonder whether it's because they knew they'd look nice in flightsim .... http://www.swiremariners.com/flysma.html Regards Mark "Fly upright, not uptight" Top

Madape Certificates/Ratings/Crew Stations: 2. "RE: Twin View / Dual Display" 06-26-01, 17:01z  ____________________ Hi Mark Ok the standard GeForce2 Mx is fully supported by FS2K ( I use it ). The standard version of the GeFroce 2Mx does not support Multiple Monitor Support, under Win98 for Multi monitor support to work you either need 2 Grahpics Card (And ofcourse 2 monitors), Or a graphics card that has 2 outputs (in this case the cards output would be halved 50/50 to each output). If you really want multi monitor support by 2 Graphics Cards, I'm not sure about the GeForce 2Mx Supporting 2 Monitors, mine certainly doesnt, and I havent seen any in the stores around me! Hope that helps Sam Top

Madape Certificates/Ratings/Crew Stations: 3. "RE: Twin View / Dual Display" 06-26-01, 17:04z  ____________________ I forgot to mention, when you install a new Graphics Card like the GeForce 2Mx it disables any onboard graphics you already have, so you wont be able to run dual monitor support from that! Sam Top

Ben Chiu Certificates/Ratings/Crew Stations: 4. "RE: Twin View / Dual Display" 06-26-01, 18:16z  ____________________ Greetings Mark: No worries about making many posts--we like that kind of stuff. Besides, that's why we're all here, right? Might as well make use the of the facilities! Tell your friends! Theoretically, you can add as many graphics cards as you have free PCI slots. (As far as I know, you are limited to a single AGP card by specs rather than just physically.) Just FYI, I have the dual head eVGA GF2MX in my system currently and it works great. You are correct, Win98SE supports multiple monitors. However, as Sam wrote, it usually won't work along side onboard video circuits. If I recall correctly, that's because manufacturers typcially don't adhear to the bus spec completely. To give you a brief overview, what's typically done with FS and muliple monitors is you fly with a desktop that's been stretched across the two monitors and you un-dock the various FS windows and move them to the screen you want it located. The biggest problem is that multiple video cards eat up CPU cycles, so you may have a great view, but at an unbearable frame rate. The solution that we use at FlightAdventures is to network computers together and set the host computer as the main instrument panel. We then connect the other "players" (systems) as observers and set their windows as the various views. This way we don't experience the crippling frame rate loss because we're not overtaxing a single CPU. Although the dual head card doesn't do what most people believe it can (as far as FS is concerned), for me the dual head (w/TV out and digital output) is the ultimate card for what I do with my system, and I highly recommend them. And to add some more to this discussion (and probably more than you ever wanted to know about these things!) , GF2MX cards are usually based on the same reference design, so they're typically identical regardless of which manufacturer produced it, but not always. The biggest differences between them are the speed of the RAMDAC and memory. Of course, ideally you want the card with the fastest RAMDAC AND RAM, you have to be careful. Although you can have fast RAM on a card with a slower RAMDAC, I haven't seen slow RAM coupled to a fast RAMDAC, so when comparing specs, look for the faster RAMDAC if specs for RAM isn't published. Finally, the other distinguishing "feature" that differentiates products from manufacturers is the software bundles and tech support. I typically don't get excited about bundled games, so I'll usually worry about tech support options when making a buying decision. With GF cards, don't worry too much about drivers, they're freely available from nVidia and other sources. Hope this helps! Ben Top

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