Dual Monitor Setup...

[Tyorik]

Yo, thanks for all the help you guys have provided recently too.

My new mental struggle:

I have a 19" Acer monitor, 8 ms response, 700:1, etc etc. Pretty standard. I'm planning on getting an 8800GTS as per the expert guidance of some select helpful patrons, and a 22" Samsung (2 ms response time, 3000:1 - amazing) but some intricacies that I was wondering:

If I tried a dual desktop setup, how much more does it tax the components? Double? Or is there some kind of inner working I'm unaware of? Am I able to play a game, watch a movie, etc on the 22", and keep my IMs, web browser etc on the 19"? How is sound allocated (I have a 5.1 setup running through my motherboard [green, yellow and black)? And lastly... If any/all of this is possible, how does one go about setting it up in XP... Or... - and I hate to say it - Vista (Ultimate - I promise I got it for cheap! :p )

[running a Core 2 E6400, 150 GB Raptor, DG965WH, Antec 550W]

[mjc]

Part of the nVidia controls will be your dual monitor settings...so that is how it would be handled (wouldn't really matter which OS).

The sound...pretty much nothing special...you won't really be able to split it up between the two monitors...it is more of how Windows works than anything else. All the sounds will be played pretty much as if you only had a single monitor and were doing everything in windows instead of full screen...(the Windows sounds would overlay the game/movie/etc).

As far as 'taxing' the components...well, not really, unless you are trying to do a movie AND a game at the same time. There are maybe some things that may be a bit harder on the card, but overall there isn't much of a difference with running a modern video card with one monitor or two.