Weird/Stupid Question? 2 Diff. VGA?

[Captain Morgan]

Im wanting to run Dual monitors. My 22" LCD for whatever and my Big Screen as like a second monitor maybe just to watch a movie or whatever. Im wondering if its possible to run 2 different Video Cards in the same PC?

I'm wanting to use my 9800gtx for my LCD and play game or do whatever and i have an extra 8800gts that if i could use to run my Big Screen as just a back up monitor and play a movie on it or something.

Not sure if this is even possible but if it is what kind of 'Pain in my ass' problems could i run across? Of would it just bog everything down? Im guessing my PC would run like sh*t but i just wanted an opinion.

[George Hallam]

you could do that yes but your MOBO isnt the best for SLI (it will support it but at x8,x8) why not just use the 9800gtx and hook both monitors up to that?

it works fine on mine i have

22" as my main monitor that i play games on
17" with my windows bar MSN, xfire temp monitors and all the random icons

look

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll221/jiggyghallam/mydesktop.jpg

i have noticed any performance drop

[Captain Morgan]

I was thinking maybe i could play a game on one and watch a movie or something with the other. But not if its going to take the speed down to 8x.

Thanks!

[George Hallam]

I was thinking maybe i could play a game on one and watch a movie or something with the other. But not if its going to take the speed down to 8x.


thats only if you SLI.

With a single 9800GTX you can play a game and watch a movie at the same time

[astoroth88]

Yea, most of the cards coming out have 2 DVI-out on them, I know my 9600 does at any rate. Just plug your monitor into one, then plug your t.v. into the other.

I know the Walmart near me sells HDMI to DVI cords for about $34, so check walmart.com or if you can find one in a local walmart.

Those can be used to plug your television into your graphics card if your t.v. supports HDMI. I plan on buying a 32" HDTV wide screen myself, but I'm going to be using it for all purposes. (gaming, videos, etc...)

EDIT
Here is a link to one on Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812123027) for a MUCH cheaper price.

[astoroth88]

Fixed the link, got the wrong link in there now

Rosewill HDMI to DVI (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882021059)

[Captain Morgan]

Well im using the Dvi for my LCD and the S-Video out for my big screen (The round one right?) But if i try to play a game on my LCD the big screen just goes black. And if i try to watch something on my big screen the sound comes from my PC speakers. Is there a way to make the sound come from the tv? And is there a way to play a game and keep the screen from blacking out?

[saphalline]

Gaming + video-out usually doesn't work together. The TV needs to be connected like a "monitor" to the system. Thus most HDTV's now have native VGA or DVI connectors for use with computers. Also, if you want audio to come from the TV, you need to send it an audio signal. Video-out signals - like VGA, DVI, Component, etc - don't do this, especially if the cables only come from your vid card. Your sound card/adapter is where the audio is on your computer! No audio signal to TV = no audio from TV.

As for HDMI, NVidia's GPU's currently do not support the audio signal part of the HDMI spec. So even using HDMI will net you no audio from the TV without an additional audio signal from your sound card/adapter. However...

AMD's GPU's do support the audio signal part of the HDMI spec. The easiest solution for you would be to install a second vid card in non-SLI using one of the newer AMD GPU's - like the Radeon HD 3860. This would give you a dedicated secondary vid card for movie-watching, with full HDMI audio-from-your-TV goodness. The cheapest solution for you would be to mess around with HDMI and audio-out on your current system. No new hardware. There is most likely a way to get it all to work. I don't know it off the top of my head :p but theoretically it should work.

[astoroth88]

good on ya saph, makes sense to me. Personally I'm using my new hdtv (when I get it) to run everything. Gaming, cable tv, movies, consoles, etc...

I have a HD TV Tuner and a 9800 GTX on the way from newegg as I type ;)

[Captain Morgan]

Gaming + video-out usually doesn't work together. The TV needs to be connected like a "monitor" to the system. Thus most HDTV's now have native VGA or DVI connectors for use with computers. Also, if you want audio to come from the TV, you need to send it an audio signal. Video-out signals - like VGA, DVI, Component, etc - don't do this, especially if the cables only come from your vid card. Your sound card/adapter is where the audio is on your computer! No audio signal to TV = no audio from TV.

As for HDMI, NVidia's GPU's currently do not support the audio signal part of the HDMI spec. So even using HDMI will net you no audio from the TV without an additional audio signal from your sound card/adapter. However...

AMD's GPU's do support the audio signal part of the HDMI spec. The easiest solution for you would be to install a second vid card in non-SLI using one of the newer AMD GPU's - like the Radeon HD 3860. This would give you a dedicated secondary vid card for movie-watching, with full HDMI audio-from-your-TV goodness. The cheapest solution for you would be to mess around with HDMI and audio-out on your current system. No new hardware. There is most likely a way to get it all to work. I don't know it off the top of my head :p but theoretically it should work.

The audio thing sound pretty obvious now that you mention it. You mention the 3870, would the 8800 i already work ok? I know the 3870's are that bad. Around 100 or so but would i need to upgrade my PSU again? I just got a 700w.

[astoroth88]

700w is just fine. I'm not sure about the cards, but i'm pretty sure an 8800 would do you justice.

[saphalline]

would the 8800 i already work ok?Well, the GPU itself can't do the audio component of the HDMI spec, but it will work with the video portion. You'd just need to set the TV to accept video from HDMI and audio from your sound card/adapter. So it gets a little tricky and beyond my experience with such things.

Then again, by adding an AMD vid card that does the whole HDMI spec, you'd have set up your movie playing software to use the audio on the AMD vid card while your games use your current sound card/adapter. So either way there's a bit of complication somewhere.

And yes, 700W is more than enough, as long as it's a decent PSU.