From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 17 12:39:42 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED80416A402 for ; Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:39:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from conn-smtp.mc.mpls.visi.com (conn.mc.mpls.visi.com [208.42.156.2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C06C513C471 for ; Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:39:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from mail.tcbug.org (mail.tcbug.org [208.42.70.163]) by conn-smtp.mc.mpls.visi.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C0B983DF; Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:39:33 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [192.168.1.5] (unknown [192.168.2.1]) by mail.tcbug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D144341C0C; Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:39:32 -0500 (CDT) From: Josh Paetzel To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:39:28 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.6 References: <200707171222.51982.freebsd01@dgmm.net> In-Reply-To: <200707171222.51982.freebsd01@dgmm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart1641881.D1l6Yeyt4U"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200707170739.31952.josh@tcbug.org> Cc: dgmm Subject: Re: Dual head video cards X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:39:43 -0000 --nextPart1641881.D1l6Yeyt4U Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Tuesday 17 July 2007, dgmm wrote: > Are there any "gotchas" I should look out for when purchasing a > dual head video card? > > I'm currently looking for a cheap NVidia card with both analogue > and digital output to use my old 21" CRT and the new 19" LCD but, > as usual, there's very little info other than for Windows in the > write ups/reviews. > > I've never used dual head before so I'm concerned that some cards > might share resources to the extent that they are windows only .=20 > Maybe I'm seeing potential problems that aren't there? > > Budget is tight so I don't want to screw up the purchase. "Cheap" > is word I'm looking for :-) You'll need to use the binary nvidia drivers, the open source nv=20 driver doesn't support dual-head at all. So you run in to a couple=20 of gotchas there. The first being that the nvidia drivers are i386=20 only, they aren't available for AMD64, and the second is that=20 twinview has a sort of odd behavior when you use different=20 resolutions on each monitor. It's hard to describe but the driver=20 basically pretends that the resolutions are the same and then only=20 draws what can be displayed of the smaller one, so there's desktop=20 outside of the monitor that you can drag windows in to but obviously=20 can't see. With regards to cards I've used the recent nvidia drivers and=20 dual-head with everything from an fx5500 PCI card to 6200LE to 6600GT=20 to 7200 cards. I've used the legacy drivers with various 4x00ti=20 cards. Here are links to cards I've personally used with dual head in the sub=20 $50 range USD. pci-e http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=3DN82E16814121080 agp http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=3DN82E16814127290 =2D-=20 Thanks, Josh Paetzel --nextPart1641881.D1l6Yeyt4U Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQBGnLiDJvkB8SevrssRAorlAJsF+ZClJenW+DLMtA/IZNwlEIeiSQCgioCj yT+lPSPe6YzUAw0rUOGhVcg= =7hqP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart1641881.D1l6Yeyt4U--