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OT (kindof): which card for dual monitor?
Greetings:
I’m looking to buy a Matrox G450 dual-display card to replace the one in my off-the-shelf Dell Dimension 4600. (The Matrox is cheap and will work with my two CRT monitors.) I’m assuming there will be no Vegas issues with either of these cards?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106143 (AGP)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106164 (PCI)Now I need to know which interface I need: AGP or PCI. I don’t even know enough about this stuff to know if this is a stupid question, so please make your answer understandable to a computer newbie. I’m guessing my current video card sits in a PCI slot, but I could be way off. Do I even have an AGP slot?
Help?
Thanks,
LD -
4 Replies
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It most likely is AGP. Does it currently have a 128MB NVidia GeForce FX 5200? I had a dual head 5200 now I have a dual 5700 w/256MB. Both worked good for what I do. Vegas doesn’t make use of the graphics card but other applications do. I would use an AGP if you can get one. Vegas would not have a problem with the card for any reason I can think of.
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Thanks Harold,
Under Device Manager, Display Adapters, it says “Intel 82865G Graphics Controller (PCI bus 0, device 2, function 2).”According to one responder to someone else’s question at geekstogo.com: “Under ‘display adapters,’ see if anything is there besides the Intel Controller. If not, then you do not have an AGP video game card. If there is, then it may be PCI.”
I don’t know what that means, though. In my computer, there is nothing else under “display adapters,” only the Intel Graphics Controller mentioned above. Is it possible I have no video card at all, and that the computer is handling video processing virtually? If so, then which Maxtor card do I need?
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The AGP slot will be the first slot closest to the CPU. If you have AGP, it has a different, smaller connector than the rest of the PCI slots.
AGP doesn’t offer any advantage with Vegas, but I would go with the AGP card because it doesn’t compete with PCI resources (mostly interrupts).
If your motherboard has the video built-in (I.E., the monitor connector is soldered to the motherboard), then you will need to disable it in the BIOS after installing the dual-head card. Not a big deal.
Or, you could run three monitors…..
Steve Mann
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I agree with Steve. It sounds like you have an on board display. You most likely need a PCI card. Do you have any slots available? You need to open up that puppy and take a look.
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