OMG : Dualhead on Radeon

[dbdg]

Ok a little while ago I updated my G400, it just wasn't cutting the mustard speed wise. I purchased an 8500 and until yesterday was very happy with the card, games fast, no driver issues, IQ ok, lovely.

Yesterday I finally got myself another 19inch monitor and I cannot believe how badly ATi have implemented multiple monitors, it just doesn't work. and when it does it is just a hassle, M Rocks.

I don't know if any of you have tried it but it is terrible, the first thing that amazed me is the fact that it can only extend to the right meaning the primary has to always be on the left.

It is so bad that I am currently saving up to buy me a P. It may be a bit slower then my 8500 but hey at least it can do multiple monitors, I don't like the idea of having two cards installed.

One thing that puzzles me with the 8500 is that even when booting up you get the bios screens etc on the second head, before entering windows, how can it do this unless it is just cloning the signal from the first output.

[Fat Tone]

Strange. I can put my 2nd head where-ever I like, and always have. Currently using drivers 6118 under XP.
As regards the bootup screens, I suppose the alternative is to have no output until the drivers load. No big deal.

T.

[dbdg]

Must be an XP thing over win2k. I can only extend in two directions. Down or right.

With my Matrox there used to be two monitors that appears on the settings tab and you just drag them where you like, not with th ATi, just one monitor and you have to do the rest in advanced.

Currently using 6166 drivers although I have tried them all.

[Kruzin]

Yes, it's a 2k thing.
Only Matrox makes multi-display drivers that work right in 2k.

[dbdg]

No other choice then buying a P as I am quite happy with 2k and do not intend on going anywhere near XP.

Oh well back to the goodness that is M.

[Ashley]

The 8500 is actually ATI's worst dual head card, relying on an external AD chip for the second head. It is the anomoly among dual-headed Radeon cards...

[Agent31]

Originally posted by Kruzin
Yes, it's a 2k thing.
Only Matrox makes multi-display drivers that work right in 2k.

so what are you saying? ATI have their Second Head burried up their arse?

[WyWyWyWy]

ATI can't even do dual independent mode under w2k.

FYI, GF cards can.

[Novdid]

Geforce boards can't do Dual head right in 2k either.

[WyWyWyWy]

Yes it can

Gianluca Brando 2002-04-06 03:47
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We Know that we can enable true multimonitor support in windows 2000 by checking "treat multiple outputs on an nView-capable board as separate display devices" option in dispaly-->properties-->advanced -->geforce-->advanced-->desktop utilities. For some strange reason, i think nvidia bug, this option does not appear even if we have two monitor connected to the videoboard, or 1 monitor and 1 TV such in my case. Well i just found how we can force drivers to activate this option. Copy and past this in a txt file, then rename it to *.reg, open it and press ok:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"NvCplExposeWin2kDualView"=dword:00000001

Now if we go in dispaly-->properties-->advanced -->geforce-->advanced-->desktop utilities voila, we can select dualview in windows 2000.
Last thing you need 28.32 Detonators Drivers. Don't know if with other versions this works.

[The PIT]

Re: OMG : Dualhead on Radeon

Originally posted by dbdg
Ok a little while ago I updated my G400, it just wasn't cutting the mustard speed wise. I purchased an 8500 and until yesterday was very happy with the card, games fast, no driver issues, IQ ok, lovely.

Yesterday I finally got myself another 19inch monitor and I cannot believe how badly ATi have implemented multiple monitors, it just doesn't work. and when it does it is just a hassle, M Rocks.

I don't know if any of you have tried it but it is terrible, the first thing that amazed me is the fact that it can only extend to the right meaning the primary has to always be on the left.

It is so bad that I am currently saving up to buy me a P. It may be a bit slower then my 8500 but hey at least it can do multiple monitors, I don't like the idea of having two cards installed.

One thing that puzzles me with the 8500 is that even when booting up you get the bios screens etc on the second head, before entering windows, how can it do this unless it is just cloning the signal from the first output.

It is crap. Even worse when the drivers for your monitor get mixed up so your monitors are running at the wrong refresh rate. So the LCD drivers are being used for my Vision Master 512 and Pros drivers for my Samsung LCD. Can remember trying dual head on my G400 and it worked striaght away no hassle or anything.

Forgot to mention the extended desktop/cloning options under cat 2.3 have no disappeared again for me.

[dbdg]

Thats the thing with the G400 yiou didn't have to tell it to do anything or set anything up it just worked, no hassles, everything was remembered and without needing to set app specific profiles.

8500 is just poor and the speed is terrible, just opening the start menu leaves time to make a cup of tea. Admittedly turning of the fade effect for menus speeds it up but why should this have to be off with Dual head.

I know what you mean with the refresh rates, it was a complete nightmare setting up the monitors not knowing whih I was setting.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by dbdg
Thats the thing with the G400 yiou didn't have to tell it to do anything or set anything up it just worked, no hassles, everything was remembered and without needing to set app specific profiles.

8500 is just poor and the speed is terrible, just opening the start menu leaves time to make a cup of tea. Admittedly turning of the fade effect for menus speeds it up but why should this have to be off with Dual head.

I know what you mean with the refresh rates, it was a complete nightmare setting up the monitors not knowing whih I was setting.

I don't have any problems with speed. The new cat drivers have made opengl games even darker and since the game gamma adjustment still doesn't work it's a bit of a piss off really.

[Indiana]

If you have speed problems in WinXP, you don't have HW acceleration enabled. This should be enabled by default in the newest drivers, but there ARE ways to force it when it's not on by default. Just do a proper search as you would do when you had problems with a Matrox card, please?

Second: No manufacturer can legally enable independant resolutions in Win2k due to stupid restrictions of M$s Win2k kernel. The only way to do it is by faking an additional gfx-card to the systems hardware-detection-system (which is IMO still a system hack, no matter what others might think about this issue). And no Nvidia-card I've seen up to now does it correct in Win2k - maybe they've stolen Matrox idea in the newest drivers - as did ATI, btw.
At least for the 9000/9700 series of cards, the newest Catalyst 02.3 install "two" gfx-cards in the system, making real dual head in Win2k possible.

And Ashley, DualHead works fine on the Radeon8500, when you're using Win98/ME/XP. And if you've accustomed yourself to the strange restrictions enforced by the Win2k-kernel, it works there as well. I've had a Radeon8500 long enough connected to two displays (and before had (still have) a Matrox G400).

[WyWyWyWy]

Originally posted by Indiana
If you have speed problems in WinXP, you don't have HW acceleration enabled. This should be enabled by default in the newest drivers, but there ARE ways to force it when it's not on by default. Just do a proper search as you would do when you had problems with a Matrox card, please?

Hi, proper search on Google shows nothing relevant, they are just about XFree86. I'm getting low performance from BenchXP, can you point me to the right direction please?