[faB]

I'm going to buy a new bigger monitor, and I'm going to have the current one unused so I was wondering if it's really worth it to buy a graphics card with 2 vga outputs for digital painting ?

What graphics card would you recommend for dual display ?
_________________
"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a KING PRAWN !" -- Pepe.
selfportraits & stuff

[maxon]

Umm, you see, it's also possible to hook up two different graphics card into one computer and stick the cable from each monitor to both of the cards. It works fine with me. But this isn't any help if you don't have any old PCI graphics adapter of your own.
_________________
http://www.maxon.rules.it

[Ohlson]

I find two monitors to be particularly helpful.
Perhaps it's my style that helps it along... but when asked point blank... I'd have to say, it's one of the better ideas/investments I ever had/made. ( save for mah wacom. =D )
As I don't know your methods of digital painting... it's tough to say how much it will benefit you.
I like to work on a lot of things that are on a canvas of ..say... 6000 x 6000 pixels. So this comes in really handy, as I expand PS across both monitors and enlarge one view of the document to whatever size I'm going to work the details in......... and then the other monitor houses a view at 25% or whatever I'm planning on scaling down to.
Currently I run two 17" monitors, and I don't know what my feelings would be on running one monitor that's a different size from the other. I suppose I'd like it more than just running one monitor.... but after having 2 the same size, it might be a weird adjustment, so you may not have any problems there.
When I'm not expanding PS across both monitors, I continue to find it helpful because I do all of my painting on my right monitor... and all the browsing of files, and other programs happen on my left monitor.
(I'm not sure if you get into web design as well.... but this comes in extrememly handy for that as well.)

The graphics card I use is a RadeonVE (Radeon7000). I don't really have to many complaints about it... But if I were to buy a card to support two monitors today, I'd be looking to go a bit higher up on the totem pole. (Gforce4... newer Radeon.. etc)

I've become really accustomed to this set-up... and I don't think I'll ever have a machine in my house that I don't run dual monitors on.

One last thing to think about...
I don't know what the specs on your machine is. Mine is very old... (3+ years)... and running dual monitors can be a real bitch on your system if you don't have something that handles it well.

Food for thought, I suppose.
Good luck with it.

[eyewoo]

Two monitors are certainly worth it, but you don't need to use a graphics card with two outputs. Simply purchase a cheap 2nd card for the 2nd monitor. Since you'll probably just be using the 2nd monitor for graphics program resources, it won't be important to have it high quality.

As long as you have a spare slot, a 2nd card is easy... Just plug it in.

This advice refers to PCs... Not sure if the same holds true for a Mac...
_________________
HonePie.com
tumblr blog
digtal art

[Jaymo]

How do you project the two screens on your wacom? Stretched, so you "lose" half of the tablets surface? Or do you navigate the second screen with mouse?

[B0b]

i've got a project looming that will require me to have 2 monitors, i'm planning on purchasing 2xViewsonic P90f's and a 3Dlabs VP870..

i used to run a 19 and a 17 way back when i had my Matrox G400, but those were b4 i got in2 3D..

[eyewoo]

Jaymo...

I do it by stacking my monitors and twisting the Wacom 90 degress. There is a Wacom setting to set it in portrait mode. So the top half is the top resources monitor and the bottom half is the bottom, drawing monitor. Notice in the image below that I keep the PShop navigator window very large on the top monitor. That way, I can always see the whole image when I'm zoomed in on the lower drawing monitor.

To stack them, I just nailed some boards together to create a cubby for the bottom monitor and a shelf for the top one. The cubby also shields a lot of the room light from the drawing monitor. Works well for me.

I also have my keyboard elevated on runners so I can scoot the tablet under it or pull it out over the tablet.


_________________
HonePie.com
tumblr blog
digtal art

[faB]

How about a GForce 2 MX and a GForce 3 TI 200 ? Sounds like trouble : for one, the driver would be the same for both cards, the one 'unified' driver from NVidia, but would it run BOTH cards ?

PS: I see a PCI card is often mentionned as the scondary gfx card.. would it be because running 2 AGP cards is resource hungry or because most people have 1 AGP slot or because simply you HAVE to have a PIC secondary card ?
_________________
"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a KING PRAWN !" -- Pepe.
selfportraits & stuff

[soogarrush]

[Deckard]

I don't have a digital camera, so an `alt+printscreen' will have to do.

Today..
GeForce2 MX 64MB AGP @ 1600x1200 on 19", and FireGL 1000 PRO 8MB @ 1024x768 on 15".


A year ago..
Geforce2 MX 64MB AGP @ 1280x1024 on 15", and FireGL 1000 PRO 8MB @ 800x600 on 15". Goblin by Mikael Noguchi.


As you can see, two screens helps alot.
_________________
"It would be quicker to train an APE!"
-- Basil Fawlty

[zak]

im not looking to steal youre thunder, but i have a quick question that might fit in here aswell. if you dont want it here ill taske it out.
basically i got a dual monitor radeon 8500. its really sweet, but i get one adapter thing with it that i have to use. i tried plugging it in, and it doesnt fit. all teh pins are ihn the same place, but they seem offa different size. well the wide pin does anyway. so what im asking. are there different kinds of adapters, or have i just been screwed out of a decent adaptor?

[Jaymo]

@eyewoo: Woah, that's an interesting approach. Though I'd dislike to stack monitors upon each other; panoramic view sounds more ergonomic to me. Yet thanks for showing your setup!

[B0b]

[B0b]

[faB]

alt printscreen grabs just the active window if I remember well
_________________
"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a KING PRAWN !" -- Pepe.
selfportraits & stuff

[Deckard]

I said alt+prinstcreen, but that is obviously wrong, since the windows taskbar is present, printscreen it is.

faB: You are correct, alt+printscreen grabs the active window.
_________________
"It would be quicker to train an APE!"
-- Basil Fawlty

[B0b]

well they say you learn something new everyday, & i just did v useful 2 know that alt+printscreen grabs an active window..

[B0b]

[zak]

thats the sucker. i got a converter for the while socket, but it doesnt fit :/[/img]

[B0b]

ahhh DV converter.. take it you've mailed ATI and told them?

[zak]

nope, i really should, shouldnt i?

[B0b]

thats usually my way of working, something doesn't fit or isn't working that should from a manufacturer, get on the horn or mail 'em

[MrSmith]

[eyewoo]

Stretched...

With XP on a PC, it all happens automatically as soon as your computer knows it has two monitors attached. I'm pretty sure it works the same way with WIN98 and Win2000. Don't know about the Macs, but my bet is it works that way as well.

By default, when you move the pen past the halfway point, the cursor automatically shows up on the other monitor.

Once you have the two monitors set up, then you can do some tweaking in the Wacom configuration program.

I like to twist my tablet (a 9 x 12) 90 degrees and use the Wacon config program to set it in portrait mode. That way I use every inch of the tablet and end, effectively, with two split areas that are 9 x 6 each.
_________________
HonePie.com
tumblr blog
digtal art

[JFreak]

I've always been a PC user and know all the tricks and shortcuts for them, but I just recently started to use Macs. They're great machines but I miss my knowledge of shortcuts and hotkeys. Anybody know how to "printscreen" on a Mac? or any websites with useful Mac shortcuts...
I should probably do a google search, but I figured the talented people at Sijun might know.
_________________
Mike
Nahum 1:7

[sic1]

Ahh, I've gotta get setup for dual monitors! I have a new radeon 9700 comin for christmas, and I've got an old 15" mon... but err no room!

Anyway, JFreak:

To make a screenshot on the mac, you do: Apple+Shift+3
It will make a Picture file for you.
_________________
0phd4: "UPS is guaranteed to deliver, apparently even when the item is out of stock"

[B0b]

[B0b]

hehe just saw the last part in ur post sic1 , i thought it was just about the Radion .. DOH!

[DrunkenMoNk]

Print Screen
Cmd+Shift+3 for copying the entire screen to the clipboard
Cmd+Shift+4 for copying a selection you make of the screen to the clipboard

Quite possibly the most annoying things about Mac's and Pc's is the fact that the mac's cmd button has the same function as the pc's ctrl button, but are in different places. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I end up pressing alt on my keyboard at home on my pc when trying to push ctrl.

If your using a mac try all the pc ctrl+ shortcuts with cmd instead, that shold help.

Two Monitors
It's definately useful, in Photoshop you can use one screen to show your work and the other to hold all your palletes etc... Works well with 3D Modeling as well, if you can afford it why not?

[Edit: the cmd key on a mac in case you don't know is either the key with an apple picture on it or a squiggly box icon ]

[B0b]

the 'Apple' key as most N00b Mac users call it is known to the 'Geek' Mac users as the 'Command' Key (its in the mac manual )