which video cards supports up to 4 monitors?

[leepalao]

I need help. One of my cousin wants a computer at the 600 dollars range. The only thing I can't seem to find is ...this... He wants the computer to be able to output to up to 4 monitors. He said, at home, they're using a computer that support 2 monitors, and that if you put something in the middle of the screen, then u can see half on the 2 monitors... my take is that the screen is divided in 2 and display half on 1 monitor, the other half in the 2nd monitor. He also state that he's using windows 98, and that he has 2 different video card, 1 is pci. After doing some research, I found a webpage...

http://www.languru.com/multimon.htm

Now, should I get 4 different video card? 1 agp, and 3 pci? would that work? or are there 1 video card out there can have 4 output?? which video card is compatible? I'm looking at the range of 80 bucks if I just need to purchase 1.. or if i have to get 4 video card, then it's gonna be have to cheaper... let me know what option I have? thanks.

[audiyoda]

Any four head video card is going to cost major $$$$. My Appian (which is over two years old) cost me over $1200 at the time.

You can go 1 AGP dual head like the Matrox G550 or ATI Radeon VE and 2 PCI cards, or maybe just 1 Matrox Parhelia -- it's a three head card. But either way -- your budget's going to have to increase. The Parhelia is around $360 and one dual head AGP card is around $100. Throw in two PCI cards and you've spent at least $200 -- minimum. Running two PCI video cards along with one AGP card can be problematic -- you've taken up two PCI slots first, and there can be conflicts (regardless how easy that link you found makes it sound). And not just IRQ conflicts but driver conflicts and other resource conflicts. Going with a card with everything built into it is the way to go -- multiple cards is asking for trouble IMO.

-Craig

[Charliey]

if you get more the one card, make sure you dont get more then one ATI card, their drivers dont work nicely if you have more then 1 card in a system.

Although, an ATi card with something else will work. Right now im running an ATi Radeon 7500 AGP, and a Matrox Millenia 2mb PCI card, and they work nicely.

[HAL9000]

I thought that Matrox made one that supported up to 8.... I'll have to dig around to see if I can find that.

[Alaron]

Heres a Matrox card that supports 4. http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/t...d_g100_mms.cfm Is that the one you were thinking of HAL?

I think an AGP and a PCI combination of cards is your best bet leepalao. That will allow for 4 monitors without spending too much. Still might go over $80 but much less then that card above.

HTH

[HAL9000]

Could be... I was sure it was 8... maybe it was a different one I'm thinking of.

[leepalao]

thanks guys. I'm gonna go with a matrox g450 since the budget is 600, and the guy doesn't want any AMD, or intel's celeron.. he wants .... p4 1.8a. And beside, he said as long as it's more than 1 monitor for now, it's okay... If he wants more than 2 monitors, he'll have to upgrade more pci video card in the future...
Now, this system should be able to use 2 monitors to start with... I'm gonna put windows 2000 in it, will it work? I saw somewhere that with a feature include with windows 98, it can be done by adding another pci video.. but I'm not sure about 2000. Matrox should provide a software to view both monitors as one, or individually, right?? If not, what is the best bet? any software?

[Tuf]

Matrox will provide the software you need to utilize both monitors.

[glc]

I have a customer that has 5 systems all running dual monitors under Win2k - and all 5 of them have Matrox G550 cards. Two of them are running dual DVI LCD screens.