Dual monitors and svideo out on a radeon 9700

[nfnx]

hey guys i have a radeon 9700 with a duel lcd setup. i just got a lcd tv and want to have whatever im doing on the duel screen to be copied onto the lcd tv so i can play movies and watch it on the screen or even just browse the net from my bed.

any ideas how to do this? my card has a svideo out but i have to go into control panel and actually disable one monitor and replace it with the tv in order to get the signal.


is there any way i can get around this? perhaps buy a new cheap card?
is it software related? can i get a new control panel where it will give me the option of working with 2 monitors and one tv ?

any help is appreciated
thanks guy

[jollyeskimo]

So you want the TV out to clone one of the two other active outputs? Technically that's a running a third output, which the radeon 9x00 series simply isn't capable of doing.

I'm thinking that you'd either have to take one of the vga/dvi outputs, and hook it up to a box to get both a vga or dvi output, plus an additional svideo output for the tv.

Or, you go the route of getting a new card, then you'd have to use your primary AGP card as a clone setup (one for the multimon, one for the TV), and the second card would be a sort of crippled secondary. Of course you can get a card that's got triple outputs, but that's expensive and not totally realistic/practical.

[nfnx]

which of these options are economical?

[jollyeskimo]

extra PCI card (taken from ancient computer?)

pros: cheap, possibly even free
cons: limited performance, sometimes even limited resolutions

[myapple]

If you just want to use the lcd tv for dvd watching and not some intense gaming off the comp, get a cheap video card. a radeon 7000 or 7500 with s-vidout will be more than adequate and probably won't cost any more than $20-25 for the 32MB pci version. if u get anything crappier like a TNT or rageII, it might not support dvd playback.

[nfnx]

if i install two video cards, wotn there be a conflict between the two in my hardware setup?

[jollyeskimo]

It really depends....some work, some don't. There isn't a lot of documentation about how to really go at this, and I've tried a few setups with varying compatibility before sticking with a particular card.

I think a good rule of thumb is to try to avoid mixing the two big names like nvidia and ati, since they do have some heavy driver sets that might conflict more than just a simple driver like most old cards use.

[nfnx]

It really depends....some work, some don't. There isn't a lot of documentation about how to really go at this, and I've tried a few setups with varying compatibility before sticking with a particular card.

I think a good rule of thumb is to try to avoid mixing the two big names like nvidia and ati, since they do have some heavy driver sets that might conflict more than just a simple driver like most old cards use.


will running two vid cards heat up your system more? or will it risk any chance of overheating?
i have an extra ati 7200 i believe lying around

[jollyeskimo]

most of those older cards barely put out any heat.... and even if it does, it sholdn't be a big problem.

[nfnx]

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-VGA-Y-SPLITTER-CABLE-1-PC-to-2-Monitors_W0QQitemZ5851519240QQcategoryZ41999QQrdZ1 QQcmdZViewItem


does that work?