1

HI, I have a spare nvidia graphics card I would like to use towards a dual monitor set up but the GPU in my pc is an ATI, would it cause issues if these were installed side by side?

Also am I correct in assuming I need two cards for a dual set up?

I am using Pinguy 11.04.

1

2 Answers 2

4

You would only need one card if the card has both a VGA and a DVI input like the one in the image.

Red arrow points to VGA and the black arrow points to DVI input

Graphic Card

1
  • Oh cool, I have HDMI and DVI so I will try it out. Thanks for your help,
    – Dobbie03
    Jun 4, 2011 at 21:55
1

Both nvidia and ati have their own ways of handling dual-screens. I see no reason why the kernel would not support two video drivers simultaneously; however i doubt you'll get them to play nice.

I suspect you'll end up with each screen gaining its own x-server. Essentially this means you'll be running two full desktops off the same computer, i.e. you won't be able to interact between the two monitors.

Investigate xinaramma, which is X's (not the more device dependent ati/nvidia) way of handling these situations. Its possible that with this you can unify your desktops.

In short, there shouldn't be any issues if you just plug in your card and see (although connecting the hardware might be a challenge depending on the ammount of power/motherboard connectors you have spare,) but I expect you'll have to do some manual configuration to come to the solution you want.

1
  • 1
    Sweet I think I will just go with the dual output on my current card rather than mess around. Thank you for your answer though.
    – Dobbie03
    Jun 4, 2011 at 22:48

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .