dual output video card with independent resolution

[videofan]

hi there,

i'm looking for a video card with dual output (i.e., to connect two different crt or tft monitors) and independent resolution (e.g., output 1: 1024x768@85Hz, output 2: 640x480@60Hz).
could anybody help me select it? any restrictions or tips i should know?

thanks and cheers,
videofan

[UGAthecat]

for ATI or NVIDIA cards, look for 'dual display' in the description of the features.
another thing to look for is, on ATI cards, if HYDRAVISION is a listed feature, you can use 2 different displays with different res and refresh rates. for nVidia, the equvilent to Hydravision is called nView.
If your in to gaming at all: any ati 8xxx card, the 9000 and 9100(really a rebadged 8500) all support DirectX 8.1, and the 9500 and higher numbered cards support DirectX 9.
For nVidia, all cards that have "MX" in the name are based on the geforce 2, and should be avoided like the plague (only support directx 7). You should be able to find a geforce 3 (supports directx 8) for about the same price as a geforce 4mx, and if you want better performing directx 8 support than the geforce 3, get a geforce 4. if you want directx 9 support, wait for geforce fx to become readily available.
other +'s and -'s for each:

ATI:
+ Low end cards support more features than nVidia's similarly priced low end cards
+ TV Output on 8xxx and newer cards use inhouse designed chip which works quite nicely
+ better dvd decoding features, and the 9700 (maybe 9500 too) have built in filtering software for tv capture, and eventually with a driver update they will do hardware acceleration for Divx (for HDTV resolution files
+ All in Wonder cards are the best tv/video in & out/capture/gaming all in one cards available. 'Remote Wonder' that comes with the AIW cards is pretty damn cool.
+/- historically poor driver support, although this has improved quite a bit recently, they still don't update nearly as often as nvidia, which could be looked at as a good or a bad thing

nvidia:
+ they sell their chips to a large number of other video card manufacturers, which allows you to get cards fairly cheap, although ATI has been extra competitive lately
+ frequently updated drivers occasionally provide pretty decent performance boosts.
+ they generally come out with the 'next generation' of video cards about 6 months before ATI, although they are actually behind ATI right now because of all the time they spent on the XBox and nforce chips
+/- nVidia takes the brute force approach, so compared to similarly priced ati cards, they tend to perform slightly better, but support less features. Note that not many games use these 'non-supported' features, which keeps this from being a very big minus.

I'm sure there are more for both, but i'm to dain bramaged to remember right now
ok, well, i'm done being longwinded :)

[videofan]

thanks for your suggestions, UGAthecat

has anybody [shareable] working experience with matrox cards, in particular with parhelia?

[Ramirez]

I’d suggest you to check out Leadtek’s Web Site (http://www.leadtek.com/3d.htm); they have many DualHead Cards in their range, my friend just bought one of those a few days ago (GeForce3 Ti 200)
He hooked it up to a two CRT Monitors, and is works like a charm, crisp and clear.(TV-Out is disabled when you’re using it like this, only two (RAMDACS.)

Just one more thing.
@UGAthecat> EVERY Geforce4mx (http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/vga/A180_DDRTH_myvivo.asp) series cards natively supports DirectX8 API.Dunno why you keep saying they aren’t.

[UGAthecat]

@Ramirez
I know nvidia claims the geforce 4mx supports directx8, but they are bending the truth by quite a bit. Try running 3dmark's pixel shader and vertex shader tests on a geforce 4mx card. The tests will fail with a message 'no hardware support'
Without hardware support for vertex shaders and pixel shaders, a video card does not fully support directx 8.
Nvidia's claim of support for directx8 is based on the fact that any game designed to run on directx 8 will run on a geforce 4 mx. And they will run, but they will do it much slower than on a card that truely supports (or to be more accurate, accelerates) directx 8's required features. Even directx 9 games will run on a geforce4mx.
My main point was that for the same price as most geforce4mx cards, you can get a geforce3, which has better gaming support. Truely the best nvidia card (most bang for the buck) is the Geforce4TI 4200.
take a look here for more info about the geforce 4mx: http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20020206/geforce4-06.html

The only true advantages of a Geforce4MX over any variety of Geforce2 is better memory management (gives a decent performance boost), nview dual monitor support, and rudimentary dvd hardware acceleration (offloads slightly more of the dvd processing from the cpu than an ATI Rage 128 does, but still less than any ATI Radeon card, although with a cpu speed greater than ~1ghz this is a moot point because the cpu can more than handle the dvd decoding without any help)

[Ramirez]

Hmm... Interesting remark about NVIDIA bending the truth, IMO what you wrote above about GF4 cards being only DX7 Compliant it's a pure bend of truth also. ;)
Yes, none of the GF4 support pixel and vertex shaders, NVIDIA had to cut-off some goodies in order to make it cheap and not competitive in regards to their line of GF3 cards. Nevertheless the fact still remains,>GF4 cards do fully support DX8<,only those two not quite vital features aren't supported.Besides that it's obvious that this card isn't recommend to any serious gamer,and I wouldn't dare to claim anything else.

.P.P
Just wanted to clear that up, no offence.:)

[UGAthecat]

no offense taken(and none intended in my post either). I actually forgot to say one thing I meant to, which is that there is a big difference between supporting (everything works, whether done by the cpu or the gfx card) and fully hardware accelerating (everything is done by the graphics card). Which is why I said they are just bending the truth, cuz they can claim support, but they can't claim it's fully hardware accelerated. I originally meant to say that it's not hardware acclerated, but being a gamer in addition to a video freak, for me hardware acceleration = support, so I slipped and just said 'support'.

Anyway, back on topic:
for the main producers of graphics cards I can think of right now, each one has a name that they put on their products that will let you know if it supports multiple monitors at different resolutions.
ATI calls it Hydravision
NVidia calls it nView
SiS calls it Double Scene
Matrox just calls it Multi Display.
S3 and PowerVR don't offer multiple display support from what I can tell.
any other manufacturer is probably using the chips of one of the above, but may use a different name if they even support multiple displays.

Matrox is more friendly towards multiple display users, because they actually give the feature a name that non-compgeeks can understand :) and, some of their cards suppor 3 monitors (at different resolutions) instead of just 2 like everyone else. I think they've also been doing longer than everyone else, but I'm not sure. Parhelia which you specifically asked about definitely can support 3 monitors, and is supposted to be a respectable 3d card, but I'm not sure how it compares to the others.
If you want more than 2 monitors with any of the other chip manufacturers, you can get another video card that uses PCI instead of AGP, and let windows take care of managing the multiple displays.