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The goal: to build a high-performance, multimedia-enabled multi-monitor system.
Hardware
- AGP Nvidia GeForce3 - primary monitor
using an ASUS V8200 Deluxe with 64 MB RAM, TV out, video in
- PCI Nvidia GeForce2 MX - 2x for the secondary monitors
using eVGA e-GeForce2 MX PCI cards with 32 MB RAM
I decided for Nvidia for the following reasons:
- they make the best-performing video card available at the moment: the GeForce3
- the new 12.41 drivers are stable and feature-rich
- a variety of PCI cards are available
Boards are available from several manufacturers. I decided mostly based on availability, most cards will perform approximately the same.
Display Properties on Windows 2000
One of the advantages of Nvidia is also that they have a very varied product line, with all cards using the same drivers. If you don't need the best 3D performance and video in/out features, just replace the GeForce3 with an inexpensive AGP GeForce2 MX. And for the secondary cards, you can get a TNT2 instead of the GeForce2 MX, at less than half the cost. If you only do 2D and video on the secondary cards, this will work just as well.
Software
For the operating system, I decided on Windows 2000, for the following reasons:
- supports OpenGL with multiple monitors
- better drivers
- best Microsoft operating system
All testing was done with the Nvidia 12.41 reference drivers.
I also did basic testing on other operating systems:
Windows 98/Me: works fine, but the drivers have an annoying bug: there was always a disabled 4th monitor listed, even though only 3 video cards were installed, and none of them a TwinView card. Removing the monitor in Device Manager didn't help. I tested with the 7.56, 11.01, 12.41 and 12.90 drivers.
Windows XP RC1: works just as well as on Windows 2000, I used the same 12.41 drivers.
Linux: works fine, I tested on Mandrake Linux 8 using the default nv driver. That's the first video card configuration that worked without problems under Linux on my system. I didn't test any of the advanced features, such as OpenGL and video/DVD.
Features
Display quality
Here's one advantage of using cards from the same chipset manufacturer: colors are approximately the same on each card, making monitor calibration a lot easier. Display quality and drawing speed are good, as expected. I haven't tested with high resolutions though, only up to 1024x768.
3D
Here's where this system really shines, 3D speed and quality is excellent on all monitors. The GeForce3 is simply amazing, and the GeForce2 MX cards are very powerful as well.
A disappointment was the multi-monitor OpenGL support: as with most cards on Windows 2000, you can run OpenGL applications on the primary monitor without disabling secondary monitors. But in addition to this, Nvidia is one of the few manufacturers who supports OpenGL acceleration on secondary monitors as well. Unfortunately, this feature doesn't work with the GeForce3, even though the Nvidia documentation states that you can mix different chipsets.
If I enabled the 'Advanced Multiple Monitors' option, all OpenGL applications simply crashed during startup. I then used one of the GeForce2 MX cards as primary and disabled the GeForce3, and everything worked fine: OpenGL apps were fully accelerated on both GeForce2 MX cards, and windows could be moved from monitor to monitor without problems. The only limitation is that windows can't stretch across multiple monitors.
So if you need OpenGL on multiple monitors, you should stick to GeForce2 MX cards. TNT/TNT2 combinations also work fine, but are a lot slower.
TV out
My ASUS card has both S-Video and Composite TV out. As soon as a TV is hooked up, you can change the output device in Display Properties from monitor to TV. Changing the output device does not require a reboot, which is a great improvement over earlier drivers. TV out is very useful for watching DVDs or playing games.
Video/DVD
Video quality and performance is excellent on every monitor, thanks to overlay support. What's currently lacking are video player applications with real multi-monitor support. Such an application should be able to run on any monitor, both in a window and fullscreen, and it should be able to stay in fullscreen mode while you work on the other monitor(s). Update: check out the Zoom Player, works quite well.
Windows Media Player has quite good multi-monitor support, but it switches out of fullscreen mode when you work on something else. As far as I know, there isn't a single commercial DVD player that runs on secondary monitors; but it would be possible: I'm using a Microsoft sample DVD player for developers, and it works great on secondary monitors. DVD playback is excellent on both the GeForce3 and the GeForce2 MX.
Video capture
ASUS includes the standard Nvidia WDM capture driver. The driver works fine together with Nvidia's reference drivers, you don't need to use ASUS drivers. It also worked fine with all applications I tested, for example the new Microsoft Producer beta and Ulead VideoStudio. The capture preview worked only on the GeForce3, and only if it was the primary monitor. Unfortunately the capture driver doesn't support hibernation.
TV Tuner
A stand-alone TV tuner is available for Nvidia cards with video-in, called Personal Cinema. The device receives the TV signal and sends the video to the video-in port, the audio to the sound card. AnandTech has more on Personal Cinema, I haven't tested it myself.
Competition
ATI comes close with their excellent RADEON cards, available in AGP and PCI versions, and with video-in/out features. But the current RADEON can't match the GeForce3, and from what I've heard, ATI's Windows 2000 drivers are still a bit lacking performance-wise.
Matrox can't compete in the performance market with their current offerings, and 3Dlabs doesn't have any competitive consumer-level products.
More information
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