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How many people are using dual monitors, and what is your setup? Are they worth the expense?

I used a second monitor for a while, but the whole thing took up too much room. (I just used one of my old 17" as the second monitor) In a better situation it could be useful, but I didn't get enough benefit.

Two monitors are great. I have 2 LG Flatron CRT 17's set up side by side along with a tv monitor(I do a lot of video editing). Two monitors are great for everything from video/photo through to Word and email. It just makes everything a bit quicker not having to change between apps and it is not expensive if you still use CRT. Does take a bit more room but worth every inch.

I have used dual monitors for years and couldn't do without it. I have 2x Dell 24" LCD's. It is more than a meter wide and very excessive but also handy.

Once I move house I'm going to get a better table with more room.



I did run four monitors for a while but that was just stupid.

Crazy

Can someone pass me a tissue to wipe off the drool after the pictures in the last post.

I just looked at your 4 monitor setup I am looking at adding a second 17', but will have to buy a dual port video card as mine only supports a single monitor.

I think that the main advantage of two monitors is to have a largish high quality unit for the image itself in PhotoShop and a smaller devil-may-care unit for the tools.

Beyond that I'd have no need that I can think of (but I am sure plenty of advice to the contrary will ensue).

Cheers,

Exactly what Sheetshooter said. I use 19" LCD as main monitor for image and 17" LCD for tools, pallettes etc. Fairly cheap to do these days and multiple LCDs don't take up too much room.

I recently went down the dual monitor pathway and I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. I kept my 19" CRT monitor as the primary and use a funky smaller 17" LG LCD...it does as people have said make things and workflows just that little bit quicker and sooo much more convenient! Let us know how you get on.

petal666 wrote:I have used dual monitors for years and couldn't do without it. I have 2x Dell 24" LCD's. It is more than a meter wide and very excessive but also handy.

Once I move house I'm going to get a better table with more room.



I did run four monitors for a while but that was just stupid.

Crazy

I got exact the same setup, its great especially you have NC, PS and a few other programs open all at the same time ... you can finally manage to move the tool bars away from the photos.

petal666, do you have color tone problem with your Dell 24? Both mine 24 inch have pretty bad color tonage.

I was able to do a deal when I upgraded my whole system. dual 19" LCD screens. I do a lot of audio and some video as well. But love the move

Petal666... Love the 24" screens. viery nice, but that 4 screen set up

If you do go Dual, then make sure you run UltraMon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) - its a great app. Creates a second taskbar on the second screen so windows on it are on that task bar. Handy other features too.

Oneputt

You know you and technology don't mix

Dual monitors is fairly easy, but make sure you get a decent monitor. If you are going LCDs, check the specs. You will find many LCDs do not have accurate colour reproduction, strange backlighting and other effects.

Also 19" LCDs only have the same max res as 17" LCDs so you will not get any extra screen real-estate - just bigger.

nice screens petal but for the love of jeebus get a new desk. thats a crime.

anyway back OT dual is very nice to have i'll hopefully have a couple of 19 crt's on my next computer up from 17" on this i even have dual 15's on my server hehe you also don't need a dual head video card just get an old PCI graphics card it really doesn't need to be anygood my server dual mons run one off a GF2 and one of a 2 meg PCI card

nodabs wrote:nice screens petal but for the love of jeebus get a new desk. thats a crime.

That's not his desk; just his monitor stand. His real desk is at the other end of the house, from where he can still everything very clearly, and where he has a nice desk, next to the automatic cappuccino drip-feed system.

yeah, the desk is a joke, but I've not go room for anything better. I'll be moving soon and will get a nice desk then.

I have a vew issues with the colour on these LCD's, which would be fixed when I get some calibration gear. I can't even get them to match at the moment let alone both to look right. it's impoved since that photo was taken and I have one of them almost right, just from calibrating by eye.

I tried the dual monitor for while but did not like the setup, I'm back to the single Mitsubishi 22" and few other 20"/ 21" LCD on difference PCs.

Birddog114 wrote:I tried the dual monitor for while but did not like the setup, I'm back to the single Mitsubishi 22" and few other 20"/ 21" LCD on difference PCs.

Just buy an apple 30' display (works with pcs) and say goodbye to a big crack down the middle of your workspace. If you like the crack, you are always welcome to buy 2x30 inches.

I think that one 30 inch dispay can show a D2h image at 100%!:

2560x1600=4 096 000

I've been using dual CPU for about 10yrs & dual monitor for about 4yrs.

Current setup is Athlon64 x2 3800+ wih 21" & 19" CRT.

I genuinely could not make it through a whole with a single CPU & single monitor setup.

I built a dual Opteron system (4GB RAM) with 19" and 24" monitors.

Mike you impress me, building your own dual system.

Greybeard you really impress using dual CPU PC systems for ten years! Was that socket 4 or socket 5 architecture? Was it early Pentium 30, 66 or 75, maybe 100 ten years ago? Or 486DX 100 which was still popular then against the first pentiums? I didn't even realise dual architecture was readily available then. I remember selling 4.77mhz 086 systems, which is just a little way down on the Athlon 64s you have now

... Obsolete ...

Adam, you can't go past a compact cassette tape drive You wonder how we got by?

Glen wrote:Mike you impress me, building your own dual system.

Greybeard you really impress using dual CPU PC systems for ten years! Was that socket 4 or socket 5 architecture? Was it early Pentium 30, 66 or 75, maybe 100 ten years ago? Or 486DX 100 which was still popular then against the first pentiums? I didn't even realise dual architecture was readily available then. I remember selling 4.77mhz 086 systems, which is just a little way down on the Athlon 64s you have now

My first dual was pentium 133 on a tyan board, running NT3.51 with 128MB EDO(and I still have it!) woo-hoo, the power. it was '95/'96 not 100% of exact 0-day.
currenly have 8 boxes + 3 x notebooks in my home(operational/in use). 4 are duals - p3 650, p3 1G, athlon xp 2G & the athlon64 x2. probably got enuff scattered bits to build another half doz boxes.

VK4CP wrote:Glen, I just had a (pleasant) flashback to my first PC... a Coco 2 with a massive 64Kb of RAM, and a compact cassette tape drive!!!


....ahhh!!!

....yeah, still got my commo 64 & 128 with all their bits too. quite a few other antiques in dark corners here and there.

Greybeard you would have been ahead of your time then! From memory I even remember there was a mid sized company called Dual, such was the novelty of dual processors then. Old boxes seem to multiply around the house don't they?

Glen wrote:Greybeard you would have been ahead of your time then! From memory I even remember there was a mid sized company called Dual, such was the novelty of dual processors then. Old boxes seem to multiply around the house don't they?

ya just never know when that EISA 486 HP net server with twin 1GB SCSI HD's 80MB RAM and genuine Novell full length EISA NE2000 10base2 cards will come in handy...