i have 2 moniters, one above and one below, for outgauge stuff. i have a 19" hdtv, non widescreen, and a 15" or so pc moniter. i have the tv hooked up to hdmi, and the other to vga.

i want a 3 moniter horizontal span, along withthe bottom moniter. my hdtv will still use hdmi, but should i use hdmi or dvi for the others? i want high definition, but dont care about sound. is my best bet also with pc monitors or hdtvs?

the graphics card my friend recomended to get is this http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadro2mxr.html

is it good? and i can not find a price

Your friends an idiot - Quadro's aren't for gaming, at all.

Forget how you want to connect everything for a second, what do you have now, and what would you like? Do you need more screens or what?

DVI / HDMI > VGA.

I don't know what your friend was thinking. Quadro2 is not a gaming GPU and it's old (it's based on GeForce 2).

I am guessing your 19" hdtv is either 1366x768 or 1440x900. In either case you want the other monitors to be the same resolution and size for triple head gaming.

DVI and HDMI are essentially the same. HDMI has sound also, but you don't have to use that feature if you don't want to. It doesn't really matter which of those two you use. The GPU you have/will buy will have max one HDMI so, you might need a get a DVI-HDMI adapter if your monitors of choice don't have DVI connectors.

As for actually using triple head in games you have three choices:
1. Any GPU + Matrox Triplehead2Go (TH2G costs something like 300€, only works if all three monitors have same resolution)
2. Radeon 5000-series GPU (only works if all three monitors have the same resolution)
3. Any two GPUs + SoftTH

Case 3 is the cheapest if you already have powerfull enough GPU (you only need to buy a very cheap 2nd GPU).

Case 2 would be good, except that you need one DisplayPort monitor/adapter (adapter price is about 100€) to make it work. The Radeon 5000-series has cheap options starting from 150€. But for triplehead you probably should look for 5850, which is about 250€. They might be out of stock in most places at the moment.
Keep in mind that the GPU needed for triple head gaming has to be quite powerful.

For the 4th monitor in case 2 you need one additional GPU (a cheap one will do). In case 3 you can use the 4th connector in the 2 GPUs. In case 1 you can use the 2nd connector in the GPU.

PS. I wouldn't ask that friend any PC related advice in the future.

For no3, you also either need to have 1 x Displayport monitor, or an active displayport to dvi adaptor, which costs approx $100 at the moment.
You might get away with using an hdmi-dvi adaptor, but I haven't seen anyone confirm that that works.

Quote from need :

For no3, you also either need to have 1 x Displayport monitor, or an active displayport to dvi adaptor, which costs approx $100 at the moment.

Thanks. I forgot about that one.

Quote :

You might get away with using an hdmi-dvi adaptor, but I haven't seen anyone confirm that that works.

DVI and HDMI are signal compatible. Only thing you lose is the sound.
Actually I am using one of those adapters at the moment and can confirm it works.

whoa, a lot of info...so what exactly do you need to know more?

Quote from geeman1 :

Thanks. I forgot about that one.DVI and HDMI are signal compatible. Only thing you lose is the sound.
Actually I am using one of those adapters at the moment and can confirm it works.

Yes, but are you using it with an ATI 5 series GPU, using the displayport, dvi port & hdmi-dvi adaptor, to give you triple-screen?

I've actually got an hdmi extender due to arrive myself, so will be able to see if it works when it does.

Quote from need :

Yes, but are you using it with an ATI 5 series GPU, using the displayport, dvi port & hdmi-dvi adaptor, to give you triple-screen?

Nope. But I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. The GPU does not know (or care) if there is a HDMI-HDMI or HDMI-DVI cable attached to the HDMI connector. The signal is exactly the same.

Unless you are using the wrong DVI connector with the HDMI connector. The HDMI connector has shared circuits with the one of the DVI connectors, so only one of those works at the time (afaik). Have you tried plugging the DVI cable to the other connector?
Or have you checked if the HDMI connector works at all?

Quote from logitekg25 :

whoa, a lot of info...so what exactly do you need to know more?

Your motherboard, your GPU, your monitors (the model), your OS. And most importantly your budget.

mother board, ummm.....check the screenie fot the info if you cant find it there tell me where i can

for the hdtv hooked up to the hdmi, it is a sylvania 19", and the other one, a gateway vga thing.

my budget is not very high, i will most likely ask for the card for christmas, and maybe a moniter or two, and a wall mount or something.

so as low of a price as i will get decent quality at the most stressed situation on my pc

Quote from logitekg25 :

mother board, ummm.....check the screenie fot the info if you cant find it there tell me where i can

Easiest way to find out what your motherboard is by opening the case and taking a look. It should say the model somewhere on the board. But while you are at it, you might as well look for the actual thing why I would have liked to know you motherboard model, that is what kind of expansion slots you have available.
If you have only one PCI-E 16x slot. PCI-E
(The longest slot in that picture). It will make using SoftTH a bit difficult since you can't plugin a second normal GPU. There are PCI-E 1x GPUs, but they are rare and expensive. You can also plug a PCI-E 16x card to a shorter slot, but it will require a bit of tinkering, which I don't recommend doing unless you know exactly what you are doing.
So in conclusion if your motherboard only has one PCI-E 16x slot, it will make SoftTH solution more difficult.

Quote :

for the hdtv hooked up to the hdmi, it is a sylvania 19", and the other one, a gateway vga thing.

So they are both 19" and 1360x768? You could use those two in your triplehead setup so you would need to buy only one monitor. You would lose the Outgauge display though, but it is an option if you are short on budget.

no the other one (gateway) is a 15" or something like that. i want 3 hd screens. i think i will go with 2 more pc monitors and eventuaaly repllce the hdtv with a monitor. a 19 inch, non widescreen is what i want, because my tv isnt widescreen

but how else can i find out what type of motherboard i have, without opening it

if it helps it is a studio 9 2 quad core precessor with 6 gb of ram

EDIT: mentioned above, my main screen is 1360X768 if it matters

Download CPU-Z and GPU-Z and look to see if anything jumps out at you.

Quote from logitekg25 :

no the other one (gateway) is a 15" or something like that. i want 3 hd screens. i think i will go with 2 more pc monitors and eventuaaly repllce the hdtv with a monitor. a 19 inch, non widescreen is what i want, because my tv isnt widescreen

You are not being clear at all what you have and you don't have. Anyway what you should get is 2 more monitors the same size as your hdtv, that is 19" and 1360x768. Then you would have total of three 19" screens with 1360x768 which would work well with triplehead gaming.

Quote :

but how else can i find out what type of motherboard i have, without opening it
if it helps it is a studio 9 2 quad core precessor with 6 gb of ram

Studio 9? Is it Dell or HP or what?

Nice product ID. :doh:

Quote from geeman1 :

Nope. But I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. The GPU does not know (or care) if there is a HDMI-HDMI or HDMI-DVI cable attached to the HDMI connector. The signal is exactly the same.

Unless you are using the wrong DVI connector with the HDMI connector. The HDMI connector has shared circuits with the one of the DVI connectors, so only one of those works at the time (afaik). Have you tried plugging the DVI cable to the other connector?
Or have you checked if the HDMI connector works at all?

Got the hdmi extender adaptor in this morning.
Long answer short - doesn't work.
You can get 2 screens working with any combination of displayport, hdmi & dvi.
But connect a third screen and it just doesn't work. The display screen doesn't get a signal at all, doesn't even recognise that there is a cable attached.
So looks like the only way to get it working on 3 screens, is to get a displayport monitor or get an active displayport adaptor.

Hmm. Now I am just confused. Yes, one screen has to be connected to the DisplayPort connector if you are using three monitors and you need an active adapter if it isn't a DisplayPort monitor.

The thing that confuses me what does that have to do with HDMI-DVI adapters or HDMI extenders?

Quote from logitekg25 :

mother board, ummm.....check the screenie fot the info if you cant find it there tell me where i can

for the hdtv hooked up to the hdmi, it is a sylvania 19", and the other one, a gateway vga thing.

my budget is not very high, i will most likely ask for the card for christmas, and maybe a moniter or two, and a wall mount or something.

so as low of a price as i will get decent quality at the most stressed situation on my pc

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but could you post that Ken Block picture please, Would be great to have as a background.

If not don't worry about it

-Sp33d

Not sure with the other 5 series cards, but with the 5770 I have, I have 1 Displayport, 1 HDMI & 2 DVI ports. I had come across a post on another forum about trying to get 3 displays through using the hdmi port.
As mentioned above though, it doesn't matter which combination of ports I try, I can only get 2 outputs working.

Quote from need :

Not sure with the other 5 series cards, but with the 5770 I have, I have 1 Displayport, 1 HDMI & 2 DVI ports. I had come across a post on another forum about trying to get 3 displays through using the hdmi port.
As mentioned above though, it doesn't matter which combination of ports I try, I can only get 2 outputs working.

You can only use DP + DVI + HDMI or DP + DVI +DVI. You can't use DVI + DVI + HDMI.

If you have 3 DVI/HDMI monitors you need a active DisplayPort -> DVI/HDMI adapter. The 5000-series cards have only 2 DVI/HDMI clock chips so you can't use more than 2 DVI/HDMI monitors at once without an active adapter.

The reason for ^ is because one of the DVI ports is connected too the HDMI in some way or another.

Quote from geeman1 :

You can only use DP + DVI + HDMI or DP + DVI +DVI. You can't use DVI + DVI + HDMI.

If you have 3 DVI/HDMI monitors you need a active DisplayPort -> DVI/HDMI adapter. The 5000-series cards have only 2 DVI/HDMI clock chips so you can't use more than 2 DVI/HDMI monitors at once without an active adapter.

Perhaps yous should have read my post properly.
It doesn't matter what combination of the ports I use, I can only get 2 displays working.
That includes using DP+HDMI+DVI.

Quote from need :

Perhaps yous should have read my post properly.
It doesn't matter what combination of the ports I use, I can only get 2 displays working.
That includes using DP+HDMI+DVI.

Do you have a DisplayPort monitor or one of those active adapters?

If yes, the adapter, the monitor or the GPU is faulty. If no, it isn't supposed to work.

http://auto.dcshoes.com/ for the background go the downloads and go crazy

dell studio 9, and i have a 19 inch hdtv....my main question other then the cards to get is if i get a monitor meant for pc will my tv be a few ms lagged? and will it be a big deal?

sorry if i am confusing, explaining has never been my strong suit

Quote from logitekg25 :

dell studio 9, and i have a 19 inch hdtv....my main question other then the cards to get is if i get a monitor meant for pc will my tv be a few ms lagged? and will it be a big deal?

No, there won't be any additional lag. Hdtv's are largely the same as monitors, only differences are the added tuner and maybe connectors for other stuff than PC's.

I tried googling Dell Studio 9, but couldn't find it. Does it have a regular computer case (a big box) or is it one of those small computers?