Best Video card for 2 monitors for PS CS

PB
Posted By
Paul_Barcewicz
Feb 10, 2004
Views
474
Replies
12
Status
Closed
I am buying/having built a new computer primarily to run PS CS. What can you suggest and what is the best video card for running PS CS on Win XP FOR TWO MONITORS? Matrox cards (Parhelia 128M) have been suggested by a knowledgable photographer friend, but Dell sells computers only with ATI cards. Is it worth the grief to have a Matrox card installed aftermarket, or is ATI just fine? Whch one? Other suggestions?

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

TD
Thee_DarkOverLord
Feb 10, 2004
Any Nvidia with dual output.
MA
mutator_accessor
Feb 10, 2004
I use an ATI All-In-Wonder PRO 9600. It has dual head setup, along with TV/Video/FM/DVD. Works great – fairly robust card. Drivers/calibration controls are top notch and each monitor has it’s own controls. I don’t use Adobe gamma at all. The card is available for US$199. I don’t know if Dell offers it or not.
RL
Robert_Levine
Feb 10, 2004
Get the card with the Dell and see if you like it. If not, then I would second the recommendation for the Matrox. In fact, last year I bought a Dell and got the cheapest card they had and pulled my G400 Max out of my old computer and used it in the new one.

Great card, great company. They keep their drivers updated regularly.

Bob
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Feb 10, 2004
Win XP FOR TWO MONITORS?

Do you need color management on both monitors? If that’s the case then don’t buy a Matrox Parhelia. In fact if I was you, I wouldn’t buy a dual-headed (or triple-headed) card. I would definitely buy two separate cards instead, but that’s just my opinion of course.


Regards
Madsen
(A Matrox Parhelia owner).
P
povimage
Feb 10, 2004
Yuppo.. If you want color management on both monitors, do NOT go with a single card. Instead, use one AGP and a second PCI card.

In fact, if you go with two boards, it’s safest to use boards with different chip sets AND from different manufacturers to make sure everything plays nicely together.

Keith
FN
Fred_Nirque
Feb 10, 2004
Bob,

Great card, great company. They keep their drivers updated regularly.

Unless you were one of the poor bunnies who forked over big $$$$ for a Matrox Marvel G400 (the "dual head" that wasn’t. Advertised as such, but turned out second "monitor" had to be a TV or flat panel…), then had to buy a G200PCI to run the second monitor, then upgraded to XP Pro and found, in the Matrox driver download page for Marvel G400 under XP drivers: "none intended" (as is still the case).

Then had absolutely no response to repeated emails to Matrox as to how you were expected to now use their expensive card with its full functionality.

Even the "display support only" driver supplied with XP Pro was a half-baked affair, I was forced to run with hardware acceleration backed off 2 notches to stop wierd display things happening (disappearing scroll bars in PS, for example), losing all sorts of cursor and diplay functionalities in the process.

From my point of view, then, lousy card, lousy company, who don’t give a toss about driver update or customer service.

Paul,

As per reply #1, then, – at least look at the nVidia dual head cards: I’m successfully using an Asus V9520 (nVidia GeForce FX 5200 chipset) which enables OptiCal colour management on my Sony primary monitor, and supports independent manual adjustment of colour on my secondary Mitsubishi monitor using the nVIEW desktop manager utility (making it simple to match the primary monitor). About one third the cost of a Matrox Parhelia, too.

My 5200-based card runs smoothly, flawlessly, and quickly, has AGP 8x, Memory Clock of 400MHz, Ramdac of 350MHz and 128MB DDR RAM. Hard to beat for the money and reliability.

Fred.
P
povimage
Feb 10, 2004
BTW: BOTH my AGP and PCI cards are dual display capable. But I prefer each to drive a single monitor, so I can color manage each monitor. It kinda sucks to find that palette colors aren’t accurate on the palette monitor otherwise.

My AGP card is an ATI Radeon 8500DV with 64mB onboard.. The PCI card is an nVidia Geforce 4 Mx420 with 64mB onboard as well.. No problem getting them to play well together.

Keith
O
Ol__Whozit
Feb 10, 2004
We bought the Matrox cards with our Dells, but yanked ’em both when we installed our ATI Radeon 9600’s. We could have gone to three monitors per PC, but that was starting to border on overkill… 😉

BTW, the Radeon on a Diamondton 19" monitor at 1200×1600 gives a whole new meaning to awsome display when utilizing the Adobe(tm) Photoshop(tm) program!!!
ND
Nick_Decker
Feb 11, 2004
Cora (or anybody else), do you have any experience with the Matrox P650 or P750 cards?

Thanks,

Nick
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Feb 11, 2004
Keith,

When you say that you can color manage each monitor, you mean that you can load two different monitor profiles in each LUT of your graphic cards, right? I mean when you go to Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Color Management, you see two different profiles for each monitor, or do they both use the same profile?

My problem is that I can’t load two different profiles for my two monitors. It seems as if the card only use one LUT, even if it has three outputs (Parhelia is a triple-head card). Because of this, the only "color management" I can get, is to load a profile for one of the monitors and adjust the other so it looks similar, but that seems impossible. I can’t adjust them so that an image viewed in Photoshop looks the same on both. I can’t even get close. My guess is that if my graphic card had more than one LUT (or if I had two graphic cards), it would be much easier to accomplish.


Regards
Madsen.
P
povimage
Feb 11, 2004
Thomas,

Yes, I can do it that way..

However there are two factors to consider..

1) Currently I’m only using a LUT for the main screen. I’m using the inbult color correction options of the nVidia Geforce 4 to match the two monitors.

2) In the VERY near future Pantone/Colorvision is supposedly going to be introducing an upgrade to Optical that will allow loading NOT just of individual LUTs for each monitor, BUT will effectively hack Windows XP to allow each monitor to be individually profiled, WITH that profile then loaded at startup. Since I already use Optical on my main screen, that’s how I plan on going — however for the Optical hack to work I am told you MUST have physically separate cards, not just a twin head card..

Keith
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Feb 11, 2004
Thanks Keith.

I’m also using OptiCAL, but are very close to buy one of the Eye-One packages instead. I’ve heard of the update from Pantone/Colorvision in this forum before, but it makes me sad to hear that it probably won’t work unless you have two graphic cards. Well, I had a strong feeling that it won’t but was hoping that it would work with a dual- headed (or triple-headed) card too somehow.


Regards
Madsen.

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections