Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

heleos · 2011-03-20 06:00:34

I think it's time to retire my aging samsung 22" and buy a few 23" LED's to replace it.

My graphics card only has DVI out (x2), and the 3 monitors I'm looking at do not have dual DVI (either dual HDMI and DVI, or DVI/VGA/HDMI), so I would need adapters from DVI to HDMI/VGA. I'm guessing that's all handled at the adapter/hardware level, so linux should have no problem finding them, but if I'm hooking 1 up natively to DVI, and the other through an adapter (or both through adapters), will I notice any quality difference between the 2 monitors?

HaaTa · 2011-03-25 17:06:08

Going to VGA always means some degrading of quality for an LCD, as it has to convert from Digital to Analog then back to Digital in the LCD.

The adapters are just pass-through devices. I've often used DVI to HDMI adapters and they work fine. Sometimes you don't get full support for all the resolutions over HDMI (out of the box), but that's more of an issue with the LCD rather than the graphics card and the driver (I believe).

Anyways, you should be good but it depends the LCD.

klixu · 2011-03-25 19:26:32

Nvidia only supports two outputs per card. To get three screens with nvidia means that you have to use two cards. In case you have AMD/Ati, they support (as far as I remember) two of vga/dvi/hdmi and the rest must be displayport.

EDIT: ah, I was a bit confused by not reading properly, you're selecting from three monitors and not going plug in three monitors. VGA is fine, but you might want to go HDMI, I don't find the difference significant though.

EDIT2: rereading this, I'm guessing you're making a mistake between dual link DVI and single link DVI. Dual link is not two cables, it's a DVI cable with additional pins in it.

Last edited by klixu (2011-03-25 19:40:03)

Cyrusm · 2011-03-25 23:43:13

Personally I use my HDMI monitor as my main monitor and have the secondary monitor attatched to VGA. I can't really tell the difference in performance between the two, however I never work with anything terribly graphics intensive.

and it hurts to hear that my Samsung 22" is also 'aging' of course so is my 17" secondary I guess maybe that'll be my next investment...

heleos · 2011-03-25 23:54:46

Cyrusm wrote:

Personally I use my HDMI monitor as my main monitor and have the secondary monitor attatched to VGA. I can't really tell the difference in performance between the two, however I never work with anything terribly graphics intensive.
and it hurts to hear that my Samsung 22" is also 'aging' of course so is my 17" secondary I guess maybe that'll be my next investment...

Sorry about the aging comment

But this is the answer I was looking for! I don't want to have 1 monitor hooked up via HDMI and the other VGA and be able to see a noticeable difference between the 2. I don't do anything graphics intensive either.

Thanks for all the responses!

Korrode · 2011-03-26 03:56:30

Maybe i'm misunderstanding something... you say your video card as 2x DVI outputs... why wouldn't you just use those to run 2 LCD's?

@Cyrusm
Ya it sucks I have a 21" Samsung LCD and a 17" Philips CRT... guess it's time for us to upgrade to dual 24" LCD's or some such

Arch Linux

#1 2011-03-20 06:00:34

Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

#2 2011-03-25 17:06:08

Re: Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

#3 2011-03-25 19:26:32

Re: Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

#4 2011-03-25 23:43:13

Re: Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

#5 2011-03-25 23:54:46

Re: Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

#6 2011-03-26 03:56:30

Re: Dual Monitor Hook-up, DVI/VGA/HDMI?

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