Three Monitors

That all depends on what the hardware is. Onboard video would only work if your motherboard supports running onboard (which usually appears as an AGP video card) and the real AGP slot at the same time. Since you didn't bother to specify what motherboard you are trying to do this on we don't know (you didn't even specify the operating system, or whose make of GeForce4 Ti 4400). In theory you should be able to add a PCI video card and use it, but without knowing what PCI video card you intend to use, what motherboard it will be on and what operating system you are using there is no way to tell you what to expect. It might work. It might not work. It might only allow you to use the PCI card as your primary device, meaning that your AGP cards capabilities get shafted. It depends entirely on the specifics, of which you have given zero.

If you want to be sure of full support on 3 monitors, stop playing with consumer level gamer cards and buy one of the NVIDIA Quadro NVS cards that support 4 DVI outputs.

I've been thinking about this too (except my card is a radeon 9700.)

Have you seen this?

What I'd like to know is, will it span the desktop over all 3 monitors or will one of them just be a clone (or something else entirely)? If not, what's the point in the 3rd monitor (the one on the second card)?

Cheers

I have used an nVidia card with only one out, and a PCI card (nVidia also) and I had a dual monitor setup that way. I don't know why you would have trouble putting in a PCI card and having it work. I was using Windows XP at the time. Only God knows that could go wrong doing this using Linux. (depending on the distro, you will probably be fine)

Did the 2 monitors allow for an extended desktop or just a clone?

Quote:

I've been thinking about this too (except my card is a radeon 9700.) Have you seen this? What I'd like to know is, will it span the desktop over all 3 monitors or will one of them just be a clone (or something else entirely)? If not, what's the point in the 3rd monitor (the one on the second card)? Cheers

I've got an AGP Radeon 9700 (non-pro) and a PCI Radeon 9200 and they work fine. Just plug the new card (the PCI one) and you are good to go. You can enable/configure the monitors as you would normally do if you had just one (from the control panel). You can either clone the desktop on all displays or arrange a single one that spans all of them.

Check the following URL for an app that creates a taskbar for every additional monitor. It's shareware (30 days trial), you can pay for the license or simply reinstall it. http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

PS: You have Win XP, right?

I have 1 computer with 2 monitors and a second computer with only one. Makes for quite a workstation.

If you have another computer you can use MaxiVista. That's what I plan on doing when I get my second Samsung 172x.