Does anyone have a multiple LCD screen setup?

**Choser** · 02-04-2004, 05:22 PM

Since WinXP supports however many displays you want, this makes it possible to run multiple apps for my carputer simultaneously.

My plan was to have a great touchscreen in the dash, molded to look as factory as possible. This would control music and video and the "standard" carputer ideas.

While my carputer will be set up to do a number of things, most of them are one-off, rarely used functions, and I can exit mediaengine and just run them there. However, there are some functions that I can see wanting to run for an extended amount of time.

Mainly, navigation and video game emulation. My setup will also include auxilary rca inputs mounted covertly in the passengers area (my car is a coupe). This lets ANY videogame console connect whenever wanted. (I'm not a big fan of permanently mounting a console into the car... they change often and I dont want to own two of any consoles, one for car and one for dorm.)

So, let me get to the point. Would a setup be possible where theres THREE vga controlled lcd screens in use be possible? One in the center dash, and one in each visor? The passenger visor would be dual wired to not just the computer, but also an rca input for direct interfacing with a video source. I understand that onboard video, as well as some dual vga outputting pci card, should do the trick.

But I've never used multiple screens on windowsxp before. Can the screens be different resolutions? Does a mouse drag across each screen? Can one be full screen while the other use windows? I hope someone has multiple display experience.

**BrotherMaynard** · 02-04-2004, 08:24 PM

Regarding your last paragraph, yes to all the questions. There is a small program that up to this point has worked flawlessly; it's called ultramon. I am using three different Nvidia cards on my bedroom computer with a 19" CRT in the center and a 15" LCD on each side at 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1024x768 respectively. No problems. When I installed the cards it didn't work right after I added the third but when I shut it down and just juggled them around in different slots the next time it came up fine. BTW Ultramon is not a necessity but you will like the features it offers. Windows XP is basic out of the box. One example: With Windows alone each of my screens would display the same desktop image but Ultramon lets you use a wide image and stretch it across all three.

**frodobaggins** · 02-04-2004, 08:58 PM

You will probably have problems with touchscreens though. Although you can add multiple touchscreens, how would you calibrate them to work on each screen ?

Ie, when you click on one of the non primary screens, the mouse would actually always move on the main screen.

**siueclipse** · 02-04-2004, 09:25 PM

the xenarc screens support multiple screens.. the software is configurable for each one.

**nadir_s** · 02-04-2004, 09:40 PM

is it possible to connect 2 VGA LCD's to 1 VGA port? I know it's sort of like a Y-adapter where you get to see the same thing on both screens, but i'm wondering if the quality of the signal degrades because there are 2 monitors trying to get the same feed.

thanks

**siueclipse** · 02-05-2004, 12:32 AM

there is no problem doing it that way. thats actually how im going to set mine up simply because with the m10000, you can't do it any other way. the m10000 does have tv out but it looks like **** in my current testing..