Vista - 2 monitor setup

[nemophoto]

I've been running a dual monitor setup for three years now. (How I survived with one, I don't know!) Back when I ran Windows XP, you needed two separate cards to run two calibrated monitors, regardless of how many DVI ports a card had.

I need to replace one of my cards (the screen goes blank for a moment periodically), so I was looking at the newer GPU cards. Since Photoshop can now make use of a cards GPU horsepower, I started wondering whether two cards are still needed on a Windows box, if you run two monitors. Back on Windows XP, each card required it's own LUT, and each card could not have more than one LUT. I haven't seen anything regarding Vista.

Thanks for the help.

Nemo

[Misirlou]

Absolutely not. I ran two monitors from Vista from one card with no problems. The only potential gotcha is that some monitor calibration vendors don't make it easy to reload independent monitor profiles easily without rebooting. If you leave User Account Control enabled on Vista, it can dump your profiles when delivering a UAC message. So you need to reload them. If your calibration s/w makes that difficult, you could have to reboot. I use the ColorVision stuff for calibration, and that makes it all pretty easy - you can load any profile to either monitor at any time.

But, I would skip Vista and go straight to Windows 7 anyway, for a number of reasons. Vista can't do anything that W7 can't do better. I'm writing this from a cheap netbook running W7. I have an external monitor attached, and both it and the internal LCD are calibrated just fine.

[nemophoto]

Thank for the info. I'm actually fine with Vista. Been running it for over a year now -- no major problems. However, I'm leary of the Vista to W7 upgrade, so I'll sit tight for a while. So you are saying that the system will now recognize two LUTs for one card?

I use to use Colorvision for profiling, but hated that I "upgraded" when the Spyder3 came out, only to find the software I upgrade to was a dumber version to what I used with the Spyder2. There was no (at the time) upgrade path to the Elite (which hadn't even been released). I already owned i1, so I now use that.

What graphics card do you use? I was contemplating a fast ATI with 1GB of GDR3 memory for the two ports. I've used nVidia cards for years (and am using two right now).

[Misirlou]

Thank for the info. I'm actually fine with Vista. Been running it for over a year now -- no major problems. However, I'm leary of the Vista to W7 upgrade, so I'll sit tight for a while. So you are saying that the system will now recognize two LUTs for one card?

Yes. Two totally independent LUTs, one for each monitor.

W7 handles color in a more Mac-like manner. It has a utility for calibration via eye for those who don't have spyders and so forth. I expect it will solve many of the color problems that so many complained about when Vista was new. I never had any difficulty with Vista myself.

use to use Colorvision for profiling, but hated that I "upgraded" when the Spyder3 came out, only to find the software I upgrade to was a dumber version to what I used with the Spyder2. There was no (at the time) upgrade path to the Elite (which hadn't even been released). I already owned i1, so I now use that.

What graphics card do you use? I was contemplating a fast ATI with 1GB of GDR3 memory for the two ports. I've used nVidia cards for years (and am using two right now).

I have an ATI X1950 pro card that's over a year old now. Works fine. I'm sure something newer would be even faster, and maybe have DirectX 10 compatability, which is great for games. Newer cards are probably better at handling HD video, which may or may not matter to you.

I'm still using a Spyder II, but I switched to using ColorEyes DisplayPro software to drive it. It's expensive, but it produces cleaner mid tones than the ColorVision apps do on their own. I never tried that combo with Vista.

[nemophoto]

Thanks for the clarification. Guess I'll head to newegg and order a new card.