Quad LCD Display

wat08

I have an irresistible urge to buy two more flat screens to give me a total of four monitors. Not too sure what I would do with the extra desktop space, but it would look so friggin' cool. Anyone out there have four displays? Any practical uses for it?

ULWiz

Besides work related stuff i would think two would be enough. Not sure what i would do with 4 personally. People in the NOC next to me at work have 4.

Mrock4

I've been tempted to go to 4. I currently have two widescreen 22" LCD's. It's fantastic. Generally I have nothing but Dynamips open on my left monitor, along with notepad for any notes/config, then a movie, firefox, or whatever on the right monitor.

I think 4 is good if you want to do some extreme multitasking. I could justify one more now, to have a dedicated one for things like e-mail or whatever, but that's pushing it. Plus, I'd have to buy another GTS 8800 640MB card..which is a bit pricey for adding only one monitor.

mamono

I'm quite happy with just two LCD displays, my laptop +1. I don't know what I'd do with more. I personally use the secondary screen for video and anything that I am not primarily looking at or working on. This includes music, scans, and visual diagrams. All e-mail, IM, and anything that I am working on would be on the primary laptop LCD.

When I was in college, I used 3 CRT monitors running at the same time. That was fun, but obviously excessive since all I really did were graphics, games, and reports. It did help a lot to have all the tools actively open on a secondary screen and the graphic in full view on the main screen.

One of the engineers at the company I used to work for was running four LCD's. Main work on primary screen... Left screen was terminal sessions. Right screen #1 was Windows Explorer, E-mail, and IM. Right screen #2 was all his multimedia such as music, videos, and what kept him sane at work. If you don't like alt-tabbing to different windows, then this setup probably would be for you.

Most people just bite the bullet and alt-tab. I believe that dual screen is probably sufficient for 95% of the populace.

scheistermeister

I have 4, but generally only use three. Main in a 22" widescreen, to the right I have a 19" that always has some form of video playing on it (CBT Nuggets/Movies/TV) then on the left I have a 17" that I use for chat, torrents, and system monitoring. I do have another 17" that I have hooked up before, but honestly there wasn't all that much to put on it so I took it off.

tiersten

I'd say the maximum would be 2 per machine. If you really want 4 monitors then get another machine to go with it. If you only want 1 keyboard/mouse then install something like Win2VNC to let you move across.

Daniel333

4 is great at work.
Main screen and controls
remote Connections
Monitoring software
Chat programs
VMware with test envionments
Service desk email
My email
Ticket couter
Ticketing software
... really it's not enough

TechJunky

My dad had two 19" monitors and just purchased the new MacPro with 18GB of memory and two 500 GB Raptor SATA drives along with the 30" monitor... Talk about drooling. The 30" Monitor is so crisp and amazing. He uses the other two for VM boxes and stuff but is seriously thinking of getting rid of them because of the new 30" toy.

It was a spendy toy... I think about 6k all said and done, but the possibilities are endless!

wd40

I have a silly question ..
I purchased the cheapest Graphics card that I could find
Nvidia Geforce 7200GS (it lowered my vista experience index!)
it has one DVI + 1 VGA port

DVI connected to a 22" LCD "1680 *1050"

VGA Connected to 32" Sony TV "1280 * 768"

the problem now is I can not play videos or presentations on the TV at full screen, they always default to the main 22" screen ..

I'm using Vista ultimate ..

Mmartin_47

wat08 wrote:

I have an irresistible urge to buy two more flat screens to give me a total of four monitors. Not too sure what I would do with the extra desktop space, but it would look so friggin' cool. Anyone out there have four displays? Any practical uses for it?

My dad was 9 screens on his desk for work. What does he do? He's an operations analyst for a large power company out here. And what is displayed? Well his job scheduler program, mainframe console, outlook account, and a whole bunch of other stuff I cant't name.

Me personally I have two Acer 22" monitors. Helps a lot with labs since I can connect remotely on each screen.

jibbajabba

I am having the same urge buying a third one ..

I am currently using a 30" Dell and on the side a tilt 21" Dell which is perfect for things like Outlook etc.

Wouldn't mind having a third one on its side on the left too ..

tiersten

wd40 wrote:

the problem now is I can not play videos or presentations on the TV at full screen, they always default to the main 22" screen ..

You need to select which display is your primary display. Some applications force themselves to only display on the primary display.

wd40

tiersten wrote:

wd40 wrote:

the problem now is I can not play videos or presentations on the TV at full screen, they always default to the main 22" screen ..

You need to select which display is your primary display. Some applications force themselves to only display on the primary display.

This will not work for me, is there a way to change this some how ..

scheistermeister:
What setup do you have?

RTmarc

I'm rocking out with 3 right now and don't plan on changing anytime soon. I've got a 19", 24", and another 19". If I get another one, I'll add another 24".

msteinhilber

There can be practical uses for additional screens. I use 4 displays, mostly because it's not uncommon for me to be working on several machines remotely at a time and I just prefer to see whats going on without having to alternate windows. It's also great as others have mentioned for being more efficient at multi-tasking with having notes/configurations on a screen for reference, e-mail on one, etc, etc. Multiple screens in conjunction with Ultramon is a godsend for me. Specify certain applications to launch to a particular screen, set hot keys to send the window on focus to a specific screen, its great stuff.

Mmartin_47

msteinhilber wrote:

There can be practical uses for additional screens. I use 4 displays, mostly because it's not uncommon for me to be working on several machines remotely at a time and I just prefer to see whats going on without having to alternate windows. It's also great as others have mentioned for being more efficient at multi-tasking with having notes/configurations on a screen for reference, e-mail on one, etc, etc. Multiple screens in conjunction with Ultramon is a godsend for me. Specify certain applications to launch to a particular screen, set hot keys to send the window on focus to a specific screen, its great stuff.

+1 to Ultramon

tiersten

wd40 wrote:

tiersten wrote:

wd40 wrote:

the problem now is I can not play videos or presentations on the TV at full screen, they always default to the main 22" screen ..

You need to select which display is your primary display. Some applications force themselves to only display on the primary display.

This will not work for me, is there a way to change this some how ..

scheistermeister:
What setup do you have?

Not really. It is intentional that it is restricted. Using VLC to play the video would probably work since I doubt they have those checks.

wd40

tiersten wrote:

wd40 wrote:

tiersten wrote:

wd40 wrote:

the problem now is I can not play videos or presentations on the TV at full screen, they always default to the main 22" screen ..

You need to select which display is your primary display. Some applications force themselves to only display on the primary display.

This will not work for me, is there a way to change this some how ..

scheistermeister:
What setup do you have?

Not really. It is intentional that it is restricted. Using VLC to play the video would probably work since I doubt they have those checks.

Thanks for the reply

I tried ultramon and it works just fine