Dual Monitors

[Wesley]

Hi all,
We have had this discussion a few times in the past. Nevertheless I was interested to see in a recent AUGI newsletter a piece about the value of a dual-monitor setup:

http://www.augi.com/publications/hotnews.asp?Id=367

All of the machines in the office (except mine :cry: ) use dual monitors, and I have sworn by the setup for many years. Revit, however, is NOT dual-monitor freindly, aware, willing, etc. I am hoping that maybe some people with a say in the matter are now be waking up to its value. Perhaps it is time for all of us poor abandoned dual-monitor to users to start making some more noise.
Cheers,
Wes

[mlgatzke]

We have been discussing our next computer purchase for the lab and we're discussing dual LCDs too. It's too bad that Revit doesn't support them. I figure that using duals I can reduce the size of each from a single 21" flat screen to two (perhaps) 18" or 19" LCD flat panels. I thought I'd run them with a 256MB GeForce card of some sort - something supported by Revit I assure you.

[aaronrumple]

I use my 2nd monitor a lot. I'll keep explorer windows open so I can load families faster than using the Load Family tool. I also often keep a second instance of Revit open so I can refer to a second project or make families without window switching....

[Steve_Stafford]

Mike,
I haven't personally found an LCD screen that either supported the resolution I like and/or that I found acceptable to use for cadd work. There is a subtle perception of their being out of focus that I can't deal with

I have experimented with dual monitors and like them but for now, have to give them up in favor of desk space.

[Roger Evans]

I can go along with that Steve ~ I've been very dissapointed with the
sharpness of LCD ~ the only acceptable one I came across was a Sony 17 around £450 ~ 19 also available for another £150
stunning looks & a whacking price tag (at least for me)
I will shortly be upgrading my monitor so will be investigating dual monitors (both 19 CRT)
Q?? Any feed back & do's & don'ts will be welcome.
I'm using a Radeon 9700 with AMD Winows XP home edition

Cheers
Roger

[adegnan]

I can go along with that Steve ~ I've been very dissapointed with the
sharpness of LCD ~ the only acceptable one I came across was a Sony 17 around £450 ~ 19 also available for another £150
stunning looks & a whacking price tag (at least for me)
I will shortly be upgrading my monitor so will be investigating dual monitors (both 19 CRT)
Q?? Any feed back & do's & don'ts will be welcome.
I'm using a Radeon 9700 with AMD Winows XP home edition

Cheers
Roger

I am generally happy with my dual 19" setup. One thing I am not happy with is that I bought a PCI video card to run the 2nd monitor. If I had it to do over I'd get a dual head AGP card. The PCI card (ATI Radeon) does not perform very well.

I used to try and run Revit across the 2 screens but it took up too much processor speed to do it.

What I do now, though, is run Revit in my left side monitor and drag the project browser as far to the right as possbile. Then it actually is on the right monitor, allowing more real estate for my revit windows in the left monitor. My only complaint is that Revit does not remember this setting and I need to manually move the project browser every time I open a new file.

[studio3p]

I haven't personally found an LCD screen that either supported the resolution I like and/or that I found acceptable to use for cadd work. There is a subtle perception of their being out of focus that I can't deal with

I don't have it setup as a dual monitor configuration (becuase I can't afford it), but I've been using the 20.1" Dell flat panel for about 5 or 6 months, and it is awesome! I was forced to go with the 20.1" because it was the only one available at a reasonable price that offered the 1600x1200 resolution. The picture quality is excellent. In fact, it makes working on my 19" Sony Trinitron seem like the stone age. It carries a hefty price - $850 when I bought as part of a system, $1,000 without the last time I checked.

[Steve_Stafford]

I've used another Dell flat screen 19" lcd and found it dismal...but then it's certainly a subjective thing. I've no doubt that they will be great soon though and I'm looking forward to that day.

[gregcashen]

Just got new systems and treated myself to a dell 19" fp. while it is definitely "grainier" than the crt I use, the resolution is great, there are no problems with refresh rate causing me headaches (anything below 70Hz will drive me batty in a matter of minutes!), and the colors are sharp, crisp and accurate. i now have a hard time going back to my crt, which I use as my second display on a dual display machine. I use Revit/Autocad on the fp and put excel or whatever on the crt. try one for yourself before deciding. it is extremely subjective.

[mlgatzke]

Hmmmm. All interesting points. I look forward to testing a few to see how it looks to my eyes.

[hand471037]

just some food for thought:

I've read a study where they had people reading documents on the computer, using varous formats & interfaces, and then tested them after to measure retention of the information. When the test subjects read the documents on the LCD screens the retention was much higher than CRT's. Huh. No idea why, but it's an interesting thought that the CRT affects your brain differently than the LCD...

Also be aware that color is going to be different on a LCD than on a CRT. It's way better than it used to be, but several Graphic Designers I know swear by CRT still. The CRT will have better color-balance and correction for way less money, the LCD's that have great color control are more expensive than the 'normal' ones. This ain't a big issue for most of us, but it is something to be aware of. One Designer friend of mine has a LCD as his primary and a old 17" Iyama CRT as his secondary for this reason alone, so he can see things on the color-corrected Iyama before they go to press...

Duals are great. I used a dual set-up at my last job for something like two years; I'm only giving it up now for the moble life of a laptop. What I found most useful was that I could have site photos open on one monitor while working on the other when doing a historic renovation job. It really made things go faster!

[PeterJ]

I have used dual monitors now for a year or two with Revit and my general view is that trying to spread Revit across two screens when it has no support for this layout is pretty much a waste of time, but the speed advantages that accrue with the availability of a winodw of AutoCAD or Excel, or pictures of a site or a specification package go towards an overall output improvement.

[gregcashen]

I also find that my bosses perception of my performance has increased dramatically, since I now have ZDBB taking up only 50% of my screen real estate versus 100% before. :roll:

[beegee]

Oh, I see... I get 3 monitors, run ZDBB on one and my (perceived )performance has increased by 66.6 %. 8)

[gregcashen]

It's all about perception, my friend. Keep in mind that the Perceived Performance Quotient (PPQ) is a funtion of the area of the screens, so running ZDBB on a 15" CRT (actual viewing size of 13.1") is a much better way to increase PPQ than 3 19" fp's. Just a tip.

[rhys]

I feel a 19in sony flat screen comming on :?

[Roger Evans]

I'm assuming a client has just paid their fee

Spoil yourself & get two

Roger

[christopher.zoog51272]

I about to switch to a dual monitor set-up today. Anything to watch out for?

I'll be using two 21" (20" viewable) Viewsonic G220fb's (Flat CRT) on a Nvidia Quadro FX 1000 128mb. I have to use the analog adapters because the card had dual digital head. The card is way overkill for revit in its current state, but I'm about to install a trial of viz 4, so we'll see who well it does.

[christopher.zoog51272]

Ok, I've got it up an running and man it is sweet! 8)

42 inches of combined desktop!!! :wink:

I'm finding revit works reasonable well in this set up.

Z.

[Steve_Stafford]

I'm not liking you dude... :twisted: dual 21's! The only guy I know that has that beat is Patagonia Dave with his quad 21's...but then we don't know what he's up to these days.

[gregcashen]

Sigh...I only have dual 20s :cry:

[Scott D Davis]

I worked for Fluor Daniel (large Engineering company) in Irvine 5 years ago, from 1995 to 1999. Their CAD station STANDARD back then was dual 21's! Man it was sweet! Made it hard to go home to the single 19! I had dual Matrox Millinium cards in that machine.

I want a dual set up again. It was soooooo nice!

[hand471037]

And I'm back to a single. :(

But I got a new laptop out of deal :)

I wanted one of them dual-head laptops, but then I saw the price. :shock:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/FutureTech/futuretech021227.html

[PeterJ]

I can see I am going to have to up the ante and go to a triple screen immersive environment, wrap-around computing here I come.

[bclarch]

Who is going to get the first virtual reality 3D goggles with full panoramic view? Imagine a client doing a walkthrough with those on.

[Scott D Davis]

I'm thinking of those 'goggles' which effectively produce a 42" display in your field of vision. Then the boss would never know when I was on ZDBB! Would keep me from touching my monitor, and getting finger prints all over it, too!

[cliff collins]

Love those dual monitors.....once you start you'll never go back.

Word of caution---do not try to install Revit with both monitors on!
Disable the secondary monitor while installing. It caused us lots of headaches with our current graphics card setup--don't know how the other cards may react. Our cards are ATI Radeon 7000 series.
cheers.....

cbc

[rhys]

Anyone have any suggestions for a dual monitor digital interface card?
I didn't understand Chris's post about Nvidia Quadro FX 1000 128mb and having to use analogue adaptors?

[Henry D]

Most video cards which support dual monitors come with both an analogue port and a digital port (DVI). In this case it sounds like the card has no analogue ports, only DVI ports. So if your monitors don't have cables which can plug into a DVI port you have to get an adaptor for each cable which will convert the analogue connectors to DVI connectors. Other than hearing good things about nVidia cards and not good things about ATI cards I don't have a recommendation for a card.

[PeterJ]

I run dual monitors on a Matrox Parhelia, it's good.

At home Sandra's machine has an Nvidia 64 MB card of some kind and even that can run dual monitors there are some fairly good deals out there particularly given the relatively low demands that Revit places on a graphics card. You may want to think about what else you run and make a decision based on those needs.

[christopher.zoog51272]

Anyone have any suggestions for a dual monitor digital interface card?
I didn't understand Chris's post about Nvidia Quadro FX 1000 128mb and having to use analogue adaptors?

It's true the QuadroFX line comes with dual DVI (Digital) connections to natively support two Flat Panel Displays. However, it also ships with two DVI to VGA converters, that you use to connect CRT monitors. The is no degredation using the VGA connecters, the picture is same as if you were using DVI.

The FX 1000 even has a connection for 3d stereoscopic glasses, for designing in VR. Not that any software (that we would ever use) supports this. :wink:

It's a kick-*** card, but it way overkill for revit in it's current form.

However if you use VIZ, MAX, Sketch-up, or other 3d intensive programs, it will fly.

[rhys]

Thanks Chris I'll look at this card