Hey guys,I just upgraded to a Nvidia 8500 GT with DVI support. I have two 19" monitors connected up to the card and can do horizontal expansions now, very cool using a VC!! I will eventually get a MatrolTriphead system but for now my question is, I have an open PC slot for a Nvidia 7XXX series card. I tried installing drivers in the 7XXX series to run that card with the 8500 card but no go. I understand that Vista will not tolerate two different driver sets from two differing series such as the Nvidia 8XXX + 7XXX series on teh same Mobo but I have XP. Info. on the web has lead me to believe that if I can find a unified driver set between the two series, I could indeed run an additional card on my mobo albeit a 7XXX instead of an 8XXX. Does anyone know where I get such a set of drivers? In the mean time, I shall go check out NGuru!Randy Jura, KPDXRandy Jura, KPDX

My understanding was that the Unified drivers allowed you to mix 7xxx with 6xxx etc...I'm not sure they were ever intended for 8xxx. However, I haven't seen any info one way or the other..I hope you're successfulRegardsJim

Nvidia drivers have 2 multi-monitor modes. "Dual View" and "Span." The Span mode will allow more than 2 monitors to be used. The problem is that Span is only available in their XP drivers. Span mode is not available in Vista. Bummer. My guess is that any Vdriver will only be relevant to the primary card. Secondary card(s) are only used as aux video outputs for the primary. The secondary card(s) provide no video processing. They are just a place to plug in more monitors for the primary card to use. Try uninstalling all Vdrivers and starting fresh with the 88's driver. I have an Nvidia 6XXX running with a 6 year old PCI Creative Diamond who-knows-what. The Nvidia driver recognized the secondary card without any additional support. I expect this is the way it generally works . . . here's hope-in'.Let me ask: You are currently using Dual-view with 2 monitors? Right? You fire up the V-cockpit in windowed mode and drag it out to fill both monitors? Right again? . . . or goofy wrong!? I have a second system for FSX with a single card driving 2 monitors with Nvidia's Vista Dual-View enabled. When I stretch out a windowed V-cockpit to cover both monitors the window stays stretched over both monitors, but the actual V-cockpit image will not extend beyond the 1st monitor. In other words, I can not get what you are getting. Thanks,

Sam,Thanks for you input. I am currently using Horizontal mode with two 19" monitors connected to my new 8500 card. It actually works well but stretches frame rates and overal video performance a bit too much. I've elected to get a Matrol Triplehead box and expand to three 19" monitors with that device and not add a second card.Randy Jura, KPDX

and thanks for the reply. I see there's hope. I'm interested to see if that would also work for 3 monitors. If so, it should provide the same performance as the THTG. Let us know. This is all about driving frame rates at a specific resolution. 2 (19"-ers) are 2480 X 1024. That's what you are driving now with span. The THTG will be driving 3 monitors. That's 3840 X 1024. That's more, and therefore will be an even greater load on the card. I don't think the THTG will help frame rates. Once you get the THTG and the 3rd monitor run some experiments. Any old 2nd card will do ($35 for a PCI is fine). See if the THTG provides any advantage over a second card setup. You might be able to save some $$$ by sending that THTG on back. Sure hope so.

Just to clarify Sam, I cannot put in a second card. My first card is an Nvidia 8XXX series. NVidia apparently abandoned the unified driver thing in the 8XXX series and as I am certainly not going to go out and purchase yet another 8XXX card to try your idea, it will not work to put in two sets of drivers, one set for the 8XXX and a completely other set for a 7XXX series card. I tried that already with disastrous results. It cannot be done. The Matrox TripleHead is what I'll try next through the 8XXX card and report back what I think of it. Thanks guys!Randy Jura, KPDX