Extended & Mirrored Displays at Same Time? 2 Monitors + 1 TV

I've been running a Mac Mini as my HTPC for the past couple years, mainly because my Gaming PC always sat in another room. Now I live in an apartment where my TV is close enough I could hook it up to my PC and scrap the Mac Mini all together.

Currently I run two 24" LCDs off of my PC, which I want to maintain, but I'd like to add the TV as a 3rd monitor via HDMI to play movies, games and such on the big screen. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit on this system.

My question is - I use the 2 LCDs as extended displays, which I don't want to change, I need the extended displays for work & gaming. If I hooked up the TV as a 3rd monitor, can it mirror one of those displays? Basically can I run the Extended & Mirrored Display functionality at the same time across 3 monitors?

Do I need to have two video cards? One to run the 2 monitors, and a separate card with HDMI to run the TV?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

just run the tv as a 3rd extended monitor and your video card software should be able to configure that applications always launch to a certain monitor.

morgwon said:

just run the tv as a 3rd extended monitor and your video card software should be able to configure that applications always launch to a certain monitor.

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Thanks for your reply, but that doesn't answer my question. I'm not looking for an alternative solution at this point, I'd still like to explore my original preference as outlined in my initial post.

Anyone else have any comments/feedback? Anyone have 3 monitors and Windows 7 they could test this out with?

I think your best bet would just be to install a physical HDMI/DVI/VGA splitter. Output 1 from PC goes to Monitor #1, Output 2 from PC goes to the splitter, which then goes to Monitor #2 and TV #1.

This way anything on Monitor 2 is also showed on the TV.

Not sure if your software alone can do that, but a cheap splitter certainly will. Of course if you have a DVI monitor and an HDMI tv, you'll need a splitter that can output it to different kinds of connections. That might cost a bit more

Adam said:

I think your best bet would just be to install a physical HDMI/DVI/VGA splitter. Output 1 from PC goes to Monitor #1, Output 2 from PC goes to the splitter, which then goes to Monitor #2 and TV #1.

This way anything on Monitor 2 is also showed on the TV.

Not sure if your software alone can do that, but a cheap splitter certainly will. Of course if you have a DVI monitor and an HDMI tv, you'll need a splitter that can output it to different kinds of connections. That might cost a bit more

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Great idea! That sounds like it will solve my problem and should work perfect. Thanks

Now I need to find the right video card. Can anyone recommend a good Silent/Passive Video Card with at least 1 HDMI output? I want to be able to play SC2 on full settings, and also steam 1080P to my TV among other things.

are your 24" monitors 1080p or the standard 1920x1200? Splitter might present a problem there. Also do your monitors have hdmi input?

morgwon said:

are your 24" monitors 1080p or the standard 1920x1200? Splitter might present a problem there. Also do your monitors have hdmi input?

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I have two Asus 24" montiors, both with HDMI. The better of the two is the VE247H which according to the website will do full 1080P.

What problem do you envision possibly? I'm assuming the monitor & the TV would have to have the same resolution on the splitter?

Splitter and if necessary a HDMI transmitter to make the connection wireless. The problem I see is sound. If you have PC speakers you will need to switch that to HDMI for when you want to watch the TV unless you split audio too.

jpm100 said:

Splitter and if necessary a HDMI transmitter to make the connection wireless. The problem I see is sound. If you have PC speakers you will need to switch that to HDMI for when you want to watch the TV unless you split audio too.

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That's a good question. I have PC Speaker as well as Wireless Gaming Headphones hooked up via S/PDIF.

I assume I'll just need to change the audio output every time I want to use the TV? Or maybe get a second sound card?

r2edline said:

If I hooked up the TV as a 3rd monitor, can it mirror one of those displays? Basically can I run the Extended & Mirrored Display functionality at the same time across 3 monitors?

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Is anyone able to answer my initial question? Ideally I'd like to avoid the splitters and such if possible.

r2edline said:

Is anyone able to answer my initial question? Ideally I'd like to avoid the splitters and such if possible.

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I don't see how you could without a physical splitter. When extended, I believe both monitors are considered to be one. It would be akin to asking any monitor to display half of your monitor in duplicate mode. If you do have it duplicate, it would have to duplicate the content of both screens.