3 Monitors on XP (5000 series w/o Eyefinity)?

J

JasonL

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Jan 15, 2010
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It is possible to run 3 monitors on a 5000 series card using XP? If I can, then I’ll order an adapter (either active DP-DVI or DP-VGA), though I’d like to make sure that this will work before ordering an adapter.

I’m running 2 monitors just fine in XP w/o Eyefinity.

Thanks in advance!

Jason
 
I would assume so, there isn't any reason it wouldn't. Even if Eyefinity doesn't work in XP (which I think it does), the card still has 3 outputs.
 
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I'm hoping to stay on XP because I'm supporting machines and applications that are XP. I'm trying to avoid that small chance of encountering an incompatibility. However, I will be upgrading at some point in the future.
 
JasonL said:
Thanks for the responses.

I'm hoping to stay on XP because I'm supporting machines and applications that are XP. I'm trying to avoid that small chance of encountering an incompatibility. However, I will be upgrading at some point in the future.
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You do know that win7 has a xp emulator right? And everything that can run on previous windows can run on 7. There might be a few exceptions, but as far as I know they can be fixed fairly easily.
 
BravO))) said:
You do know that win7 has a xp emulator right? ... There might be a few exception...
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BravO, thanks for the info. I'm writing applications that make several API calls to the XP operating system. It's the exceptions that worry me. There may be 100 XP machines (zero Vista and Windows7 machines) running these applications at a remote location, and I tend to be conservative about adding new variables into the mix. We're going to have to move that direction someday.
 
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.
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Some businesses stick with OSes for a while (as mine does), but I can get a video card put in easy.
 
Code: 
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.

Yet another instance on this forum of people expressing and/or making judgement rather than answering the question.
 
It'll work. Windows XP had monitor spanning implemented for a long time now. I was doing it with an Nvidia card for a while, you should be fine. Win7 had the limitation (that ATI overcame) where you couldn't "span" monitors, they had to be seperate displays instead of one single virtual display (which XP has always supported).
 
inotocracy said:
It'll work. Windows XP had monitor spanning implemented for a long time now. I was doing it with an Nvidia card for a while, you should be fine. Win7 had the limitation (that ATI overcame) where you couldn't "span" monitors, they had to be seperate displays instead of one single virtual display (which XP has always supported).
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I'm pretty sure XP never let you span a fullscreen DirectX or OpenGL game, though, which is what ATI did. More importantly they did it with hardware acceleration.
 
JerryL said:
Code: 
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.

Yet another instance on this forum of people expressing and/or making judgement rather than answering the question.
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Indeed. Also just because something new comes out doesn't always mean it's better.
 
kllrnohj said:
I'm pretty sure XP never let you span a fullscreen DirectX or OpenGL game, though, which is what ATI did. More importantly they did it with hardware acceleration.
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Incorrect-- I can't speak on ATI's support of it, but Windows would allow you to create one large virtual display (spanning). I did it on Nvidia cards for years, it seemed to be a built in feature in XP. I'd play splitscreen L4D1 with my son.

edit: old thread talking about it:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1366916&highlight=l4d+splitscreen
 
BravO))) said:
You do know that win7 has a xp emulator right? And everything that can run on previous windows can run on 7. There might be a few exceptions, but as far as I know they can be fixed fairly easily.
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The XP emulator is pretty hit and miss. Sometimes it works no worries, other times it works with some problems and sometimes it flat out doesn't work. For the most part the programs which rely on XP are niche programs which most people wouldn't touch, but if its a program you need to use for some reason, its a pain in the arse. I still dual boot XP and win7 because since I started using Win7 at the start of this year (release client) I've come across a handful of programs that required XP.

And yeah, I vaguely remember spanning games across 2 screens in XP, though from memory it didn't work very well (or maybe I just didn't bother setting it up properly, because back then it was my Dad's work PC that had the 2 monitors, didn't really want to do too much gaming on it).
 
BravO))) said:
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.
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You sir, are an idiot. If you had actually read the OP's question, you would have noticed he asked WITHOUT Eyefinity.

To the OP, yes, it will work np.
 
phildabill said:
You sir, are an idiot. If you had actually read the OP's question, you would have noticed he asked WITHOUT Eyefinity.
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You know you could have worded your post differently without sounding like an asshole. When I was referring to eyefinity is this case, I was using it to describe it without saying three monitor extended desktop configuration or three monitor multipurpose solution.
 
I had no luck getting 3 monitors to display using one HD 5870 in Win XP. ATI's Eyefinity web page, "What is Eyefinity", states operating system support that includes Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Linux, so that's the big clue regarding Win XP. However, it doesn't say it won't work with Win XP, so I tried even though several people in this forum have said it won’t work.

Two screens in Win XP on one HD 5870 is easy of course - either DVI-DVI or DVI-DisplayPort works fine for me, but triple monitor DVI-DVI-DisplayPort will not work, and I have the correct Active DisplayPort to DVI adapter (the $100 variety sold by Sapphire for Eyefinity use). When attempting all three monitors on one HD 5870, Windows XP Control Panel>Display>Display Properties>Settings identifies that 3 monitors exist, but I never get an image to display on the third monitor. I can click Extend Desktop to the third monitor but no image appears. Trying to configure the 3 monitors using Catalyst Control Panel (9.11, 9.12, 9.12 Hotfix, or 10.1, I tried all of these) is not the answer, either. CCP cannot enable the third monitor.

When I boot into Win 7, the results are different. DVI-DVI-DisplayPort (using the Active adapter) works fine on one HD 5870. The 3x1 Landscape Display that I use can be easily configured using either Win 7 Control Panel>Display>Change Display Settings or CCP.

To get three monitors to work in Win XP, I have to connect the third monitor to my second HD 5870 card. The connections are Card 1: DVI-DVI. Card 2: DVI or DisplayPort, it doesn't matter, either works. I use Win XP Display Properties>Settings to configure the 3 monitors, although I could have used CCP. This works fine but Cross Fire cannot be enabled until I disable the monitor connected to the second HD 5870 card.

Note that when attempting to get 3 monitors to work with one HD 5870 in Win XP, I actually removed the second HD 5870 from the MOBO.

As a separate topic, having sunk so much money into the 5870s, I have to say I am a little disappointed with the Win XP drivers (driver 9.12 or 10.1) because of display corruption issues. I can't move a window around on a screen or from monitor to monitor very quickly or the image will become scrambled. And I'm not doing anything fancy - just excel, no games, and the GPUs are not overclocked or overheated. Thankfully, this particular problem does not seem to exist in Win 7 (driver 9.12).
 
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BravO))) said:
If you can afford eyefinity than you can afford Win7. Get with the times man.
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If you can afford an 8 line sig, you should be able to afford more then a one line douche bag reply. And yes, I also have an 8 line sig ;>)
 
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I just recently found it Eyefinity doesn't work with XP the hard way.
It sees the 3rd monitor connected via a DP-VGA adapter, but you cannot enable it as a 3rd monitor, only swap it out for one of the other 2.
Flat out, it isn't included in the driver release. WHY? XP is known to work with multi display technology. Because they say so. :mad:

Lookit, I have stuck with XP for all this time it WORKS and does not have the overhead of Vista/Win7. I know my expensive video editing software isn't supported under windows 7. I have no REAL need to upgrade and I don't want to.
All the reading I have done shows that the Windows 7 has NO appreciable increase in reliability and performance over XP. But MS won't release DX10 or 11 for XP not because it cannot handle it, but because they want your money so UPGRADE.
I cannot believe that AMD got in bed with them on this.
 
Not only does Win 7 have XP emulation mode, but if you buy Ultimate you get XP Virtual Machine. That is a true virtual OS. Heck, I even ran Visual Studio 2005/2008 in the VM so it should be good for any program.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
I just recently found it Eyefinity doesn't work with XP the hard way.
It sees the 3rd monitor connected via a DP-VGA adapter, but you cannot enable it as a 3rd monitor, only swap it out for one of the other 2.
Flat out, it isn't included in the driver release. WHY? XP is known to work with multi display technology. Because they say so. :mad:
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Perhaps XP doesn't support 3 monitor outputs from a single card? It could be a limitation of XP's display model that AMD didn't feel was worth the time or money to try and work around.

But MS won't release DX10 or 11 for XP not because it cannot handle it, but because they want your money so UPGRADE.
I cannot believe that AMD got in bed with them on this.
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First, Eyefinity doesn't require DX10 or DX11, so AMD isn't "in bed with them".

Second, DX10 and DX11 don't work under XP due to *technical* reasons. The entire display model was redone from scratch.

But really, you're bitching that a feature on a current generation highend graphics card that costs $300+ doesn't work on a 6 year old OS. Move on already, yeesh.
 
kllrnohj said:
Perhaps XP doesn't support 3 monitor outputs from a single card? It could be a limitation of XP's display model that AMD didn't feel was worth the time or money to try and work around.



First, Eyefinity doesn't require DX10 or DX11, so AMD isn't "in bed with them".

Second, DX10 and DX11 don't work under XP due to *technical* reasons. The entire display model was redone from scratch.

But really, you're bitching that a feature on a current generation highend graphics card that costs $300+ doesn't work on a 6 year old OS. Move on already, yeesh.
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I see both sides to the argument.
DX10 was hacked to work with XP very shortly after release, so no it isn't a "technical" reason. I haven't kept up, but possibly DX11 is also available for XP. Matrox ran triple-head (three display) under XP with their discrete GFX card the Parhelia, and via their breakout box called Triple-head-togo. So I don't believe there is anything in XP that inherently prevents XP from 3+ screen 3d display on ATi's part. There very well may be issues from how ATi went about it, that caused problems. But it can be done, and has been.
Personally I believe ATi wanted to focus their product as a DX11 part, and because MS, wasn't supporting DX10/11 on XP, it gave them no advantage to support XP from a driver stand point. Should they have? Damn rights, but it wasn't part of the marketing advantage they were trying to capitalize on over Nvidia. AMD wanted you playing DX11 games before there were any!
And who knows in the world of billions of $$, the advanced input ATi need for their DX11 cards might very well have been met with an XP lockout. AMD and MS launched a new OS and current DX11 card almost simultaneously. Both stood to gain. Sounds like possible happy bed fellows to me. But then again isn't that how the real world works anyway?
 
funkydmunky said:
DX10 was hacked to work with XP very shortly after release, so no it isn't a "technical" reason. I haven't kept up, but possibly DX11 is also available for XP.
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Neither DX10 nor DX11 *ever* ran on XP. Nobody ever hacked DX10 to work on XP. There were a couple of people who were going to try wrapping DX10 calls to OpenGL equivalents (sort of like trying to run Wine on Windows - which is a bit weird), but that never went anywhere.

Matrox ran triple-head (three display) under XP with their discrete GFX card the Parhelia, and via their breakout box called Triple-head-togo.
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TripleHead2Go takes a single monitor output and splits it up. To XP (and indeed to the video card) there is only a single monitor.

I don't know much about Parhelia and XP, but like I said, it could be something difficult that ATI didn't think was worth the money to try and work around.

Personally I believe ATi wanted to focus their product as a DX11 part, and because MS, wasn't supporting DX10/11 on XP, it gave them no advantage to support XP from a driver stand point. Should they have? Damn rights, but it wasn't part of the marketing advantage they were trying to capitalize on over Nvidia. AMD wanted you playing DX11 games before there were any!
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Eyefinity has nothing to do with DX11. The card still works in XP.

And who knows in the world of billions of $$, the advanced input ATi need for their DX11 cards might very well have been met with an XP lockout. AMD and MS launched a new OS and current DX11 card almost simultaneously. Both stood to gain. Sounds like possible happy bed fellows to me. But then again isn't that how the real world works anyway?
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ATI and Nvidia both knew when MS was going to launch Windows 7 and DX11, and ATI wanted in on that market so ATI made sure it had cards available. ATI didn't do any lockouts, you can still use a 5870 in XP.

And you seem to be ignoring the fact that DX11 and Eyefinity both work in Vista as well.
 
kllrnohj said:
Neither DX10 nor DX11 *ever* ran on XP. Nobody ever hacked DX10 to work on XP. There were a couple of people who were going to try wrapping DX10 calls to OpenGL equivalents (sort of like trying to run Wine on Windows - which is a bit weird), but that never went anywhere.
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Seen DX10 game played on XP. My buddy was quite happy. Some custom XP's had it slip-streamed.



TripleHead2Go takes a single monitor output and splits it up. To XP (and indeed to the video card) there is only a single monitor.
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Yes just like Eyfinity. One large display.

I don't know much about Parhelia and XP, but like I said, it could be something difficult that ATI didn't think was worth the money to try and work around.
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Exactly what I said. Not worth their time. Not a technical issue.


Eyefinity has nothing to do with DX11. The card still works in XP.
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Huh? The OP you responded too is saying he can't run Eyfinity on XP. Never said Eyfinity had anything to do with DX11.
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I beleive that Win XP has support for more than 3 monitors in total(cant remember the number)....probably limited to two monitors per card(what was avaliable 10 years ago when the thing was released)...


@kllrnohj- he was running a DX10 game yes, but probably in DX9 mode....chances are the game had DX9 in it as well.

@funky- Eyefinity is three separate displays....not a single display...the matrox stuff had one display no matter the mode, eyefinity is three separate displays at all times...
 
I emailed my friend for confirmation. He uses DX10 in XP. He said it is a stock DX10-XP hack, and often an additional DX10 patch depending on the game. He is currently playing JustCause2, a DX10 only title. So no it isn't running in DX9 mode. As far as DX11 goes, I don't know, and maybe where the whole thing goes moot. But some of those XP fans are hardcore, so...

@W.Feather, are you saying that because Eyfinity plugs into three monitors then the drivers make it see it as one large display, is what makes it not work in XP, as opposed to the Matrox version that uses one display out to three monitors, then uses drivers to keep it as one large display or break it into separate displays?

I remember in XP I could have the task-bar stretch across as many monitors as I wanted(depending on number of GFX cards), but in Vista and 7 I can not.
 
funkydmunky said:
I emailed my friend for confirmation. He uses DX10 in XP. He said it is a stock DX10-XP hack, and often an additional DX10 patch depending on the game. He is currently playing JustCause2, a DX10 only title. So no it isn't running in DX9 mode. As far as DX11 goes, I don't know, and maybe where the whole thing goes moot. But some of those XP fans are hardcore, so...
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No he isn't. I'll say it again, DX10 *never* ran under XP. Nobody has ever gotten it to work.

If you or he is going to insist that he is using DX10 under XP, film it and post a video. Or post a link to the DX10 hack (which doesn't exist)

And assuming you got the DX10 library to work under XP, the drivers don't support it anyway. At best you'll get software DX10 (which doesn't exist on XP either)

@W.Feather, are you saying that because Eyfinity plugs into three monitors then the drivers make it see it as one large display, is what makes it not work in XP, as opposed to the Matrox version that uses one display out to three monitors, then uses drivers to keep it as one large display or break it into separate displays?
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Matrox doesn't use drivers at all. TH2G appears like a super wide monitor to the video card and OS. Eyefinity shows up as 3 monitors, hence why you can do Eyefinity with resolutions higher than 1680x1050, while TH2G can't.

I remember in XP I could have the task-bar stretch across as many monitors as I wanted(depending on number of GFX cards), but in Vista and 7 I can not.
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Correct, Vista and Win7 treat monitors differently than XP. That is why Eyefinity requires hardware support to do spanning.

funkydmunky said:
Yes just like Eyfinity. One large display.
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The difference being that Eyefinity takes 3 monitor outputs and combines them into one virtual screen. The OS and drivers must support 3 monitors for it to work. TH2G takes a single monitor output and splits it up. They don't function the same at all.
 
kllrnohj said:
The difference being that Eyefinity takes 3 monitor outputs and combines them into one virtual screen. The OS and drivers must support 3 monitors for it to work. TH2G takes a single monitor output and splits it up. They don't function the same at all.
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Uhh, isn't that what I just said?

As far as the DX10 thing, you can PM me and I'll give you a link. It isn't exactly unknown. Do you have Google access?

As far as drivers, I was meaning Matrox display drivers. Did you have an actual beef about my description of the differences of how the two companies went about it, or are you just trying to be a hard ass?
 
funkydmunky said:
Uhh, isn't that what I just said?
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No, you said "just like Eyefinity". I was clarifying the TH2G is *not* like Eyefinity, they are fundamentally different in their approaches.

As far as the DX10 thing, you can PM me and I'll give you a link. It isn't exactly unknown. Do you have Google access?
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Or you can just post it here.

If you're talking about the Alky project, that is a DX10->OpenGL wrapper that was never finished. It still isn't DX10 on XP, and its godawful slow when it works.

As far as drivers, I was meaning Matrox display drivers. Did you have an actual beef about my description of the differences of how the two companies went about it, or are you just trying to be a hard ass?
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I'm trying to figure out what you are talking about. TH2G doesn't use display drivers.
 
kllrnohj said:
I'm trying to figure out what you are talking about. TH2G doesn't use display drivers.
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No, it is just for their GFX cards, but I believe the TH2G uses software with the same function, no?

As far as posting the DX10 stuff, with respect there is no way I would post the links here at the hard.

Here is the file names and instructions. Not sure if the DirectX_10_Fix_3_XP is need for all DX10 games or not, but it is needed for JustCause2.

"First install DirectX_10_XP
after complete the installation ,,
then install DirectX_10_Fix_3__XP

then click on Start Button then click on Run then type dxdiag then hit ENTER key,, then see DirectX Version : DirectX 10.0

now u have the DirectX 10 on XP…. "
 
No, it is just for their GFX cards, but I believe the TH2G uses software with the same function, no?

As far as posting the DX10 stuff, with respect there is no way I would post the links here at the hard.

Here is the file names and instructions. Not sure if the DirectX_10_Fix_3_XP is need for all DX10 games or not, but it is needed for JustCause2.

"First install DirectX_10_XP
after complete the installation ,,
then install DirectX_10_Fix_3__XP

then click on Start Button then click on Run then type dxdiag then hit ENTER key,, then see DirectX Version : DirectX 10.0

now u have the DirectX 10 on XP…. "
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You mean this?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1206544

It just changes the version number and tricks the game.
 
Ya that's the stock instructions that come with the files.

And how does it trick the game? It is a DX10 only game.
 
funkydmunky said:
Ya that's the stock instructions that come with the files.

And how does it trick the game? It is a DX10 only game.
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Having downloaded the file it appears to be from the Alky project. Note the OpenGL libraries in the zip - that's because it isn't DX10 but rather a DX10->OpenGL wrapper.

Either that, or JC2's DX10 requirement is arbitrary and the game only uses DX9 features (very possible)

But again, you will *never* get native DX10 running on XP if for no other reason than the drivers won't know how to handle it. ATI and Nvidia's XP drivers don't have DX10 or DX11 backends, meaning you can't get DX10 or DX11 hardware acceleration under XP without writing a new graphics driver (good luck with that one)
 
It appears that JC2 is a warez release where it isn't true DX10 but a wrapper. And my source isn't running XP anymore :( (So much for XP for life buddy!).
After believing for the last three years that DX10 on XP wasn't an issue, it looks like I've been caught on the wrong side of the argument here. :eek:
 
funkydmunky said:
After believing for the last three years that DX10 on XP wasn't an issue, it looks like I've been caught on the wrong side of the argument here. :eek:
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No biggie, happens to the best of us :)

But really, you should upgrade to Windows 7 (or even Vista).
 
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