Dual Desktops Explained

There are many ways to run multiple monitors under windows 2000 By far the easiest way is to get a video card with dual video outs. Matrox, ATI, Nvidia, and 3D Labs all produce video chips for this task though in the case of ATI and Nvidia these are usually the lower end products.
The second and more desirable method (for the gamer) is to simply add another video card to your system. From within windows you can assign a primary video device and away you go.

For the purposes of this article I will start off by explaining Nvidia's implementation of dual monitors "TwinView" and then dive into the process of adding a second video card to your system and how it differs from Nvidia's TwinView.

Pictured here is my recently acquired Gainward CARDEXpert GeForce2 TwinView/VIVO Golden Sample AGP card (sorry for the long name, I didn't do it) as you can see it has two D-sub video outs and a video decoder port (the VIVO portion). It should be known that some companies that produce Nvidia TwinView cards don't use two D-sub connectors for the second video device but rather an S-video out (Hercules) or DVI connector (Elsa). Though you can still get the TwinView features from these connectors you will need an adaptor. My suggestion, If you have two analog monitors get the dual D-sub.