Two video displays simultaneously

[rcschmie]

What does it take to simultaneously drive two newer displays, a 24 inch LCD monitor and a 42 inch plasma TV, at different HDTV resolutions to watch video. I've tried several 1 G DDR2 video cards with HDMI, DVI, and VGA outputs. The resolution drops back to a low 1024X768 level with two displays connected. USB has insufficient bandwidth, and software fixes like Ultramon don't have the capability for sufficient screen update. Is there an affordable way to accomplish this task. Using a newer Quad Core AMD 3G CPU with 4 G RAM and a PCIe slot available, running WIN 7.

 

[shiftstealth]

I used to run a TV with a video card.

The video card had a HARD time identifying the television. If it didn't identify it it ran at 1024x768 resolution. I had to pull the plug and plug it back in until it identified it. Once it did it did 1080p no problem and would run 2 monitors.

The Video card was a GTX 280 SLi.

 

[rcschmie]

Thanks for your response. It appears video cards are a bit of "black magic". I thought running two displays (duplicated) at 1920X1080 resolution was a pretty simple application, and many many people had mastered it with the age of the HTPC. But reading the comments in the various AV and computer forums leads me to believe there are a great number of folks as confused as me. As an engineer I thought there ought to be some simple way to calculate the type of card required, but I sure can't find any. After two bottom end (NVIDIA and RADEON) cards with VGA/DVI/HDMI, 1 G of memory, both of which refused to allow individually setting display resolution, and both of which dropped back to 1024X768 resolution when connected to both displays, I've decided to move up a niche in cards. The latest experiment is the purchase of a Radeon 5670 GPU, and 1 G of DDR5 memory. The price for this class card jumps to double the former cards, and while not much for a true gamer, seems a lot to just drive an HDTV in addition to a desktop monitor. We'll see.