Matrox G550 card issues: I will add that there are some dual monitor quirks outside of LabVIEW. In windows, Microsoft Photo Editor will occasionally ‘break’ and either be full screen or minimized and do nothing in between. I’ve had to uninstall and reinstall the program to fix it.
Some 3D applications rendering applications like Maya 4D and Bryce 3D want to own the entire screen they don’t non-full screen mode so you can’t resize the program window and pull it to one screen. It’s quite irritating to have 3” gap of the monitor bezels going right through the middle of the application. Many programs that want to “auto center’ including LabVIEW vi’s so configured will be spread across both monitors. I’ve run into most problems when I mess with the ‘smart’ features of the card like having the card try to fool an application that one screen is dominant and maximize to only that monitor. This is how MS Photo Draw broke. It’s quite easy with the Matrox card to turn off the second monitor without a reboot to accommodate those single screen applications. When you install the Matrox G550 card – be sure to do it yourself! – A client had a IS guy build a couple of machines with G550’s, during the driver install – it asks if you want “Dual monitor support’. If you say NO – which he did – you can’t enable it after the fact (of I could not find a way). I spent hours messing around then tried an uninstall - reinstall and discovered this prompt. One very neat feature and I don’t know if it’s intentional is that if you open a VI on a single computer that was written and saved on the Right monitor of a dual monitor system – will show to the very right – but still draggable to the single screen. Otherwise it would be quite a nuisance to not be able to get to a front panel or diagram because you forgot to drag to over to the left screen first before and VI save. I love my G550 and I have looked at the APEX 4 monitor card – but I don’t know much about APEX – if Matrox came out with one I’d buy it. As far as monitor splitters – you really need the thick shielded and insulated Video cable $$$ – you’ll get a fuzzy screen and a headache if you use a cheap Video extension or switchbox cable. Jack Hamilton Hamilton Design [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.Labuseful.com 714-839-6375 Office
