Specifications
Video Display Adapters
913
Moving the slider to the None setting (the far left) adds the SafeMode=2 directive to the [Windows]
section of the Win.ini file in Windows 9x/Me. This disables all hardware acceleration support on all
versions of Windows and forces the operating system to use only the device-independent bitmap
(DIB) engine to display images, rather than bit-block transfers. Use this setting when you experience
frequent screen lockups or receive invalid page fault error messages.
Note
If you need to disable any of the video hardware features listed earlier, this often indicates a buggy video or mouse driver.
If you download and install updated video and mouse drivers, you should be able to revert to full acceleration. You should
also download an updated version of DirectX for your version of Windows.
In most cases, another tab called Color Management is also available. You can select a color profile for
your monitor to enable more accurate color matching for use with graphics programs and printers.
Video cards with advanced 3D acceleration features often have additional properties; these are dis-
cussed later in this chapter.
Multiple Monitors
Macintosh systems pioneered multiple-monitor support long before Windows, but starting with
Windows 98, all current Windows versions also offer the ability to use multiple monitors on a single
system. Windows 98/Me support up to nine monitors (and video adapters), each of which can provide
a different view of the desktop. Windows 2000 and Windows XP support up to ten monitors and
video adapters. When you configure a Windows 98/Me or Windows 2000/XP system to use multiple
monitors, the operating system creates a virtual desktop—that is, a display that exists in video mem-
ory that can be larger than the image actually displayed on a single monitor. You use the multiple
monitors to display various portions of the virtual desktop, enabling you to place the windows for dif-
ferent applications on separate monitors and move them around at will.
Unless you use multiple-head video cards, each monitor you connect to the system requires its own
video adapter. So, unless you have nine bus slots free, the prospects of seeing a nine-screen Windows
display are slim, for now. However, even two monitors can be a boon to computing productivity. For
example, you can leave an email client or Web browser maximized on one monitor and use the other
monitor for additional programs.
On a multimonitor Windows system, one display is always considered to be the primary display. The
primary display can use any PCI or AGP VGA video adapter that uses a Windows minidriver with a
linear frame buffer and a packed (nonplanar) format, meaning that most of the brand-name adapters
sold today are eligible. Additional monitors are called secondaries and are much more limited in their
hardware support. To install support for multiple monitors, be sure you have only one adapter
installed first; then reboot the system, and install each additional adapter one at a time. For more
information about multiple-monitor support for Windows 98/Me, including a list of supported
adapters, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article #182708.
It’s important that the computer correctly identifies which one of the video adapters is the primary
one. This is a function of the system BIOS, and if the BIOS on your computer does not let you select
which device should be the primary VGA display, it decides based on the order of the PCI slots in the
machine. You should, therefore, install the primary adapter in the highest-priority PCI slot. In some
cases, an AGP adapter might be considered secondary to a PCI adapter. Depending on the BIOS used
by your system, you might need to check in various places for the option to select the primary VGA
display. For example, the AMI BIOS used by the MSI KT4 Ultra motherboard for Socket A processors
lists this option, which it calls Primary Graphics Adapter, in the PCI/PnP menu. In contrast, the
Intel/AMI BIOS used by the Intel D865PERL motherboard lists this option, which it calls Primary
Video Adapter, in the Video Configuration menu.
√√ See “The PCI Bus,” p. 358.
Chapter 15
16 1738 ch15 7/30/04 10:31 AM Page 913