Question Two graphics cards in one computer for Windows XP ?

Mar 31, 2023
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Hi. I'd like to build a computer for old games, mostly for those released in 1996-2007. AFAIK, some late 90s games had features that some video cards did not support (e.g table fog, 8 bit paletted textures). I was wondering is that possible to install a two different graphics cards in one computer? One in the PCI slot, the other in PCIe. If yes, how it will work? If I would like to use first card, will the second one idle or use resources? Are there any possibility to connect two different cards to one monitor and switch between them?
 
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Yes, unlike Vista, XP did support different graphics cards from different manufacturers installed simultaneously. For a list of graphics cards with out-of-the-box support see the long deleted kb article here: https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Microsoft_KB_Archive/296538

It's easiest to just use multiple monitors but if your monitor has multiple inputs, you could use different inputs on it for different graphics cards and switch them using the monitor front-panel controls.

As with any multiple monitor configuration, simply start or move the program on the desired monitor and then expand it to full-screen on that one to use its associated card. So long as the other monitor isn't displaying anything but the desktop (esp not a media player or browser) then it shouldn't use any resources worth noting.
 
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Mar 31, 2023
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Yes, unlike Vista, XP did support different graphics cards from different manufacturers installed simultaneously. For a list of graphics cards with out-of-the-box support see the long deleted kb article here: https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Microsoft_KB_Archive/296538

It's easiest to just use multiple monitors but if your monitor has multiple inputs, you could use different inputs on it for different graphics cards and switch them using the monitor front-panel controls.

As with any multiple monitor configuration, simply start or move the program on the desired monitor and then expand it to full-screen on that one to use its associated card. So long as the other monitor isn't displaying anything but the desktop (esp not a media player or browser) then it shouldn't use any resources worth noting.
Honestly, have no plan to use more than one monitor so that's why I'm asking about two card to one monitor. And of course it's a CRT. Good to know
 
The whole feature support thing like that still depended on the game moreso than if Windows cared about it. As long as it was an IBM PC video format compatible driver, Windows was fine with it because it wasn't using the card as a 3D accelerator. Unlike GUI processing after XP, which is basically 3D processing (albeit a very basic one with render to texture for the actual GUI)

Though if you wanted to use the other video card for its features, you have to move the monitor to that every time you want to use it. Windows's graphics drivers didn't support letting another video card render the image for the primary one to display it.
 
Mar 31, 2023
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Though if you wanted to use the other video card for its features, you have to move the monitor to that every time you want to use it. Windows's graphics drivers didn't support letting another video card render the image for the primary one to display it.
I meant, depending on the game to run the game on one or another card, and in order not to constantly reconnect one cable, connect them both to the monitor. I don't need one card to render and the second to show the image, one of the cards should do it individually. Just like on laptops, there are often two video cards and you can choose with which you want to run the game. If I understood you correctly.
 
The problem with connecting multiple cables to a single monitor is that your desktop icons, and for XP (unlike modern Windows) also the taskbar only shows up on one of the inputs so you will end up doing a lot of toggling. Fortunately most multiple-input CRT monitors have a handy input button on the front to switch, so at least you don't have to wade through menus.

3rd party software such as MultiMon for XP allows you to put the taskbar and Start Menu button onto both "monitors." Such software also allows you to always launch a program on one of them

Modern graphics drivers do allow you to output a discrete card's output through an IGP (which is how people can use those headless mining-only cards to game on), but XP drivers are not modern.
 
I meant, depending on the game to run the game on one or another card, and in order not to constantly reconnect one cable, connect them both to the monitor. I don't need one card to render and the second to show the image, one of the cards should do it individually. Just like on laptops, there are often two video cards and you can choose with which you want to run the game. If I understood you correctly.
This setup would make think Windows has two monitors connected to it, requiring you to change which one is the primary monitor, then switching the input. It's not like you can switch inputs and Windows will automatically switch the output to that, because as far as it's concerned, either it's a secondary monitor or it's not sending anything to it.

The way multi GPU setups on laptops work is that the GPU not connected to the display renders an image and sends it over to the other GPU's frame buffer. Windows until XP does not support this feature.
 
Mar 31, 2023
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It looks tricky. If both graphics cards are connected to the motherboard at the same time, so I do need to connect only one of them (to a monitor) to run a certain game and then turn off the PC and swtich the cable to other one when I need, right? And the other graphics card will use the power from the PSU or just idle?
 
It looks tricky. If both graphics cards are connected to the motherboard at the same time, so I do need to connect only one of them (to a monitor) to run a certain game and then turn off the PC and swtich the cable to other one when I need, right? And the other graphics card will use the power from the PSU or just idle?
You can just swap which card the monitor is plugged into while the computer is on, or use a switch if you don't want to do that. And the graphics card will idle.

Though thinking about it more, it may not be worth going through the trouble of doing this. Video cards of the day had to be DirectX or OpenGL compliant. While DirectX was plagued by the so-called cap-bits issue, Microsoft still laid out a minimum set of requirements that DirectX compliant cards had to meet. So it's very likely that most game developers only developed towards that minimum capability set, that any extra capability made little significant impact, or if the capability is not supported, then maybe some whizzbang graphical feature wasn't allowed to be enabled.

I got heavily into PC gaming around that time and there wasn't really much my friends and I couldn't play between our ATI and NVIDIA cards.
 
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You can just swap which card the monitor is plugged into while the computer is on, or use a switch if you don't want to do that. And the graphics card will idle.
This is situation when I have two graphics cards connected to a monitor simultaneously? What should I do if my monitor only has one input?
I got heavily into PC gaming around that time and there wasn't really much my friends and I couldn't play between our ATI and NVIDIA cards.
You could play anything, regardless of whether you have ATI or NVIDIA. However, some of the features I mentioned did not work on some cards, and the games appeared slightly different.

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_games_with_Table_Fog_support
 
This is situation when I have two graphics cards connected to a monitor simultaneously? What should I do if my monitor only has one input?
You'd have to either physically swap the cable from the monitor to the appropriate video card, or buy a switch that lets you switch between which card you want (a VGA based KVM would work, just don't use the KM part).

You could play anything, regardless of whether you have ATI or NVIDIA. However, some of the features I mentioned did not work on some cards, and the games appeared slightly different.

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_games_with_Table_Fog_support
If this is the only feature you're looking at, then you can get away with using just an NVIDIA GPU (or an ATI one with the appropriate driver version). I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want to not use either an NVIDIA or ATI GPU unless you were looking into playing something with glide only support and you wanted to throw in a Voodoo card as well.
 
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If this is the only feature you're looking at, then you can get away with using just an NVIDIA GPU (or an ATI one with the appropriate driver version). I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't want to not use either an NVIDIA or ATI GPU unless you were looking into playing something with glide only support and you wanted to throw in a Voodoo card as well.
I'm exactly looking for a card from NVIDIA, specifically the FX series, since this is the last that supports these features. Voodoo cards are great but too expensive.
 
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