hi Rjay,
i like those Matrox cards if you dont need a high-performance 3D-videocard for gaming.
you can have them for PCI-e or PCI - slots and you can add multiple of them.
and they are professional industrie-standard.
they have NO fans/no noice + Ultra low power consumption: 10.7 watts - ideal for 24/7 systems.
i have not tried something with USB yet - but this should be also OK.
USB-conectors are also used for high-quality external audio+midi-interfaces - so the speed shoudlnt be a problem for charting.
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Nearly every PCI Express video card made has dual DVI connections and will support two monitors. If you want three or four monitors, buy two of the same cards. Five or six monitors, buy three cards. Disable any on-board video if you have it, and make sure you have an available PCI Express x8 or x16 slot in your computer.
You can get two cheap 9500GT's (is what I have) for like $50-60 each. Or if you just need two monitors just buy one.
Don't you have two connectors on an XPS 400, 1 DVI and 1 VGA ?
If yes, you just need another monitor, that's all...
I didn't try usb video card, I have something like Mike's configuration, 2 old & cheap dual DVI card, 7800GT.
But on a Dell XPS, you can't do that, just 1 pcie x 16 I think.
30 inch monitor will require 2 dvi ports.
Before you buy research the panel type of the monitor its either IPS, PVA, MVA or TN.
I recommend getting a matted screen with either IPS, PVA, MVA panel.
I also don't like integrated graphic cards. It doesn't seem to display the text clear and crisp for some reason.
I was at Best Buy last week looking at them. I wasn't sure if they were the right choice so I went with more of what was already working on my computer.
Also, $85.00 vs $ 27.00
Thanks for the input, it will help others make informed decisions.
I have a 30" for my music workstation but my trading setup is on 3 24"
Really I wish I could get 4 or 5 nice non-widescreen 20" but they are hard to come by these days. Widescreens in portrait mode would be good too if the bezels could come off =)
How many screens does most people use for trading? I have heard recommended is 2 big screen preferably 22 inch or larger but anything more than 2 can be distracting particularly if you are trading from your home in an average size room.
2 is definitely a good starting point, especially while learning, some would say for all time.
For most of us its the same issue as with the Idiot Lantern (TV) - they can often be more informative (i.e. less destructive to intuition) when switched off rather than when switched on, its all about quality of information rather than quantity.
I use 5, split across 2 computers (its a Fibonacci thing.)
Seriously though, more important is to factor in 2 years of learning for each monitor you add..., this worked for me, I had to throw 2 away so that I could get the profitability event horizon back into this decade
I have three but most of the time (95% of the time) I only use two of them. Having more monitors is great, but there is something to be said for simplicity. Most markets can just be monitored from a quote board and from there you can pull up anything else you want (charts, DOM, order ticket, time and sales). Having extra monitors only improves your profits if you actually HAVE profits.
That being said I have always thought this set up with a larger central monitor and two smallers wing monitors in portrait was really cool.
.
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IBM laptops had this out over 8 years ago,
now that they're Lenovo, however long ago that was, it was that long ago,
not worth bringing back, as most laptops on the Core i chip sets have a robust enough video card that supports a 2nd monitor that can be spanned, shared or duplicated (not that there's any value in duplicated)
I'm using only two 24" monitors with four charts each for trading as I focus on a maximum of two instruments at a time.
I trade CL until the cash market closes and then concentrate on NQ and (sometimes) TF.
That's more than enough to focus on since you should learn all you can get about your favourite markets, and any additional instrument or information would distract me too much from my trading.
I need my 3 monitors, all for trading 1 market. Entry chart, footprint, and DOM on left; Structure and Profile charts on right; cash equity markets, TICK, long term picture, and orders/fills/position info on top. I have tried to eliminate some of these but honestly I use all of these at some point during every day; and the stuff I reference less is even hidden behind other windows, so ideally I'd like to have one or two more so I wouldn't have to switch.
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Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
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Considering how inexpensive monitors/video cards are, to me it's a no brainer decision so I can watch multiple markets while also having room for my DOM's, email and web. I spend my day between charts, email, and web so can't imagine having anything minimized or hidden from view.
I currently have 3 on a single Radeon with eyefinity. With your 6, do you run into problems locating a mouse and having to scroll horizontally 6 monitors to get from far left to right for example? Or do you have a super cool setup where you can move the mouse all around, up and down, left and right among the displays?
There is another thread about this too, but I can't find it at the moment.
Here is a pic of my desk.
More details here:
Mike
I have six Dell U2412M's, three on top row, three on bottom row. I am currently using 2xFirePro 2460's which each have 4xMini-DisplayPort connectors and are passively cooled.
Yes, you can move windows/mouse all naturally from any location.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
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Part of Windows since Win 95 I think... the only special software I have is UltraMon, which just places a taskbar on each monitor instead of the primary monitor having 50 windows in the taskbar.
Mike, I have not felt quite so stupid in a long time. I had no idea that I could configure like this:
The default is all 3 in a row like this:
For years I have been moving to the top by scrolling to the right, but now I can move the mouse up to get there. All I had to do was drag one on top in the settings and now it is a thing of beauty! Thank you!
-Sheepishly, J
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Get a really cheap monitor, watch it every day for 6-10 hours, and then watch a nice display every day for the same amount of time, and you will see a difference. It has nothing to do with what is being displayed, be it a chart or complex graphics.
