dual monitor setup advice

[baxtermadux]

I have a single monitor now, and would like to add a second to my desptop. My video card, a Nvidia Geforce FX5200, has a vga slot and a dvi slot. right now i have a 17" lcd vga monitor. i was wondering if i can just plug a new monitor with DVI into that extra slot(dvi), or do i need to upgrade my card. the card has 128 bit memory. will it handle the additional monitor, which will be a 19". do i need a switch box or something?
i have been doing video editing in movie maker, and i get a lot of dropped frames, and im not sure which component would be causing it. I have a pentium 4 3.0 ghz, 2 gb of ram, and my primary hard-drive runs at 5200 rpm. i suspect my hard drive might be too slow for editing large files. but i also thought it could be the video card being too slow.
so if anyone can tell me what upgrade would be most effective for my video editing purposes, and running two monitors, that would be a lot of help.

 

[Tommy Boy]

your video card should be able to handle 2 monitors just fine. and yes, all you would need to do is plug in another monitor with dvi, then go to your video card options and set it up the way you want it. I would say your hard drive is too slow and you should get either a 7200 rpm or a 10,000 rpm drive.

btw, this is in the wrong forum, a mod should move this to the general section.

 

[PerfectSK]

Yeah the card should be able to handle it. Try getting a newer harddrive that has a higher spin rate. You might want to think about getting a seperate component just for video editing like getting one of Pinnacle Studio's digital video creators. Try updating your Nvidia drivers and see if there is any kind of performance boost, or you could always upgrade your video card.

 

[baxtermadux]

thanks guys. good info