Canfield Research Group

I wanted to make use of the dual-head capability of my GForce card under MythTV. The utlimate goal is to use an always on LCD screen as the interface (Video, Music, etc.) and the TV for video. A GForce 4000 can do this after a bit of work.

To get this to work requires seperate displays where resolution can be independently set. The core of the documentation can be found at http://download.nvidia.com/solaris/1.0-8178/README/appendix-o.html. Note I do NOT use Twinview sicne I want seperate displays.

My operating system is Mandriva 2006.

The only trick is to make sure that the BusID line is set EVEN if you have only one card. Modify your XFConfig configuration per the nvidia.com instructions. To get your BusID use lspci. After that simply restart X and you will see to seperate KDE windows. The mouse moves between them BUT screens cannot be dragged across. Each screen can be independently set.

My XG86Config file

WARNING: Do not enabled RednerAccel for either screen! Doing so will cause Xorg (especially MthyTV) to be unreliable and often crash the system hard.