Vista - Ati radeon hd3200?

Hello, im new to the forum but i had some questions about my graphics card. I have an ATI Radeon HD3200 on my gateway gt5676 and i was wondering what i had to do to do a Dual moniter display (2 moniters).

and also, i was wondering overall, how good my card is. i dont know much about graphics cards but is this is a pretty good card or is it junk?

thanks

I'm not really an ATI follower so don't know in terms of performance how good it is, but I know that the 3200 is the low end of that series, so performance in the latest games will be minimal.

To do dual monitors, just connect two monitors to each of the ports on the graphic card, then go in to the driver utility and somewhere in there should be the option to set up dual monitors. It's pretty straight forward, so you shouldn't come to any major difficulty with it.

It's an OK card. However you will start to see major improvements in the HD3870 series. Or the newer 4xxx series.

Dual Monitor should be configurable by Right Click the Desktop, Choosing Personalize and then going to Display Settings. (After connecting both monitors to back of Video card of course)

What most people want is to click on monitor number 2 and put a check beside "Extend desktop onto this monitor" allowing you to then have applications draggable to the other montior. For example, having Internet Explorer on one monitor and Microsoft Word on the other.

Not even a card, it is onboard,

Gateway Support - Specifications

with one VGA port and one HDMI port,

Gateway Support - Ports View

only way you're hooking up two monitors to that is one on the VGA port and one to the HDMI (using either a DVI/HDMI cable or adapter).

so is this card more for viewing movies? it runs games ok, but they arent great.

Pretty much. From the few reviews I can find,

HD3200 - Google Search

it performs about on par with the HD 2400 Pro, which was the lowest HD 2xxx series card made; the HD 3450 has similar performance (slightly faster than the 2400, but probably not even noticeable).

Now if you want a very nice improvement without spending a lot you might want to look at the new HD 4650,

Newegg.com - MSI R4650-D512 Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Performs similarly to the HD 3850, and for the price it can't be beat.

Thats a great price, but is MSI a legit brand? its pretty cheap so that leads me to believe that its an off brand or something?

any thoughts?

I would certainly hope so from one of the larger motherboard and video card manufacturers,

MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO.,LTD.

ive had my eye on this one for a while...
ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series - Overview
all the reviews for it were great and its a good price. the only reason i was leaning toward that one was because its ati, and so is the one that came with my pc, so i would think that it would be easier to install and have less issues or conflicts.

though i could be totally wrong, i know nothing about hardware.

Hi VIRUSdotEXE...

you will currently struggle to run a 4800 on your rig..

your current HD3200 is an integrated chipset & cannot be compared to a 4800.

you do have an unpopulated PCIe slot.
the HD4850 would run if you change your power supply.

a good 500w PSU with at least 30A on the 12v would be sufficient.

your CPU should be fine, there may be a slight bottleneck but nothing major.
4gb ram is also good.

what size monitor do you have....the resolution will play a big part in graphics card choice..??

SK