Multiple monitor setup - need some guidance

[nosh]

I have an Geforce FX5200 display card. It has three outputs: VGA, S-Video & DVI.
So far I have used the S-Video output for playing movies on television. I'm really not interested in this anymore but would like to hook up an additional LCD monitor. Since the monitor only has a standard VGA input, how should I go about it without buying a new card? Will I get adapter cables for S-Video to VGA or DVI to VGA, which of these is preferable? My main concern is getting some noise in the output because of an adapter. The TV output does have some interference which I tend not to notice after a while but with a PC monitor this would be unacceptable.

The other option I can think of is to hook up an old PCI adapter side-by-side. Would my primary adapter be less efficient if I connect two monitors to it? I know, lots of questions but I'm quite clueless when it comes to hardware. Any suggestions would be muchly appreciated.


Edit: How about a VGA splitter?

[tinjaw]

You should get a adapter to plug the VGA monitor into the DVI port on your video card. You will see no difference than if you had plugged it into a VGA port. I would say 50% of the computers I use are doing this. You might want to take the time to check the box your video card or computer came in. It may have been included, but you dismissed it at the time and forgot about it.

[nosh]

Thanks tinjaw, that helps a lot!

I realised I have onboard graphics besides the spare PCI card and have been futzing around with those, only to find out that one doesn't support the resolution of the new monitor and the other doesn't support the refresh rate. A DVI 2 VGA adapter it is then.

[nosh]

Got a DVI to VGA adapter but the display is really dark and ugly and the icons displayed seem to have what can only be described as "stretch marks" 

I suppose the display card's just not good enough... I'm giving up on this one for now - will get a new PCI card later.

[lanux128]

get a graphics card with dual dvi.. see accompanying pic (not an endorsement)..

[nosh]

Thanks Lanux, I upgraded to a GEForce 6200 [512 MB). It's identical to the Geforce 5200 as far as output jacks are concerned but the DVI output isn't lacking.

Right now my challenge is to make an older PC with an AGP 2x slot accept the now unused 5200 which is 4/8 x... don't suppose there's anyway to put off a mobo upgrade.

[lanux128]

that shouldn't be a problem, your card will just run at 2x speed.. i've once had a 8x AGP running on a 2x AGP P3 mainboard..

[nosh]

The card was recognized by the BIOS (it displayed the onboard RAM) but XP kept showing a "not enough resources" error in Device Manager, it however was unable to show me specific resource conflicts and wouldn't even allow me to change the allocated resources. Some people online said what you just told me, others seemed to resolve the problem by increasing the AGP aperture size (no idea how that worked) and yet others by upgrading their BIOS chip.
I did manage to upgrade it to a P3 board with a 4X slot (old hardware is SO hard to find  ) and now it works.