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Multiple monitors on older Mac's

D

dex71

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 12, 2008
7
0
HI

I need some advice on setting up my old G4 AGP to run 2 desktop screens.
It currently has the original video card, with a measley 16mb ram on it, and I am planning to upgrade this with something like a Nvidia GeForce 6200 DVI 256Mb AGP x2-8 which has been set up for Mac use. This card can apparently run a 2 monitor set up but I am not sure if my rather elderly machine will be able to access this functionality over its x2 AGP socket. I know the alternative is to put a second video card in one of the PCI slots, but if my machine can do this from the one card then I would rather go down this route. Any ideas or advice on other video cards gratefully accepted!

Dex
;)
 
I guess the GeForce will work at a lower speed. I've never tried that, so I don't have first hand experience unfortunately
 
most likely you should be ok with that one card. I used to do it on my windows box of that vintage (2x AGP) and had no problems.

If not, you can always return it and scoop another PCI card.
 
You'll be fine. You could run 2 monitors right now if you wanted to. I have a 9000 pro in my MDD and use an old 16gb pci for my third monitor I just have my itunes library up on.
 
Does that mean that I can run 2 monitors off my current card? I assume one on the VGA and one on the DVI and then its just a case of setting them up in system prefs?
 
Yes that would work. It would be great if you are doing text stuff/surfing the net, but I wouldn't recommend you run final cut pro. If I were you I would invest in a good AGP card, 9600+ if you can. That would make a world of a difference.
 
Cheers Shu82

I'll give it a try and keep my eyes out for a decent upgrade card. Any advice on processor upgrades? I'm looking at the sonnet 1.8 ghz but have now seen a 2.0 ghz card from another supplier.
 
dex71 said:
Cheers Shu82

I'll give it a try and keep my eyes out for a decent upgrade card. Any advice on processor upgrades? I'm looking at the sonnet 1.8 ghz but have now seen a 2.0 ghz card from another supplier.
Click to expand...

You can go way overboard with this in a heartbeat. A new processor is not worth the money. If you want a new video card and a processor, I would go with just investing in a new mac. What are the specs on this PM G4? The bus may be a bottle neck and your board probably doesn't support more than 120 GB hard drives. I would go with more ram and maybe a used video card if this is the case.

I have put too much money into my MDD, and there is no way I could get what I have put into it. But, it runs leopard great with 2 gigs of ram and I added a sata card and have 2 Tbs of HDDs. I really need the specs on your machine before I can really tell you what would be the most cost effective.
 
Specs are

G4 350 mhz Agp tower. 1 gig ram, 2x 40g hard drive. DVD R/RW drive. USB 2 PCI card, ATY rage pro video card with 16mb memory. Currently running tiger with no probs.

This has been a real bargain budget machine for me, purchased on ebay for less then £50 and the only thing I have added so far is the USB 2 card and the DVD drive, both for very little hard cash. I can get the video card mentioned earlier for about another £50, and I am always checking out Ebay for processor upgrades as well, although I would feel better about buying this new. I'm toying with the idea of SATA drives and a card for them, but this is not urgent as I have a 500g external drive for all my storage. The internal drives are really just used for the OS and as scratch discs etc...
 
I would say look used. You can get a 7000 video card for $30, or a 9000 for 40. Either would be a world of a difference. There are some used processor upgrade deals every now and then on ebay. You just have to keep your eye out. You do have a slow bus and no large hard drive support. So I would just throw a used video card or processor if you can find them cheap. I wouldn't spend more than $100 (50 pounds) more on upgrading this machine. Any more than that you should look at a new machine.
 
Thanks Shu

Can you gove me the full name and spec on those video cards, I can thedo a search on Ebay etc.....

Cheers!
 
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