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Screen Spanning Hack on new ibooks

Z

zeeko

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 15, 2005
44
0
I connected this old 16" 600x800 apple display to my new 12" 1.33 ibook 512 ram w/screen spanning hack and it worked great. No lag dragging across screens, it was AWESOME. The resolution sucks on my other monitor but i plan on getting a new lcd now that i kno this works good.
 
Good to hear, thanks for the info. It's a great hack that came in handy on my old iBook.
 
Just so you know, of course it's going to work a TON better at 600x800 than it will at the higher resolution of a new LCD, especially if it's above 1024x768. You only have 16mb VRAM on each screen.
 
Performance shouldn't be too bad.

Just replaced my 800mhz iBook with a new one. I haven't run with a second screen yet, but:

On my last one, I routinely ran an external Dell LCD at 1600x1200, in addition to the internal display. This was on a 32MB Radeon 9200. The only noticeable glitch is with Expose, which was stuttery.

So the new iBooks should have no difficulty.
 
gizmo_pony said:
actually , what is screen spanning hack ? i hv heard that it will void the warranty ?
Click to expand...

Yes, it voids the warranty only if they catch you. On start up, you can just reset the PRAM and the hack will be gone!
 
I tried connecting my 17" LCD to my iBook. It was nice and all, but I do nothing that requires that big of a screen. 12" is more than enough for me. Thank god I didn't get the 14".
 
Just attatched an old monitor to my iBook and it works fine. And I've just purchased a nice Sony monitor off of eBay for £5 :D

::20ROGERSC::
 
I will test out my iBook on a 20" Dell widescreen later tonight. I am sure it will work but exposé will run slow.
 
OK i just installed the hack on my Dell 20" running at 1680x1050. Exposé runs choppy but not horrible. To my surprise, WoW runs at about 20FPS on average in windowed mode at 1024x768 :eek: That is very playable and very surprising to me. The back isn't half bad and if you have an external display give it a try.
 
persianpunisher said:
probably fraud, check it out
Click to expand...
No it's not :D

I had to pick it up though, an hours drive, which limited bidders I think. I got it home and it worked fine, it's a lovely monitor.

I've been running it at 1152 x 870 (75hz) and everything is running fine. Theres no 'dragging' in Exposé, and my iBook's still only got 256mb RAM at the moment.

It's a great hack, I would reccomend it to any iBook user.

::20ROGERSC::
 
tikibangout said:
I tried connecting my 17" LCD to my iBook. It was nice and all, but I do nothing that requires that big of a screen. 12" is more than enough for me. Thank god I didn't get the 14".
Click to expand...

The 12" and 14" screen have the same resolution so you don't have any more real estate, the pixels are just bigger so what you see on the 12" is the same as what you would see on the 14" it would just be physically bigger.
 
the spanning hack is f'n AWESOME!!! i'm using it right now and it's so cool!!! joyyyy...

btw i'm running the external display at 1280x1024 and it's just great. Lovin' it and there's no lag! (Only when you use expose'... but with this much screen real estate I don't really need it!)
 
20rogersc said:
I've been running it at 1152 x 870 (75hz) and everything is running fine. Theres no 'dragging' in Exposé, and my iBook's still only got 256mb RAM at the moment.

It's a great hack, I would reccomend it to any iBook user.

::20ROGERSC::
Click to expand...
Now running it at 1600x1200 still with no problems, it works like a treat. So great to have that extra space.

It's the best hack I've ever used!

::20ROGERSC::
 
My only little gripe is that expose is choppier but with so much screen real estate you don't need expose that much! :) Awesome hack! I want to go get an LCD now (using an old Sylvania CRT at the moment... my dad's 19" LCD rocked though...)
 
ITASOR said:
Just so you know, of course it's going to work a TON better at 600x800 than it will at the higher resolution of a new LCD, especially if it's above 1024x768. You only have 16mb VRAM on each screen.
Click to expand...

Yup, but not that much worse. I usually go with a res of 1280 instead of 1600 on my external monitor, but both resolutions are definitely usable from my iBook - which is a rev A G4, 800 Mhz / Radeon 9200. The new iBooks should perform even better.
 
ITASOR said:
Just so you know, of course it's going to work a TON better at 600x800 than it will at the higher resolution of a new LCD, especially if it's above 1024x768. You only have 16mb VRAM on each screen.
Click to expand...

A 1920 x 1200 screen at 32 bit colour needs 9mB of video memory - the iBook has plenty of video memory to run a second monitor at high resolutions. VRAM is not an issue.
 
My iBook will be arriving this week (first mac :) ), and I'm interested in this hack. While I probably won't go through with it for some time, at least until I'm familiar with the machine, I was curious to see exactly what kind of damage it could cause. I would imagine that there might be internal heat issues involved and, probably, the risk that the patch doesn't correctly apply.

If my new iBook were to come down with something and I'd have to take it in, even if the patch was fully removable and untraceable, I'd feel bad if the hack is what caused the problem.
 
I've had my ibook nearly a month now, gradually been assimilating/assembling my bitchin setup... whence today on craigslist some dude had his Studioworks 995E 19" monitor up for 20 bucks... have been decking around with it for an hour now, and it's very, very nice, though CRT isn't as good to to the eyes as LCD, and bumping up the resolution to fit more info in the boxes makes everything smaller and smaller... kinda nulling the point of having a bigger screen, but with garageband and photoshop it is muy bueno.

I do notice alot of lag, here and there -- typing this reply isn't as snappy as on just the ibook, and expose is not fluid anymore (tho dashboard's ripple isn't affected).

& fyi G5unit : the max system preferences will allow me to span is 1792 x 1344 @ 84.9 hertz on the ext monitor.

The actual program comes with a disable option, so I'm not quite clear why we need to bother with zapping the hell out of anything. :rolleyes: .

Oh, and clamshell mode works fine. I can put the ibook to sleep by shutting the lid, and then can reopen the lid without it waking up, so as to not have to worry 'bout heat issues.

This is a very, very nice little line of code, and Mr. ibook@macparts should be liberally thanked!
 
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