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Second Monitor, any monitor?

B

bogiesan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 10, 2001
10
1
I really wnat on e fo these new things on my desk at work. But I really need two displays to do my job. One of them can be a low rez CRT, doesn't matter, it only has to hold tools for various applications.
Is it possible to add a second monitor via FireWire or USB to the new iMac? Any third party mfrs like Griffin making a funky device that will do this? Seems to me the new iMac's graphics card has the muscle to drive two monitors, even if they are at reduced rez or lower color spaces.

david bogie, video guy
Boise ID
 
Mirroring only

Second monitor but with video mirroring only.

Why would you mirror a 15" LCD monitor anyways?
 
good point. especially considering all apples displays still require A D C. Would have been nice to throw an ADC connector back there. Or atleast on the Pro models.
 
It's an iMac........

There IS NO pro model. Pro model iMac=G4 tower. Has anyone split this out for you?

iMac is the home Desktop machine, iBook is the home Portable, The Tower is the Pro desktop and the TiBook is the Pro portable.

If you DON'T need sick amounts of RAM, multiple monitors, multiple internal HD's, PCI slots or ADC than you can probably get away with an iMac or iBook. Otherwise, buy a tower.
 
thank you. i am very aware of the consumer/pro line up. What I meant was the Pro (G4 Tower) needs a video card with support for 2 ADC displays, being that is the only display apple makes.
 
multiple ADC

You can BTO with more than one card. to build without VGA just to get two ADC's on the same card would take us back to the days of the "apple monitor plug" problem.Better to have a VGA connector available on the default card. If you want two ADC's from the one card, get the dual nVidia and use an adapter.
 
only problem is...

that the addaptor costs like $50.00. And the dual card with one VGA/ ADO and support for 2 monitors at same time costs $100.00 more than the one that supports only one monitor. It might be cheeper just to get an extra ADO PCI vid card and probably get better proformance out of it too.
 
Re: only problem is...

Originally posted by evildead
that the addaptor costs like $50.00. And the dual card with one VGA/ ADO and support for 2 monitors at same time costs $100.00 more than the one that supports only one monitor. It might be cheeper just to get an extra ADO PCI vid card and probably get better proformance out of it too.
Click to expand...

I think the real issue with having 2 ADC lies in the beautiful but complex nature of the port.

If you ship cards with 2 ADC ports you need to have AGP ports that can supply twice as much power and USB through the motherboard. If you want a second card that supports ADC, either all the PCI slots must support extra power and USB or more AGP slots would have to be added which, obviously, takes from maxium number of PCI slots.

ADC - FANTASTIC and WONDERFUL idea, a pain in the arse in reality.... I still like to show it off.
 
agreed

ADO... is great... but it can be a pain with all the adapers and stuff. When I was shopping for my Mac, I was considering getting 2 LCD's... i was looking at all the options. I just went for on '17 Apple LCD insted. It would be nice to have 2... but thats a lot of cash to make it work. And like you said... I wonder about if a PCI card could even do it.
 
Re: agreed

Originally posted by evildead
ADO... is great... but it can be a pain with all the adapers and stuff. When I was shopping for my Mac, I was considering getting 2 LCD's... i was looking at all the options. I just went for on '17 Apple LCD insted. It would be nice to have 2... but thats a lot of cash to make it work. And like you said... I wonder about if a PCI card could even do it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, well, as they say, if there's a will there's a way. Someone on another thread was suggesting that the new rev of the G3 chips from IBM could actually Multi-process which goes to show that if they REALLY want something to work they can work out a way. In this matter, though, who would want to pay the price for all slots being ADC ready when most of us are QUITE happy with only one graphics card?!

I just wish I could afford one of those lovely 22" monitors..... maybe WHEN (;)) they replace the 22" with a bigger monitor I can get one cheap. LOL

For now, though, I LOVE my 17" and it makes SO many people jealous. The main comments I get, though, revolve around whether it would work on a PC. Unfortunately, since I have only ever seen an adaptor to DVI around here, I have to turn down a lot of VGA users.
 
Here's a nice (and fairly cheap solution) for dual display action:

http://www.clubmac.com/profiles/itemdy07.asp?UID=2002011020401470&T1=A143+1125

ATI RADEON VE MAC EDITION 32MB DUAL MON.

$ 129.00
Item # : A143 1125
In Stock: No, call 800-217-9153
for availability.
Quantity :





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shipping first quarter of 2002
Experience exceptional 3D graphics performance, at a value price. The RADEON? VE MAC EDITION includes 32MB of DDR memory for fast 32-bit true color 3D graphics. Includes flexible dual-display support for multiple combinations of CRT monitors, TVs and video devices. The RADEON? VE MAC EDITION - setting new standards for visual excellence.

Overview:

Flexible dual-display support enabling any combination of VGA, DVI and TV
Powered by the ATI RADEON? VE graphics processing unit
32MB of powerful double data rate (DDR) memory
Features ATI HYPERZ? technology for improved performance
Powerful 3D graphics performance.
Full OpenGL® and QuickTime? support
DVI interface for digital flat panel support
Video-output for TV out/display
Analog video output support for both composite and S-Video
DVD playback
Supports 3D resolutions (32-bit color) up to 1920 x 1440
PCI (66MHz or 33MHz)
Features:
Powerful 3D performance
RADEON? VE, with 32MB of powerful double data rate memory and HYPERZ? technology, delivers excellent 3D performance.
RADEON? VE supports Open GL® for superior graphics and 3D textures that add a more natural look to game environments
Experience the incredible 3D and DVD of RADEON? VE with flat panel displays to enjoy crisper and clearer images, true flat screen, reduced eyestrain and space savings
Crisp and clear 32-bit 3D resolutions up to 1920 x 1440
Reliable and proven technology
RADEON? VE employs the award-winning technology from ATI?s successful graphics accelerators for consistent, stable performance
Unified driver architecture allows for the use of one driver set across the RADEON? family of products
Quality product from the world?s largest manufacturer of graphics boards means reduced cost of ownership ? less downtime, low power consumption, full technical support, and three-year warranty
3D acceleration features
HYPER Z? technology
VIDEO IMMERSION? technology
Twin Cache Architecture
Single-Pass Multi-texturing (3 textures per clock cycle)
True Color Rendering
Triangle Setup Engine
Texture Cache
Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering
Line Anti-aliasing
Texture Decompression support under and OpenGL®
Specular Highlights
Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping
Mip-Mapping
Z-buffering and Double-buffering
Emboss and Dot Product 3 bump mapping
Spherical, Dual-Paraboloid and Cubic environment mapping
Specifications:
System requirements
PCI(66MHz or 33MHz) - capable Macintosh
Mac® OS 9.x, OS X
QuickTime? 5.0
Open GL®
Graphics controller
RADEON? VE graphics engine
Display support
DDC 2b/2b+/2c monitor support
Display Power Management Support
Separate horizontal & vertical synchronization at TTL levels
Monitor support
CRT Monitor: 15 pin VGA connector
S-Video or composite connector
DVI-I (flat panel display) connector
Memory configurations
32MB Double Data Rate(DDR)
Operating systems support
Mac OS X
Mac OS 9.X
 
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