multiple screens attached to mac G5

[tonmeistermat]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a way to attach more than the standard two screens to my G5 to get some more screen real estate. I know that digi doesn't recomend this, but I also know that several people on here do it very successfully as there was a thread some time ago, which I've searched in vain for.

I'd really appreciate some comments, or if anyone has a link to that original thread!


Thanks,

Matthew

ps - I'm running a Dual 2Gig Power PC G5, with PCI-X slots....

[C]

how many screens are you looking at matt?

I've looked into some of the options if you wanted to have a chat about it.

C

ps/ Link 1 Link 2

[Sonsey]

Hi Matt,

Whether or not a second card will work depends a lot on your system. For example, here at the main studio we have Quad G5's (PCI-e) with two identical NVIDA cards and HD2's that work just peachy. At home my G4 and Mbox work just great with two cards. However in one of our remote rooms, we couldn't get a 002 and a PCI card (ATI 9200) to work at all in a Dual G5 1.8... constant crashes. Digi states that PCI and AGP cards are not supported together so anything that uses the PCI bus (Firewire or Presumably HD cards) will have a problem. The solution that we came up with was to use the Matrox Dual Head 2 Go to split the output of the stock NVIDIA card to give us 3 screens. Works very well, although it requires a little getting used to in terms of having one BIG screen split over two monitors as opposed to two smaller screens.

BTW... here's one thread and another

[tonmeistermat]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that thread that decended into a slanging match between an aggressive DigiTech guy and the rest of the world..... ;-)

Thanks both for your comments and thoughts. It seems I may be looking at upgrading to an Intel G5 to do this successfully, though I'll certainly give you a call Ceri.

That Matrox box looks interesting, but I fear it won't work properly with my wide screen monitors which have a native resolution of 1680x1050.... which doesn't seem to be supported. Also it's VGA, and I'd prefer a DVI solution.

Thanks again though!

Mat

[pindebraende]

The solution that we came up with was to use the Matrox Dual Head 2 Go to split the output of the stock NVIDIA card to give us 3 screens. Works very well, although it requires a little getting used to in terms of having one BIG screen split over two monitors as opposed to two smaller screens.

You actually made this unit work? Impressive!
I tried this box on my g5 PCI-x, and it only mirrored the second screen to the third monitor. No matter what I did, I couldnt get it to work properly.

Best wishes,

Mikkel

[tonmeistermat]

I've been looking into this solution, and it seems that there are various flavours of box... including a tripple head box, various analogue and digital configurations, and specific mac friendly ones.

Perhaps it's worth a try!


Mikkel, i presume you had the correct version for your set-up?

Mat

[Sonsey]

You actually made this unit work? Impressive!
I tried this box on my g5 PCI-x, and it only mirrored the second screen to the third monitor. No matter what I did, I couldnt get it to work properly.

Best wishes,

Mikkel

By default, that's the way it's set-up... and there is NO documentation directly on this. You have to go into the display preferences and set the resolution to a setting equal to 2X the display you want... for example our 15" monitors (yeah I know...) have a native 1024x768 resolution so I had to set the Matrox screen to 2048X768 and then it will "span" the two monitors. If your Monitor resolutions aren't supported in the list of preset resolutions, then it won't work. We did end up using the Analog version simply because it was in stock, and I needed a solution FAST.

[pindebraende]

I've been looking into this solution, and it seems that there are various flavours of box... including a tripple head box, various analogue and digital configurations, and specific mac friendly ones.

Perhaps it's worth a try!


Mikkel, i presume you had the correct version for your set-up?

Mat

Yes I did.
But at the time I mailed Matrox, they couldnt tell me 100% it would work. My mac wasnt on their a approved list, so...
I just bought it, and took advantage of the money back within 7 days-guarantee, and send it back when I found out it didnt work.

Best wishes,

Mikkel