Triple Displays Possible with Mac OS X!!!

[noahslater]

After weeks of researching and no mention of triple monitor suport on the Mac website I finnaly took the risk and bought my third Apple display. The third one is driven by a flashed ATI Radeon 7000 64MB PCI from eBay.

So there you go, it IS possible! See attachments for pictures.

 

[edesignuk]

Of course it's possible!

Looks freakin fantastic though BTW *green with envy* )

 

[noahslater]

You would be suprised....

I was so unsure if it was possible because there was no documentation about more than two display and I could not find any user reports on the net.

In the end it involved the following process:

1. Hook up two monitors to the AGP card pre-installed.
2. Buy a Mac compatable PCI card and flash it to be more powerfull

BTW this involved buying a discontinued card from eBay as I could not find any compatible card for sale new.

3. Hook up third monitor to PCI card

BTW, at this point Quartz grinded to a halt an simple things like drag and drop and expose stopped working.

4. Install http://pages.cthome.net/zacks/pciextreme.sit to get Quartz working again
5. Speeded up the card using http://mapage.noos.fr/campahunta/software/ATIccelerator_1.1.2.dmg.bin

Not exactly plug'n'play!!!

 

[Peyote]

You can afford 3 Apple displays, but can't afford anything other than a picnic table to put them on?


Just kidding man....looks really fun to mess around on. Nice setup

 

[noahslater]

Picnic table?

I'll have you know that the table in question is a £500 frosted glass dining table from Habitat actually!!!

 

[Peyote]

I'll have you know that the table in question is a £500 frosted glass dining table from Habitat actually!!!

Yah, I noticed the glass...helluva lot better than my desk! I've got a giant wooden door sitting on two cabinets that usually go in kitchens. It's all painted up purdy though

 

[noahslater]

Just to let you know...

I'm not actually just some rich dude with more money than sense...

I could only afford all that kit (about 7-8K) because I got an inheritance... god I don't even want to think about how long it would take for me to save for that on my regular pay packet!!!

 

[Peyote]

I'm not actually just some rich dude with more money than sense...

I could only afford all that kit (about 7-8K) because I got an inheritance... god I don't even want to think about how long it would take for me to save for that on my regular pay packet!!!

No, if you were one of those guys, you'd have twin or triple 23" screens on VESA mounts. Or the 30 inch displays if they were available yet.

Still, props to ya homie...definately a very cool setup

 

[noahslater]

Yeah, fully

I do find it a little amusing, if not satisfying, to know that the combined cost of all three displays was less than the 30" display by itself.

I know what I would prefer!

 

[Macmaniac]

That is so hot, nice job man, I wish I could have a second or even third display on my computer, unfortunately I have an iMac so I'm not lucky like you. Good job!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Very nice set up - bastard!

So what exactly are you doing that you need three screens?

D

 

[Mechcozmo]

Oooooooh. Shiny.

I so wish I could do that...just wondering: if the PCI card has 2 outputs, can you drive 4 displays total?

That would be even nicer. Not that 3 displays is bad, y'know. It is, in the immortal words of Homestar Runner, "Fweakin Awesome!"

 

[cb911]

oh sweet!!!

could you post some larger pics though? i wanna see them in all their glory.

do does it really drag OS X down having the 3rd screen? is it still usable?

you're going to have to search for some 3 screen wallpapers now. i know Mandoulx has dual screen walls, but good luck finding 3.

 

[aswitcher]

An off side question...a new G5 dually with one of those really exy cards for the 30"...since its a "dual dual" could it support FOUR 23" apple monitors...?

 

[Mechcozmo]

An off side question...a new G5 dually with one of those really exy cards for the 30"...since its a "dual dual" could it support FOUR 23" apple monitors...?

No, there are only two outputs. 2 30" displays, though. The Dual DVI refers to the DVI connection using all the pins on it, instead of just half. If you got a PCI video card, however, then you might be able to...dunno. Any filthy rich people out there willing to try it?

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

Mac OS X can support as many monitors as:

1. you have outputs for.
2. you have bandwidth for.

with only one AGP slot, it's hard to get a 3rd or 4 monitor without a PCI GPU or some form of splitter (none that i know of). a better card than your discontinued 7000 would have been the 9200 (which costs about the same) with it's 128mb of VRAM and improved components/functionality. I think it might have tv output as well, so you could even go to TV as well for a 4th pseudo-monitor.

the 6800 can only drive two monitors, no matter how small they may be. it would be difficult to attach 4 monitors with only 2 connections. add a PCI card and get a VGA to DVI adapter and you could probably get 4 monitors going...a 30" would look much nicer and save real estate/power draw.

 

[MacNut]

How does it look when playing a dvd, Does it spit the movie on all 3 screens or would it be too stretched out to watch comfortably.

 

[neut]

of course you can. You can even put 3 monitors on a Powerbook (sidecar).

i like what i see. Flash dev.? Video?


peace.

 

[cb911]

yeah, can you post a small video of those 3 monitors all in action? that'd be sweet!

 

[the future]

of course you can. You can even put 3 monitors on a Powerbook (sidecar).

If you "only" need 2 additional displays for a PowerBook, there is a much, much cheaper solution: http://www.villagetronic.com/e_pr_vtbook.html

 

[russed]

mmm ... nice (i will go any wipe the druel off my desk now!), seriously, i'm envious!

 

[Fender]

I'll have you know that the table in question is a £500 frosted glass dining table from Habitat actually!!!

Do you know the exact name of the desk? That's exactly what I've been looking for. I'd love to get 2.

 

[zakee00]

wow dude that is SO awesome...you even have the little blue wheel thingy
so what DO you do with those monitors? And btw, i heard that you can get a dual-dvi splitter, splitting one dual link port into 2 regular dvi ports. therefore, a 6800 ultra can have 4 regular dvi outputs. is this true? that would be cool, then get a 9200 and have 5 monitors

 

[solvs]

Yeah, if you hooked up another couple of monitors to a 9200 you could have a really nice setup. I heard awhile ago someone hooked up like 10 monitors to a Mac. This was on OS 8 or 9. Always been there. OS X just makes it better. Pretty much limited only to the # of PCI slots (I think the Performa 9600 had like 6), and even then you could get an external box to run more PCI devices.

Bit expensive though.

 

[Buckaroo]

I've always new that Macs would support multiple monitors. I only have two of my monitors hooked up to my G5 and the other two are connected to my PowerBook and a Windows machine.

I suppose since I don't fire up the windows machine or the PowerBook that often, I could pop in another video card. That would really expand my desktop.


http://home.earthlink.net/~spacebuckaroo/images/desk4a2.JPEG