NVidia GeForce2 MX, Dual Display???

You might want to see if your MX's Firmware is up to date, look here.

Hello,

Spookily enough, exactly the same. A griffin ADC to VGA connector purchased and fitted today with the NVidia card running to one monitor from the SVGA and to another monitor with the ADC/VGA adapter.

What appears on each monitor is exactly the same, not one desktop stretched over two monitors but a mirror image on each monitor.

A work around may be to run a griffin ADC to DVI adapter, then convert the DVI to VGA at the computer end, with yet another adapter.

Mightily Confusing, but you are not alone in your technical quandary.

Thanks

Jon.H

The first generation QuickSilvers seemed to come with two versions of the GeForce2 MX, a 32MB version and a 64MB version. The latter came with TwinView for dual display support and was only fitted to the dual 800MHz QuickSilver in stock configuration.

The following seems to imply you can only get more desktop area with the TwinView version (“With NVIDIA’s TwinView functionality for dual-monitor support, Apple’s new Power Mac G4 gives the pro something they value highly-–more screen real estate to be creative”):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO200107184023.html

These days nearly all graphics cards have multiple connectors and support spanning across monitors, but perhaps your older card just supports mirroring.

Hi Rodney

Thanks for your time and further information on this matter, will explore the URL and let you know how I resolve the dual monitor issue.

Thanks for your time

Jon.H

Hi,
According to the QS User's Manual:
You can connect two displays to your Graphics Card and use both displays at the same time.
When a second display is connected, you can either have the same image appear on both displays (known as Mirroring), or use the second display to extend the size of the Mac OS Desktop (known as extended desktop mode). You need a video cable for each display you want to connect.
To use multiple displays:
1. Turn off the displays and shut down the computer.
2. Connect the video cable from each display to the appropriate port on the graphics card.
3. Turn on the displays and start up the computer. To adjust the displays, choose System Preferences from the Apple menu and click Displays.
Important: for optimal mirroring performance, set both displays to the same resolution and color depth.
By default, your computer starts up in Extended Desktop mode. To work in Mirroring mode, choose Video Mirroring from the Displays status menu in the menu bar in Mac OS.

From that, I will conclude that if your Graphics Card can do this function, it can be controlled in the Menu bar. I'll bet only the TwinView model can accomplish this.

Dave

Go to monitor preferences and turn off mirroring. Gordie

Hi

The card in my machine is showing the Nvidia card to be 64MB, does this mean its a twin view? I'm wondering if the mirroring of monitors is due to the ADC to VGA adaptor on one output and a straight VGA output on the other?

If I were to run an ADC to DVI adaptor to one digital monitor, and the other VGA output to a VGA monitor would this enable access to the 'Display' contols such as the enabling/disabling of mirroring and the potential to run desktop over two monitors?

I guess I'm asking, because I'm running effectively two anologue signals from the AGP 64MB card this appears to disable options from the display option from within 'System Preferemces'. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks you all for your support with this matter.

Jon.H

Hi CJDavis,

From what your system profiler says, the video card you have is not the "Twinview" edition, and will thus not support independant dual displays. You would need to upgrade your video card to achieve this.

As a rule of thumb, I have found that video cards with a VRAM of 64 MB or greater are able to support extended desktops.

Cards with 32 MB can run two displays, but only as mirrored displays.

Cards with 16 MB can only run one display.

Cheers!

Karl

In 10.3 the profiler shows if Mirror is on or off. It looks like Tiger has changes this. It may still be a setting in preferences.

Karl makes some good points but he interesting thing is that 32 meg cards and even some 16 meg cards can have spanning work in laptops.

http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/supportlist_e.html

Hi Carl,

Display spanning in laptops with integral 32 or 16 MB cards is possible where the display demands are very low (e.g primary display is only 12").

When displays are spanned, the total VRAM of the card is split between the displays. The demands of standalone displays tend to be higher, hence cards are built to cater to that demand.

I guess I should have qualified my "rule of thumb" to only applying computers with the graphics card as a separate, discrete component (such as Powermacs or Cubes). 🙂

Cheers!

Karl

Hi Karl and thanks!

That makes sense to me and my limited knowledge of video cards. So do you think that the best way for cjdavis to get another monitor is to add a video card or upgrade the card? It would seem that a cheap old ATI Rage pci card would suffice for simple graphics.

(By the way, you spell your name incorrectly.....Just joking)

Hi Carl,

I felt that the best way for CJDavis to get a second monitor going is to upgrade his card. Getting a second card would mean obtaining a PCI card (as the Mac only has one AGP slot). The most powerful PCI card available for macs is the ATI Radeon 9200 Pro Mac Edition, and that is considered pretty dated these days.

For about the same cost, you could get an equivalent AGP card that would support two monitors and perform much better. Something like the ATI Radeon 8500 Mac Edition or the 9000 Pro Mac Edition. Again, these are a bit dated (don't support "Core Image" for instance).

If full Tiger performance and gaming/graphics is desired, then CJ would have to go for a 9600 or higher card (more expensive and more power consumption).

That our respective names are spelt differently works for me - otherwise it would look as though I was posting to myself. (Gee.... and I thought I had the schizophrenia under control!!) 🙂

Cheers!

Kahl

Thanks Karl,

So, besides the 9600 pc/mac and the Radeon 9800 is there another new card that we can use that supports Core Image?

And about a year ago I had a forum member enter a topic I posted and he ended up actually having a conversation with himself on the forum. He would ask, discuss, and answer a question in anywhere from 6 to 12 successive posts. He went by the id of Psyko. Nothing else needs to be said.

Hi Carl,

The following link (off the Tiger section of the Apple Website) includes a list of Core Image supporting cards.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/coreimage/

Cheers!

Kerl