Cheapest video card for dual monitors on a G4 Sawtooth

Hi guys,
What would be my cheapest alternative to get a dual monitor (extended desktop) environnement with my G4 Sawtooth. This is an AGP G4.
Can I get a cheap video card with one outlet and then plus each monitor in one card (ie: 1 in the new card and 1 in the old one) ?
Or do I need to buy a card that supports 2 monitors?
I would like to spend as little as possible. I currently have the ATI 16 mb card that came with the system and I run both OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.3.9
Thans for your advice,
xenakis

Yesterday I installed a nVidia GeForce4 MX AGP out of a 2002 Quicksilver tower into my own AGP Sawtooth.
It has VGA and ADC connections and can apparently support two monitors at the same time.
My second vidio card is a MPDD card, but I may pull that now that I have a dual-monitor card. Sonnet sells something similar. They have blue & yellow connectors. These things are not high performance but they are OK to use with just about every monitor on the planet and any MacOS from 7.1 to 10.5 and beyond.
Cheap on eBay. Probably you could be even cheaper and pick up a 16-meg PCI card out of a B&W G3 tower.

Similar Messages

  • Multiple Video Cards for 3 Monitor Display

    I'm in the process of creating a large multiscreen presentation (3 screens). I need an application (will probably be authored in Director or Flash) to span all three screens. Each screen will have a resolution of 1280 x 720. I am looking into what the best solution is for this.
    One Quad head card?
    Two video cards, one dual head, one normal?
    Three video cards?
    I've heard with PCs that if you have multiple video cards, you can't run a fullscreen application across video cards. Does the same hold true for Macs?
    Any suggestions?

    I'm having a hard time figuring this out. It seems as though people on this forum have been playing games across all three monitors. However, I just went to the big glass Mac store in NYC and asked a few people at the "genius bar." The guy I talked to was very skeptical of running a fullscreen application across video cards. Another guy I talked to said it was application dependent. They had no MacPros with dual head cards, so I couldn't check its settings.
    If anyone can out genius the genius bar and give me a solid answer, I'd be greatly indebted. I'd like to get an answer before spending 5 grand on a system.

  • 128MB vs. 256MB Video Card for External Monitor?

    I may want to run an external monitor for Final Cut Pro HD. Will getting the 2.16 Processor with its 256MB Video Card drive an external monitor any better than the 1.83 w/ 128MB Video Card? TIA
    BTW, I won't be "gaming" at all. Just doing a little FCP HD...
    20 G5 iMac/2 GB RAM/250 GB HD   Mac OS X (10.4.2)  

    Randy, I believe you have great technical knowledge
    (much more than me) and your math is unobjectionable.
    But in my opinion 16% of the graphic card's capacity
    just to light up the monitors is not a low figure.
    Actually, for generic 2D stuff that doesn't involve OpenGL, Randy has it correct. You'll find that VRAM makes absolutely no difference to Photoshop, for instance. A couple of big screens will happily run on 64MB VRAM.
    Once you start running pro applications on those
    monitors, and expect real-time responsiveness and
    lower and lower rendering times; you might come to
    realize that 128MB of VRAM is enough, it's a lot...
    but not excessive.
    You only need the extra VRAM for apps that specifically use the graphic card, through OpenGL, Core Image, Core Video or similar. Of course, there are more and more apps which leverage the graphics card this way, so 256MB is going to be more future-proof, and is what I went for.

  • Video cards for Dual 1.8Ghz G5

    I'm wanting to upgrade my 64mb video card in my Dual 1.8Ghz G5.
    What should I be looking for? Is the slot PCI or PCI-X?
    Is there a difference between a "PC" card and a "Mac" card, or could I buy a card from, say, Newegg.com and install it in my G5?
    Thanks very much for the help!

    Hi surfwax, and a Warm Welcome to Apple Discussions and the Power Mac G5 Forum!
    You will forgive me saving my typing finger I hope..
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3067986#3067986
    Please post again if you have any questions.

  • Need a video card for Dual G5 w/ Apple 23" LCD

    The ATI Radeon 9600 Pro AGP video card has died in my Dual G5 1.8GHz. I ordered the machine CTO with that card in October 2004 because I was doing some amateur video and graphics work.
    Having changed career paths completely my big-bad Mac has been relegated to bookkeeper and web-surfer status so I no longer need any more video horsepower than is necessary to drive the Apple 23" LCD.
    Please suggest a fair to good card I can get as a replacement, preferable at or near $100.
    Thanks for the help!!

    Here is a selection of video cards which will all fit your particular model G5:
    [http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=206&type=Video&TI=2503&shoup grds=Show+Upgrades]
    These are available from OWC in the Chicago area; very reputable dealer, and good prices.

  • Video Card for Dual 30" Display

    Hi pple,
    Just ordered a mac pro for work and wanted to know if three NVIDIA GeForce 7300 cards will run dual 30" apple cinema displays without any kernel panics or problems.
    Is it better to have the ATI X1900 GT?

    Hello Boss 33
    A link you can consider for help looking for a webcam:
      http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5289647&#5289647
    Unless the software you want to use specifically requires that an external webcam provide a Firewire input, any of the new USB webcams that support "UVC" will work with 10.4.10. Older USB cams that do not support UVC may be useable with addition of appropriate third-party driver software.
    EZ Jim
    PowerBook 1.67 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.10)    G5 DP 1.8  External iSight

  • Dual Monitor video cards for HP Pro 3400

    I am looking to add a 2nd monitor to my HP Pro 3400 MT and want to make sure I get a video card that will not have any compatibility issues.  I'm not doing any gaming so I don't think I need anything super fancy and I would prefer not to have to upgrade the power supply.
    So my questions are:
    Is the HP Pro 3400 MT compatible witha PCI Express 3.0 card?  2.1 ?
    How much power draw from the video card would require me to upgrade the power supply (my PC is stock, no added peripherals).  Is there a way for me to determine how much is being currently (no pun intended) drawn?
    Are there any drawbacks to usnig the built-in video card for 1 monitor and a new, single-ouput card for the other (vs a dual-output card) ?
    Anything else I need to consider when deciding on a new video card?
    Thanks.

    Hi,
    You might get better assistance on the HP Enterprise Business Forum since you have a business class PC.
    HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
    HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
    HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
    Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
    Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
    Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

  • Which video card for Aperture and dual monitors?

    I have a G5 dual 2.0 with a GeForce FX 5200 video card that is driving one 23" Cinema display. I need to upgrade my card per the specs to run Aperture. I have also been thinking of getting a second 23" display. Can someone recommend the best video card for me. I know very little about video cards and have been reading a lot this morning. Thanks,
    Dave

    Hi Dave;
    No. PCIx and PCIe or PCI Express are not the same thing.
    PCIx is an extended or slight sped up version of PCI. While PCIe is a switched bus structure instead.
    Hence they are not the same. That is what all of the big news is about Apple has made the leap over to PCI Express.
    Allan

  • ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB 8x Dual (DVI/DVI) (AGP) Video Card for PC/Mac

    We want to be able to use our 30" cinema display from the G4 and was advised in a previous discussion to buy the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB 8x Dual (DVI/DVI) (AGP) Video Card for PC/Mac. It doesn't seem to be available anywhere. Does anybody know of an alternate video card that's currently available that will get us there? (We had the display running from a G5 that quit / logic board failure).
    Many thanks,
    Philip

    The Nvidia 7800GS is a flashed card, runs a 30" with ease.
    BruinMacs on Ebay is a great place to get one, you support the guy who wrote the original ROM for these.
    He doesn't seem to have any for sale right now, but if you email him, maybe he will list one.
    There are also flashed X800s that work on your MDD and can run a 30". They are pricey but will offer dual DVI while the 7800GS is single DVI with VGA for second display.
    There are also flashed 6600GT AGP cards which will work, but harder to find.
    Any of the above 3 will run circles around a 9600.

  • Practical use for dual monitors in Lightroom

    I am running Lightroom 2.1 in Vista 64 with 8 GB of Ram for those that will ask.
    I have an EIZO CE240w monitor and a 21 cintiq Wacom tablet monitor that is connected on my ATI 4850 Video card on that PC.
    How would others configure their monitors and how would they use each one to their benefit.
    I'm just looking for suggestion since Lightroom 2 can now support dual screens... but why??
    Mike

    >For me Lightroom is almost unusable without a dual monitor setup (I use grid view on the smaller monitor and do all adjustments and other main work on the larger monitor), but it's also true that its support for dual monitors is somewhat primitive and seems a bit like an afterthought.
    I'm a little baffled by this (and other) comments regarding Lr's dual monitor support. In what way is it unusable? Is it because you cannot tear off the panels and move then to another monitor? If Adobe chooses to implement this feature you will get no complaints from me but I use my dual monitor setup in Lr much differently than in Ps.
    In Ps I move all my panels to my second monitor and use my main monitor exclusively for my images. I may work for hours on a single image and glance only occasionally at the second monitor, preferring keyboard shortcuts and mouse-click context menus to manipulate the image. However, when I need a quick glance at a panel there they are on the second monitor. In Ps the image is king.
    In Lr, on the other hand, speed trumps everything else. It's all about dealing with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of images and doing it quickly. I set my panels to Solo mode and Auto Hide & Show. A quick Shift+G brings the grid view to my second monitor. My main monitor is all image. I often do not need to see the panels. For example, use the , and . keys to navigate through the Basic adjustments and tap the + and - keys to increase or decrease values. D for develop, E for loupe, C for compare, grid always on the second monitor. When I want the panels I want them close to the images and do not want to have my eyes wander to a second monitor. Everything fast, fast fast.
    Hit G, loupe now on the second monitor, grid on the main. Shift+Ctrl+Alt+K to set a keyword shortcut, then Ctrl+Alt+K to paint the keyword across images. Ctrl+K to enter more keywords on the keywording panel. The panels nestled nicely near the grid. A click, the panel is gone. (I would however like to see the develop presets permanently on the second monitor.)
    It's fast, fast, fast. Lr, Ps: two different beasts; two different workflows. Each uses dual monitors, each differently.

  • Which Video Card for MDD - Nvidia or ATi Radeon?

    Mac nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600/Ti4600 128MB Video Card G4
    BRAND NEW
    I saw this item on eBay, and it looks like a good deal, but elsewhere on this forum someone said the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro was preferred for the Mirror Drive Door model.
    The NVidia seems to have the best price. Assuming either are compatible (need AGP) which would be recommended, and why?
    My present card is 64MB. I would hope that one with 128MB would improve performance with my Final Cut Express and 3D programs, such as Carrara and SketchUp, and give better results with an LCD monitor (and the card supports dual monitors, I think)
    many thanks,
    K.

    Hi Keith-
    The biggest problem with the Geforce4 Ti is lack of Core Image support. This is of major importance in OS X, important to some graphics/video editing applications and is indicative of a GPU that is more powerful than the cards that don't support Core Image.
    The Radeon 9800 Pro is a card that supports Core Image, and does so with ease.
    For applications, Quartz Extreme is a given, but Open GL is also of concern. The Radeon 9800 Pro scores higher in Open GL benchmarks than the Geforce4 Ti.
    As for 3D, shaders are of importance. The Radeon cards often offer better shader support than the Geforce cards. This is true when comparing the Geforce4 Ti and the Radeon 9800 Pro.
    Not only is the architecture of the Radeon 9800 Pro better, 8 pixel pipelines vs. 4, but the drivers for the Radeon are superior. In fact, it is a gamers secret in some applications, to use Radeon shader drivers to get better performance out of their Geforce cards.
    Not to be overlooked, but the amount of VRAM is not as important as the GPU clock speed, and the memory (VRAM) speed. The Geforce4 Ti has a GPU of 300mhz, and DDR VRAM at 325mhz (effective 650mhz).
    The Radeon 9800 Pro has a GPU clocked at 378mhz, and DDR VRAM clocked at 337.5mhz (effective 675mhz).
    Again, the Radeon 9800 Pro is superior in architecture.
    Both cards can support dual displays, both having a DVI and a VGA port. A big difference is if you use OS X Leopard. Again, the Radeon card stands supreme, with many OS 9, or "legacy" Geforce cards loosing dual display ability in Leopard. This problem is often reported here.
    If, however, the majority of your work is in OS 9, the Geforce4 Ti is a better card, with better native support +in OS 9+. The Radeon 9800 Pro came much later than the last OS 9.2.2, so it doesn't have the benefit of native 3D drivers. It works fine as a basic graphics card in OS 9, but doesn't support accelerated 3D as well as the Geforce4 Ti.
    As for price, since we're comparing flashed cards, the Radeon 9800 Pro costs the same (as the Geforce4 Ti) from a very competent, reliable seller, though you have an extra $10 in shipping.

  • Can I replace an ATI RADEON 9800 PRO-(256MB)-MAC EDITION with Mac ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb Video Card For G4/G5

    Hi,
    I am trying to help a friend whose graphics card has bust.
    The old one was an ATI RADEON 9800 PRO-(256MB)-MAC EDITION.
    I've been looking on ebay and it seems a lot cheaper to get a Mac ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb Video Card For G4/G5.
    Can I just swap them over?  The connectors are not identical according to the photographs.
    Thanks.

    I'd like to thank everyone for all the really useful information in this thread. It helped me solve a similar problem, which I'll describe here briefly in case it helps someone else.
    I have a 2004/5 dual 2 Ghz PowerPC G5 and an Apple Cinema HD display linked, as I later found out, with the now defunct ADC connector. The display suddenly started to look like that scene in The Matrix, when code falls like rain down the screen, and I worked out I needed to replace my Radeon 9800 pro video card (I discovered the board was blue when I removed a thick layer of dust).
    I took japamac's excellent advice and bought a Geforce 6800 Ultra from the linked eBay seller in Hong Kong, who delivered it extremely quickly, along with the cables to plug it into the DVD drive power source and a CD with installation instructions. It was only then that I realised the card had two DVI connectors and my display needed ADC (I hadn't understood the difference).
    eBay came to the rescue again with a seller who had a secondhand DVI to ADC adapter, which Apple produced  when it phased out ADC about six years ago but no longer sells. It has its own power supply and looks like a large version of the Mac laptop power cables - and has added signifcantly to the pile of spaghetti under my desk.
    Installing the Geforce 6800 Ultra is fiddly, and a bit scary if you're not used to delving into the insides of a Mac, but the instructions were clear and illustrated with useful photos. The video cable has four connectors. Two fit into the end of the card, the other two (linked in a Y shape) form a bridge between the DVD/superdrive and its power cable. You have to remove the DVD drive, unplug it, and then plug one of the two Y video card connectors into the DVD power cable and the other into the DVD drive itself. Then you replace the DVD drive, plug the two remaining cable connectors to the video card and ease it into the old card's AGP slot.
    Finally, with the G5 reassembled, plug the adapter's DVI connection into the back of the card, plug the Cinema Display ADC cable into the adapter block, plug the adapter's USB cable into the G5 (this enables the the USB ports on the back of the display to work), and power up.
    At the time of writing, the display has been up and running for a couple of hours and all seems fine.
    Thanks again everyone for all your help and advice. If it wasn't for communities like this, it would be virtually impossible to solve problems with old but still serviceable Macs.

  • Best Video Card for non 3d/compositing work in Premiere CS4?

    Hi all, I'm looking to optimize my system where I can to speed up the editing process. I edit 1080p footage from the Canon 5D MKII (h.264 MOV files)using half-res h.264 proxies, but CS4 seems to hang a lot in the timeline view and clips just disappear and instead show green. I'm switching to half-res MPEG-2 (.m2v) proxies now and so far that problem seems to have gone away (still testing), but when timeline display quality is at "High Quality" (vs. automatic) there's still some chop during slow pans (not seen with "Automatic" or "Draft Quality").
    Anyway, I'm looking for the weakest point in my system and suspect the video card. My system is an 2.66 i7 processor, 6GB 1333 ram, 1x160GB sata II HD (OS/Apps), 3x1TB SATA II RAID 0 (paging file, data), and an $80 ATI 4650 512 MB video card running Vista 64.
    So all that said, what's the best general graphics card for editing HD video in Premiere CS4? I don't care about 3d or compositing at this stage, just basic editing of unrendered (timeline playback) HD video, maybe sometimes 1-3 HD layers, some basic color correction effects (b+w, contrast, etc), dissolves, text overlay, some clip speed manipulation.
    Many seem to recommend the Nvidia quadro cards, but I haven't found any information to suggest they help with anything other than 3D/compositing, which I don't need (and therefore don't need to pay the premium).
    There's also the Nvidia CX card, but it's main feature is touted as encoding h.264, whereas I could care less about that and ideally need decoding of h.264 in the timeline to be better. I haven't seen any great reviews on this card of heard of average user testimonials, probably because it's $2k and it mainly marketed as "zoom more fluidly in photoshop, export h.264 4x faster", which seem like minor issues vs. "better realtime playback of HD video".
    I sort of rambled, but if any informed CS4 users can help answer the question regarding the best video card for general CS4 editing use (not 3d/compositing stuff) I'd love to get more insight.

    So in Media Encoder CS4, I tried encoding one of the clips that plays back the least smooth in the Premiere timeline (a slow pan across intricate patterns on a sand dune in death valley) to the following:
    Format: P2 Movie, Preset: DVCPRO HD 720P 30
    (this was the only format in media encoder that mentions DVCPRO HD)
    I noticed when trying to customize the setting, that there is no 30 fps option, just 23.976, 29.97, and 59.94. I just went with 29.97 as that was the closest to the 30 fps of the source MK II footage. The width and height were also unajustable at 960x720 for the DVCPRO HD format.
    Playing the output in the timeline view of Premiere was comparable in smoothness to the m2v file. I looked at my resource monitor during playback looking for bottlenecks, and the CPU does seem to spike at 100% initially when playing this clip back. I reverted to the m2v version and also saw the same CPU spike. I also reverted back to the down-res'd mp4 version, same spike. Moving display quality down to draft does allow for smooth playback here.
    So I guess there's something about this clip that is CPU intensive to play back in the timeline in any of these formats. The original 1080p version plays back perfectly in both quicktime and VLC player.
    Anyway, for now I think I'm content with using the m2v proxies as a big chunk of the clips are fairly smooth, and using a reduced quality display mode for clips that don't play as smoothly is accpeptable for now. At least so far I'm not seeing the hanging/video not displaying (and instead showing a green screen) that I was with the mp4 proxies.
    If anyone has any other suggestions as to how to get smoother timeline playback for these proxies (or the original h.264 .MOV files), however, whether it be a hardware upgrade (e.g. better video card) or a different proxy codec, I'd love to hear them and give it a shot.

  • Best video card for G4 tower?

    What's the best video card for my G4 tower without breaking the bank?
    I have the dual 500nhz, 2GB ram, OSX 10.4.
    I currently have a nVidia Gforce64mb with a small fan.

    No you're OK...
    There is DVI-I, DVD-D, & DVI-A, DVI-I contains both DVI-A & DVI-D, HDMI uses DVD-D, (Digital), so it can connect to DVI-I or DVD-D.
    Those 4 holes are only used for DVI-A, (analog).

  • Best Video Card for the G5?

    What's the best Video Card I can put in my G5?
    Currently I've got a:
    Mac Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5, w/4GB DDR SDRAM, and 256 MB total of VRAM. The existing graphics card is the: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL
    Thanks!
    Matt

    Hi,
    If you haven't noticed, there are only two choices available from Apple. The nvidia 6600 (slower than yours) and the ATI X800 (similar to yours).
    There is a place that flashes Nvidia 7800's from PC to Mac, I installed one the other day and it works perfect in a Quad.
    In addition, there was a contract signed last month between XFX and Apple for upgrade video cards for Mac G4's and G5's. It was reported that this merchandise may be available by Summer (nothing definite).
    Regards,
    Dave

Maybe you are looking for