Dual ADC displays and a vid card w/ no ADC ?

Question

Hi.
I've got a PowerMac G4 with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro vid. card. I bought it when I purchased my 17" Apple display not knowing that the Apple display had its own connector that required me to but a $99 adaptor that also requires a power cord!
Anyway, my old CRT (that acted as my 2nd display on the G4) finally died. I purchased a nice 15" Apple display, but apparently forgot to consider the ADC connection.
I need a cheap, fast solution.
I've got a G4 with the 9800 Radeon which has a DVI and VGA connection.
By the way, does having 128MB DDR of video ram help with rendering time??
Ok, back to the original question.
I also have the original video card that came with the PowerMac G4 1.2mhz Quicksilver. I believe it's an 9000 Radeon. It's got an ADC and VGA connection.
How can I setup a dual display on the G4 with the two Apple displays? Both are ADC and neither card has (2) ADC connections.
I've got two ADC to DVI convertors and I have the VGA to DVI convertor that came with my 17" apple display, but the DVI end doesnt match the DVI end on the 2nd ADC to DVI convertor.
Any suggestions? Is there a dual ADC video card?

Answer 1

Hi
As far as I'm aware, the Radeon 9000 that came as the stock graphics card in certain PowerMacs had an ADC connector and a DVI connector. It also came with a DVI to VGA adapter. If this is the case you should be able to attach one monitor directly to the ADC connector and the other to the DVI connector using the $99 DVI to ADC adapter. You'd be losing the benefit of the Radeon 9800 though.
Unfortunately there aren't any graphics cards with dual ADC connectors, as the card (and AGP slot) would have to provide enough juice to power two monitors. The options seem to be:
1. One AGP card with an ADC connector and DVI connector, which would require one DVI to ADC adapter, such as the Radeon 9000.
2. One AGP card with two DVI connectors, which would require two DVI to ADC adapters, such as the Radeon 9600 retail version. Mines worked perfectly, although there do seem to be problems with it in certain Quicksilvers and Digital Audio G4s.
3. One AGP card with a DVI connector, which would require a DVI to ADC adapter, such as your existing Radeon 9800 and one PCI card with a DVI connector, which would also require a DVI to ADC adapter, such as the Radeon 9200. An AGP card with an ADC connector would also work but seems pointless given you've already got the 9800 and adapter.
Unfortunately I'm not sure there is a really cheap solution. As already mentioned, there are VGA to DVI converter boxes on the market, but they're incredibly expensive and you'd be converting from digital to analogue and back to digital, with some loss of quality.