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.

Similar Messages

Multiple Video Cards - 4 monitors

I was wondering if there was anyone out there that has a successful installation of multiple video cards. i.e. 1 AGP with dual ports and a PCI with dual ports. I would like to run 4 22" monitors on a G4. Just want to know if there were any reccomendations on card brands/types and configurations
Have multiple Mac's from G4 733 Giga to G4 Dual drive... Lil help

I'd reccomend using all ATI cards as they are/were better supported as far as multiple cards and features are concerned. A decent set up would be an ATI radeon 9800pro AGP with an ATI radeon 9200 PCI. Both are dual head and for PCI the 9200 is pretty good.

Video card for 30" display

Recently I've seen several of the 30" Apple Cinema Displays and been very impressed. But I see that they require a video card.
I've got a Dual 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5, and someone told me that the required video card won't work with this. Is this correct?
Either way, would it be best to wait?

If you don't already have a GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL card installed, you can use this kit to install one.
(13930)

Need New Video Cards for 4 Displays

Hi,
I want to install 4 displays, with one being a 30". Will the Radeon 9200 PCI, and 9600 pro work for this?
I saw that 9600pro only boots in "safe mode" but that's the only AGP card I can find that will run the 30".
Are there any PCI cards with two DVI ports?
Thanks

Hi-
Wouldn't getting the 9600 and a 9200 be the most cost effective?
Need two 9200's and one 9600 to connect 4 DVI displays. At around $400, it would be the cheapest. The 9200, though, will have minimal graphics acceleration and no Core Image support. Quartz Extreme is also not supported, unless hacked. Either the hack, or the lack of CI or QE support may affect software performance negatively.
Depending on the distance from the source computer, a signal booster may be required. 5 meters is the maximum a DVI signal can travel, but lesser powered cards may have difficulty at 10 feet (or less). If a booster were needed, a 9600 and a splitter would be better.
Wouldn't the splitter just mirror the output?
The splitter mirrors the output of the primary display +on the splitter+, not necessarily the card.
When you say "better" what do you mean? I won't be doing much 3D stuff and no gaming.
The linked cards support Core Image, Quartz Extreme, 30" ACD, and have power enough to send clean DVI signal farther.
Plus I can't find it new which is how I would prefer to buy it.
The Flashed PC cards are new. Because of the fact that they have been installed in a machine to flash the Mac ROM to them, eBay rules require that the card be listed as used.
New card prices are scary. See prices here.
Slightly lower prices here.

What are multiple video cards good for?

Yeah, I know it is probably a dorky question but I would certainly like to know the answer before I start pricing my future Mac Pro. What I'm thinking about is online gaming stuff (which I'm just getting into so I'm still a little clueless). My question is:
Are four GeForce 7300 cards better than one X1900 for gaming/graphics?
It sounds like from the other posts that the X1900 is the superior card. Am I reading things correctly?
Thanks,
Toast
867 MHz G4 Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

One advantage of multiple video cards is monitor calibration. When running two monitors off of one card, it's simply not possible to (accurately), calibrate both screens. Altering the video LUT of the card to dial in one monitor will affect the calibration of the other.
On my previous G4 system, I ran two screens from separate cards (two CRTs - different makes and size). With hardware calibration, I was able to get them to match perfectly. On my Mac Pro running the same screens from only one card, I can get them close but not perfect - more importantly, I have to decide which monitor is to be properly calibrated.
Not particularly important for gaming performance but there you go ...
-phil

Video cards for 2008 Mac Pro with 4 20 inch Cinema Displays

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core with 16GB RAM. I run a 4 (20 inch Mac Cinema Display) monitor configuration off of it. one of my video cards just failed. They were never very good at handling FX in FCP anyway. I want to upgrade and get good cards for 2 displays each and if possible, video cards that will facilitate FCP X as well. What should I get?

OS X has drivers in 10.6.5
It is the ROM firmware that makes it work though there is help there too now for PC cards and flashing.
OWC is over pricing.
100s of threads asking the same question for the last yr.
5870 also, but costs $200 more.
More about using 6870 and others:
netkas.org
PS: the 'short' url for the Apple ATI 5770 w/o any user/cid - Product /MC742ZM/A
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC742ZM/A
Radeon 5870 vs 5770 GTX 285 4870
ATI Radeon HD 5770 - specs etc

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

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.

Multiple Video Cards

Hey guys,
New to Mac and looking to make the big switch. Looking at the Mac Pro I'm stumped on the multiple video card option. It looks as though most people use multiple cards for dual or more monitors.
My question is this. If I'm running only a large monitor dual or triple video cards would still be beneficial correct? I want to switch to dual monitors in the near future and I work with huge photo files and CAD type drawings that suck up a lot of memory and resources.
Would I bet better off just getting one kick a$$ card and spending the extra money on RAM? Not sure what the best route is.
Thanks guys,
Mike

A single monitor, regardless of how big it is, can only be plugged into a single video card. Adding a second card without plugging a monitor into it will only use up energy.
(48561)

Multiple Video Cards and FCP

I'm looking at getting a mac pro, and I'm wondering if there is any point to getting multiple video cards (2x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB).
I've been editing in FCP on a G5 for years now, and only had one video card.
Does the current version of FCP7 utilize them? Or does any of the other Studio software utilize them?
And if FCP7 does take advantage of multiple cards, where am I going to notice the difference if I add multiple cards... rendering? exporting? playback?
Any advice would be great!

We see this topic in various forms about weekly.
FCP does not use multiple cards. In fact, FCP really doesn't take advantage of a single card's GPU. But Motion does, which means if you have .motn files in your FCP project, you may see some kind of boost.
I don't know anything about the 120 but, personally, I will never buy another nvidia card. The minimum for Motion would be the Radeon 4870.
FCPv5 and v6 had issues with some FxPlug filters supplied with Motion if you had multiple monitors plugged into multiple cards but not of you had multiple monitors plugged into a single card. This got fixed in FCP7.
bogiesan

ATI 5770 1GB Video Card For Mac Pro dvi hdmi cable

I am sending video signal over a 50FT HDMI To DVI from my Mac Pro (3,1) via ATI 5770 1GB Video Card For Mac Pro (5.0 GT/s) (181062917108) and I cannot get a constant signal to my TV. The signal stays on for a few seconds or several hours or my TV (Samsung) says there is no signal or I get just a gray static screen.
I never had a problem before with my previous video card the 512MB nVidia GeForce 8800GT with a 25ft long cable. Any ideas people?

A cable of about 5 meters (16 ft) can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications easily and inexpensively by using 28 AWG (0.081 mm²) conductors.[114] With better quality construction and materials, including 24 AWG (0.205 mm²) conductors, an HDMI cable can reach lengths of up to 15 meters (49 ft).[114]
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
You may need a higher-quality cable or a lower resolution for your display to make this work without an HDMI Repeater.

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.

FCPX crashes all the time using the Intensity Pro Card for monitor preview wassup?

I have been using FCPX for a few months and I like it somewhat and could really love it for it not crashing on all my projects. If I scrub the timeline or apply a filter it crashes. I'm using the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card for monitor output and the latest drivers that they put out and can't really get through a project because it crashes all the time.I thought that if i get a different display card it would possible help I have the GForce 120 card which only has 256MB ram.Can anybody put some light on the issue?

FCP X currently does not support Intensity Pro cards.
Andy

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.

Multiple Video Cards for 3 Monitor Display

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