Video Card Addition (need 3 monitors)

I am currently using a 2 X 2.8GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT card and I am needing 3 monitors on this machine. (2 monitors is cutting it) What is the best upgrade to do this? Am I better off purchasing another 8800 card or would something like the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro card do the job?

Windows may have problems if you have both ATA and NVIDIA boards.

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New video card, whats needed?

hi,
i have a g4 mirror door system and i need to upgrade the video card so i can run motion. I currently have an ATI RV250 with 64mb vram and i run 2 monitors off it. My question is, can i buy any AGP video card with dual monitor output or are there specific cards that i have to buy as its a mac. And also the current card has dvi outputs. Do i have to have these? I see no real advantage to having them over a standard monitor connection or am i missing something?
any recomendations would also be appreciated.
cheers

Radeon 9800 256MB $249 ($259 at OWC).

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.

24" 2008 iMac with busted video card, advice needed.

I have a 2008 24" iMac in which the video card is busted. The machine will turn on, get to the log in screen with no issues, however there is absolutely no video output to the screen.
I have attempted connecting it to an external monitor using mini DVI to VGA and a VGA cable, but the machine is not set to display to an external monitor.
Having the video card replaced will cost in the region of €300, an amount I'm reluctant to spend on a machine which is seven years old.
I have it backed up, so I'm really looking for advice to to how to wipe it so I can sell it on for parts, or other suggestions...

Your welcome, your new iMac likely does not have a Firewire port so you will need a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter like:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r?fnode=51
I noticed several available on E-Bay however where you decide to get one is totally up to you.

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.

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.

Video card sees 2 monitors

I use Win7. When I look at Control Panel>Hardware and Sound>Devices and Printers, I see icons for 2 monitors and I only have 1. Why does my video card see 2?
The card is an ATI Radeon R4550.
John

System: Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 495 CPU
8 gigabytes OCZ RAM
MSI R4550 video card
2 WD hard drives
1 Plextor CD/DVD drive
500 watt Antec power supply
24" Viewsonic monitor
Logitech cordless mouse/keyboard
Win7Pro

Have a Dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 w Geforce 6200 Video card. Need to replace. Do I need a mac specific, or will a PC version work?

I need a Geforce 6200 Video card. The present card is 'flaky', causing ocaisional freezes on startup. Does the replacement have to be mac specific, or will a PC version work?

A replacement card MUST be Mac specific unless you have the know how to hack the ROM to a Mac ROM (flash in a PC first).

Photoshop CS4 Video Card? - Need Display Port

You folks have been terrific in helping me with this project. For those that have not seen my previous messages, I am building a computer for a friend who uses Photoshop CS4 exclusively for 2D photo work. That's all he uses his computer for, so nothing else matters.
After a lot of research and some help from you, I found the "perfect" video card. The only problem is, it doesn't have a Display Port.
PROBLEM: None of the "tested" NVidia cards on the Adobe CS4 list you guys referred to have Display Ports!
Now what? With CS4's reputation for being persnickety, do we hazard buying a card not on the list?
The list was just updated in mid-January...and had not been in a while. It may be a long time before it is updated again.
As always, thanks in advance for any piece of advice or information you can offer me.
Chuck

Zeno I see you are very active in this forum. Let me thank you for sharing your knowledge so unselfishly.
Several of the NVidia FX models do have the Display Port. They are just not "tested."
My hesitation with buying another brand stems from the "partnership" I have read about between Adobe and NVidia.
I'm technically astute enough to put this computer together, but not enough to trouble-shoot serious compatibility problems. I want the "right" card, but I want to make as "safe" a choice as possible.
Thanks again.
Chuck

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

2 video cards - 4 monitors

hi,
I run a 2008 Mac Pro with 2 video cards and 4 monitors (I know...:-))
When I select "show viewers on second display", it goes to one of the 3 available, problem is, sometimes is one, sometimes is another, and I don't seem to have the means to tell it which one I want. Of course, might be cool to have it spread on 3 monitors, but, as far as I researched, this is done by selecting the correct driver in the preferences, under A/V output. Well, there's nothing there for me to select, so... any ideas?
thanks
alex

well, when I move the menu bar, then FCP main window goes also there, so it needs another step-
3a) move FCP's main window in the old main monitor - then the viewers go to the monitor with the menu and the dock. However, it's a bit weird to not have the menus in the same monitor as FCP main window.
now, I'm just thinking that if I have "Displays have separate Spaces" selected in System Preferences > Mission Control (which I don't right now), I would probably get different results, however, I like the spread, and I like switching 4 screens with one swipe
Anyway, why didn't the programmers made a regular window off of that **** viewers window, so we can move it wherever we want??... or at least to have the possibility to choose the monitor we want it on

Final Cut Pro - Two Video Cards - Display Turns White

MacPro Xeon 2.0GHz
3 Gig Ram
Two nVidia 7300 Video Cards
Two CRT Monitors and One HDTV
I have two CRT monitors attached to my original nVidia card. I recently installed a second video card and attached a third monitor to my DVI output (on the second video card)
I tell Final Cut Pro to display video on third monitor as full screen output. I can see my 720p (or 480p) display. When I press play, the entire screen turns White. (I've tried a CRT monitor, and my LCD HDTV via HDMI to DVI).
If I remove my Right CRT monitor from my graphics card and attach my HDTV (giving me one monitor and one HDTV) I can get full screen 720p play back. But I don't want to edit with one monitor! I am wanting to have my two monitor editing setup with the third monitor as my full screen display (720p).
Why does three monitors result in a white frame for playback? Do I need to configure something?
Help!

#15 White or Black Canvas
Shane's Stock Answer #15:
Make sure the canvas or viewer are selected then go to VIEW>CHANNELS and set it to RGB. It might be set to ALPHA.
Shane

Dual video card on the m3985

I'm planing to upgrade my m3958 to it's limits for 3d rendering. This is the present rig. Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHzMemory: 8GB GPU : NVIDIA Quadro K2000 * Really i dont see much difference with this card. Though it is rated amongs the best. I dont know why* So what can i really add to make this machine more powerfull for 3d rendering.Thanks

More information on the Video Card integration problem, but no success yet.
I plugged in the second monitor; an Acer AL2223W LCD connected to one of the ports on the EVGA GeForce GT 610 card, to see if it would be recognized. It displays "No Signal" when turned on.
Did a search on the computer and found the AMD VISION Engine Control Center. That had a place to search for video equipment and the only thing it would find is the Samsung 213T.
I verified that the fan on the card is running so the card is getting power via the PCI-E slot.
The 2 outputs on the video card and the receptacle on the Acer are DVI-I dual link configuration with 24 pins + 4 pins at the flat pin for analog signals. The Samsung has a DVI-D dual link receptacle (24 pins).
The cable is DVI-D Single Link (18 pins + the flat pin). When I get another cable it will be DVI-D Dual Link.
It seems that the EVGA GeForce GT 610 video card is not being recognized by the mother board or not putting out a signal.
There was no driver disk with either the video card or the computer.
Power supply is 430 Watts and the card specs say the PS should be at least 300 Watts.
Do I need to do something with the BIOS or get a driver or setup disk for the board or card or do something with a jumper on the MB?
Do I need to get the DVI-D Dual Link cable to get the signal from the Video Card to the Monitor?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Bob Campbell

OpenGL compliant video cards

Noel Carboni wrote:
Your GPU isn't really sufficient to run Photoshop. Just about any video card you can buy to replace it is better than that ancient circa 2006 video card.
Do yourself a favor - don't waste any more of your time trying to make it work. Go down to the local high tech store and get an inexpensive gamer card. Go through whatever process is necessary to fully remove the old drivers, get the latest released new drivers for the new card, and be happy.
This is a quote from my last post ("Photoshop opens up all files as transparent") in which I asked what I needed to do to get Photoshop to work. The immediate answer was to uncheck (Edit/Preferences/Performance) Enable OpenGL. The long term answer (see quote) seems to be to replace my graphics card.
This post is to explore which graphics cards to consider, etc...
I am not a gamer. I am looking for an inexpensive video card that will support 2-3 monitors (currently I am running a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285 for two DVI monitors and happily running the third DVI monitor off my motherboard). I believe I would like to stick with NVIDIA technology.
I believe all of my flatscreen monitors are analog (i.e., using the VGA portion of the DVI cable).
Question #1: Do I need to purchase digital monitors to get OpenGL to work?
When I search (www.NewEgg.com) for video cards I notice (doing a comparison) that some support "OpenGL"; some "OpenGL 4.1"; some "OpenGL 4.2"... (each with a corresponding price increase)
Question #2: How many OpenGL versions are there and why should I be concerned?
I suspect that if I go the OpenGL route that I will be able to find a card that supports two monitors. If I continue to run the third monitor from the motherboard (Display adaptor = Intel(R) HD Graphics), will that negate the advantage gained by the video board? In fact, when Photoshop complains about OpenGL issues how does it know which display adaptor it is addressing?
Question #3: If I run two monitors off an OpenGL compliant video card and another monitor off a video card that may not be OpenGL compliant can I still get the benefits of OpenGL?
Thanks

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html is a very helpful resource.
Using it, I notice that the NVidia GeForce 600 series are tested video cards that support OpenGL.
Getting more specific, the EVGA 01G-P4-3656-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST Superclocked 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130915 ($159) is the least expensive card in that series…
But it only has 2 DVI ports, meaning that I have to continue using my Gigabyte motherboard GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128555 video capability for the 3rd monitor. (Of course the specs don’t cover OpenGL)
According to http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html
Are you using more than one video card?
Multiple video adapters can cause problems with GPU-accelerated or enabled features in Photoshop. It's best to connect two (or more) monitors into one video adapter. If you have to use more than one video adapter, make sure that they are the same make and model.
Otherwise, crashes and other problems can occur in Photoshop.
Note: Using more than one video adapter does not enhance Photoshop's performance.
Q1) By “multiple video adapters” does Adobe mean ‘multiple video cards’?
Q2) What is meant by “It's best to connect two (or more) monitors into one video adapter”?
Sounds horrible if I don’t buy two video cards (and I don’t know that two can be comfortably driven by my 500 W power supply).

So which 27" iMac Video card to go with???

Hey gang-
Lucky me- my wife said that I've been good enough to ask for a new iMac this Christmas! I'll be replacing my trusty old Mid-2007 24" with one of the new Late-2013 27" models. To my surprise, it seems my go-to source for reviews- MacWorld magazine- has yet to publish any print review of the Late-2013 models- so I'm guessing they aren't going to.
I know I'll be going with a Fusion Drive upgrade, but where I'm stuck is on the Video card. Thoughts on the NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M/1GB, or the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M/2GB, or the mac-daddy NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M/4GB?
I've seen a few threads with new owners of Late-2013 iMacs already enquiring about upgrading their video cards, so don't want to underbuy.
Any thoughts or maybe anyone found a good review since MacWorld hasn't?
Thanks!
Dave

What are you going to use your new iMac for?
That will determine what CPU and video card you need.

Video Card Addition (need 3 monitors)

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