Mixing PC, Apple and Powerbook 2300c LCD screens....

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Weidenfeller
  • Start date Start date
J

John Weidenfeller

Sorry for cross posting but I don't know where to start with this
question...

Can someone please point me in a direction as far as connecting multiple
monitors to a single PC.

I'm assuming I will need a pretty powerful PC, but I have accumulated quite
a few monitors...

2 PC
1 Apple
And
2 Apple PowerBooks 2300c (which I'd like to get the LCD out of an utilize as
well)

I would also like to play different images some moving video, some still
shots and some fractal artwork done to music... hopefully I can play
different images on different monitors at the same time as well.... so any
s/w and PC recomendations would be great as well.

If I can get this to work I will try to add more cheap monitors as I find
them... not sure what the limit/bottleneck would be.

Thanks and sorry if this is a dumb question or wrong place to post... this
is the first place I asked.

John
 
Sorry for cross posting but I don't know where to start with this
question...

Can someone please point me in a direction as far as connecting multiple
monitors to a single PC.

I'm assuming I will need a pretty powerful PC, but I have accumulated quite
a few monitors...

2 PC
1 Apple
And
2 Apple PowerBooks 2300c (which I'd like to get the LCD out of an utilize as
well)

I would also like to play different images some moving video, some still
shots and some fractal artwork done to music... hopefully I can play
different images on different monitors at the same time as well.... so any
s/w and PC recomendations would be great as well.

If I can get this to work I will try to add more cheap monitors as I find
them... not sure what the limit/bottleneck would be.

Thanks and sorry if this is a dumb question or wrong place to post... this
is the first place I asked.

John
Click to expand...

Assuming your PC is running Windows, on Microsoft's website you can
search for multiple display adapters supported by the OS you're using.

That list will give you an idea of which video cards will work, though
IIRC the list isn't all-inclusive. Basically you just use single
video cards with multple monitor support (more than 2 monitor support
is very expensive) or compatible separate video cards. You do not
need a powerful PC at all, on the contrary, any PC that's using an AGP
and/or PCI bus will do fine. Rather the speed of the PC is dictated
by how demanding these tasks are thatyou'll be running, though using
multiple PCI video cards at higher refresh rate and resolution may
consume a lot of the PCI bus bandwidth, enough to interfere with
optimal function of some (especially RAID or sound) other PCI cards.
Ideally you'd want an AGP card that can drive two monitors and a PCI
for a third, or if you really need 4, a PCI card with dual outputs
also.

If the secondary monitors aren't doing something demanding (like
modern 3D games, I don't know about your "fractal" or other special
graphic display) ) then you might as well use the slower, basic
versions of cards, which will use less power and create less heat.
One example of such a card is an ATI Rage Pro or Rage XL, though they
probably don't have very crisp output at very high resolutions, but
I'm guessing you won't have all monitors at high resolutions.

You will not be able to remove the LCDs from laptops and use them as
displays, they use a proprietary output driver (hardware driver, not
software driver) ) module that is non-duplicatable.


Dave
 
John,
To connect several monitors to a computer you will need to purchase a
dual video card (we use matrox cards where i work). Be advised that
some applications wil not be able to run on two monitors and will not
display across both screens. If you are looking to put more thatn two
monitors you wil need to buy a quad card (they can get pretty steep).
Ive never seen more than 4 monitors on any machine berfore!!

good luck,
Paul
 
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