Highest resolution desktop?

chopper3chopper3
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
i have an application running on a remote Sun box that I wish to view, via X11, on as big a Mac desktop as possible.



I know I can attach 2 x 23inch displays to one PM, what I would like to do is attach more. Obviously the PM has only one AGP slot but can I attach a PCI card (cards?) and extend my desktop like that? I don't need ADC, DVI will do (VGA if I had to). If so, what card would make sense? I don't need performance or 32-bit colour.



Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    drboardrboar Posts: 477member
    ATI Radeon 7000 have dual output, with both DVI and VGA it is currently the only PCI card sold for the Mac. (Well there is that german brand, I do not recall the name). So with 3 or 4 PCI slots you can have 5 or 6 Cinema displays and 3 or 4 VGA connected dsiplays as well.



    It would be interesting to know how the PCI bus handles 10 really large displays
  • Reply 2 of 8
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chopper3

    i have an application running on a remote Sun box that I wish to view, via X11, on as big a Mac desktop as possible.



    I know I can attach 2 x 23inch displays to one PM, what I would like to do is attach more. Obviously the PM has only one AGP slot but can I attach a PCI card (cards?) and extend my desktop like that? I don't need ADC, DVI will do (VGA if I had to). If so, what card would make sense? I don't need performance or 32-bit colour.



    Thanks in advance.



    You're made of money, aren't you?
  • Reply 3 of 8
    chopper3chopper3 Posts: 293member
    It's a business'ey thing, hence the deep-pockets.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chopper3

    It's a business'ey thing, hence the deep-pockets.



    It's always fun when you can stick your hands in someone else's deep pockets.



    As far as I can tell, you could hook up at least six (6) 23-inch Cinema Displays to a current PowerMac. You can hook up two ACDs to the internal graphics card in the AGP slot (one directly to the Apple Display Connector, the other via an DVI-to-ADC adapter--AFAIR, the built-in cards have one ADC and one DVI connector right?) Then you can add a DVI video card to each of the four (4) PCI slots and connect an ACD via DVI-to-ADC adapter to each of those cards. That would result in a total of six (6) ACDs.



    Assuming you can really hook up six 32-inch ACDs to a PowerMac in the way described above, you would have a total of 6 x 1920 x 1200 pixels of screen real estate. You could arrange this as an array of 3840 x 3600 pixels (2 ACDs wide x 3 high) or an array of 5760 x 2400 (3 ACDs wide x 2 high), for a flabbergasting total of 13,824,000 pixels (i.e. 13.8 megapixels).



    Personally, I'm just trying to decide whether my own pockets are even deep enough for a 20-inch display, assuming I don't buy a Wintel machine for my wife.



    Escher
  • Reply 5 of 8
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    power consumption might also be an issue



    how many of these monitors will be self-powered vs. [edit] ADC?



    VGA and their own power supply will ease the load on your PowerMac,

    but resolution and contrast may be harder to calibrate than with ADC/DVI and presumably all of your ganged screens need to blend "seamlessly" (if you want a massive screen without the borders of neighbouring 23" - almost 2 inches of plastic between "consecutive pixels", find a videowall, but you won't get anywhere near the maximum res of cinema screens).



    there was an old TechTV episode where the guy wanted to test a variety of Graphics cards in a single PowerMac (9600 maybe) and ended up with 6 or 8 different manufacturer's cards all running monitors out of a single box. Actual plug and play... out of the cardboard and mylar, into the Mac, autodetect on first attempt, all "live". The episode ended with him laughing derisively at anyone who tried a similar multi-manufacturer-mutli-card-config in a PC.



    the final wrench for your thinking is timing...



    Apple's 30 inch WideScreen Cinema Display is coming (before Xmas)

    the existing 23" will drop in price another USD$1000 once the 30 appears.



    sorry to add complexity into what might have been a simple choice, but the "highest resolution desktop" is acknowledged to be close to a major revision
  • Reply 6 of 8
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    Not quite; DVI as well as VGA is self powered, ADC is not, and only one monitor will be powered by the computer.



    And 30" isn't exactly confirmed (or is it?)...



    Or hmm, what about that IBM screen with 3200xwhatever resolution? I think you need some special hardware to run that though.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    brain cramp... i meant ADC... editing
  • Reply 8 of 8
    saabmp3saabmp3 Posts: 52member
    I have a Barco 1208/2 projector that will do 2500x2000 native resolution. It's right down your alley if you want a high res screen. I have yet to find a good video card that is capable of doing this.



    Grand price? Well, the unit and the accessories to get a proper VGA signal to it cost around $35,000, but I don't know if you can blow that much.



    BEN



    PS, it will also project up to a 20 foot screen.
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