maximum viewable resolution for mac os 9?

[k-Tracker]

It might sound silly ... but why on earth do you want to run OS9 on such high resolutions? You have any applications that can be used more productively when run on a huge resolution? Or is it simply the interest in what OS9 is capable of? (<--- seriously interested in the answer)

This is Pro Tools in my case. Graphics performance is not critical, desktop space is important.

[IIO]

It might sound silly ... but why on earth do you want to run OS9 on such high resolutions? You have any applications that can be used more productively when run on a huge resolution? Or is it simply the interest in what OS9 is capable of? (<--- seriously interested in the answer)

both. in regards of this thread it is also a partial answer to the theoretical limit of the OS (if any)

in the individual case... my answer would be "almost any, except games".

if you would have ever worked with programs for music production, image editing, programming languages, html/text editing, you wouldnt ask what to do with more than a 17" screen. (not video or 3d - OS9 machines are too slow to produce the need of more screen space here)

with programming, making music or photoshop anything below 1900*1200 creates claustrophobia for me.

and a height of 1200 pixels is what i use since 1998(!)

[Philgood]

I have to agree. I also have a Protools system with 2 screens, only acrylic  Cinema displays so below FullHD but its definitely useful to have room for all the windows in Logic and when you even run other programs in the background like synth editors you even want a 3rd screen or higher resolutions.
Imagine Mactron with 7 instances of FM7 open...everything less than FullHD x2 is not enough! 😎

[MacTron]

I have to agree. I also have a Protools system with 2 screens, only acrylic  Cinema displays so below FullHD but its definitely useful to have room for all the windows in Logic and when you even run other programs in the background like synth editors you even want a 3rd screen or higher resolutions.
Imagine Mactron with 7 instances of FM7 open...everything less than FullHD x2 is not enough! 😎

Yes, that's true. I have two 1080x1920 screens connected to a nVidia Ti 4600 on my main MDD. 
I had posted a picture somewhere here, in the past... 

[IIO]

not to forget that the bigger the monitor is, the more icons you can litter on the desktop.

[k-Tracker]

great, finally someone did it. could you elaborate on the 2d acceleration and add the required software?

Sorry, what is the 2nd acceleration? No special SW required except modified binary from themacelite and the latest Nvidia drivers 3.5.2.

[IIO]

Sorry, what is the 2nd acceleration? No special SW required except modified binary from themacelite and the latest Nvidia drivers 3.5.2.

2d acceleration is in modern graphics cards part of the 3d acceleration and responsible for things like quickdraw, move and copy, buffering methods and compression en/decoding, and without it the finder and all windows can be quite sluggish.

and in radeon cards not made for OS9 it usually doesnt work, thats why i asked if it worked here.

you dont know what 2D acceleration means but others should be able to reproduce your setup by getting a "GF 7800 GS OC with modified binary from themacelite", that´s funny.

when i google the card i dont even find one with dual DVI output. and in your picture i see nothing done to the card to make it work as x4 AGP.

this raises a lot of questions.

[k-Tracker]

Sorry, what is the 2nd acceleration? No special SW required except modified binary from themacelite and the latest Nvidia drivers 3.5.2.

2d acceleration is in modern graphics cards part of the 3d acceleration and responsible for things like quickdraw, move and copy, buffering methods and compression en/decoding, and without it the finder and all windows can be quite sluggish.

and in radeon cards not made for OS9 it usually doesnt work, thats why i asked if it worked here.

you dont know what 2D acceleration means but others should be able to reproduce your setup by getting a "GF 7800 GS OC with modified binary from themacelite", that´s funny.

when i google the card i dont even find one with dual DVI output. and in your picture i see nothing done to the card to make it work as x4 AGP.

this raises a lot of questions.

I know what 2D means, but I don't know what "2nd acceleration" means )))  That's why I clarified. 
Sorry, forgot to say, pin3 and 11 to cut, that should be obvious for this family but I missed to document it earlier.

[Mat]

It might sound silly ... but why on earth do you want to run OS9 on such high resolutions? You have any applications that can be used more productively when run on a huge resolution? Or is it simply the interest in what OS9 is capable of? (<--- seriously interested in the answer)

To answer the question above - I usually run OS9 at 1280x1024 (still high-res to me ) and I wouldn't know why I should go any higher. Whenever I should indeed run out of desktop space... well, there's windowshade

One of the serious reasons is if you need to replace your display (for example when your CRT got unsharp) and need an recent display for real work. I for example have a nice Eizo with 1920 x 1200 that needs to be used with this native resolution.

Another one is if you are doing layout stuff, real A3 at the screen makes really sense for example.
I can imagine that seeing more tracks at the same time in ProTool also makes sense.
Another reason is that it may be a real help sometimes to have two programmes opened at the same time for comparing stuff. If you are working a lot with text for example, or wherever you like to see changes from within another program immediatly, without switching between programs.

[IIO]

I know what 2D means, but I don't know what "2nd acceleration" means )))

at times when it was not part of the 3d but an extra area on GPUs it was quite common to differntiate between the two.

"acceleration" probably means that it otherwise has to be done from the host CPU.

the question why i needed to know more about GF 6 & 7 is that you already explained what you main focus is (bigger resolution) and that you do not need much GPU power for protools.

but i for example like to drag stuff (plug-in windows and such) around and furthermore i like to use solid dragging (i cant stdn OS9 without such enhancements) and so it could limit the use of such a graphics card a lot if the accceleration isnt supported by the OS.

saying that, the geforce 7800 wants to have 400 watts - which is 50 more than a quicksilver or MDD PSU offers alltogether. how do one come around with that? in case acceleration would be fully suppoerted it wont be a good idea to drive the card to the max i think.

while we are on it, i have a third issue. are there cards of the same type for PCI? or are you limited to one monitor.

[k-Tracker]

saying that, the geforce 7800 wants to have 400 watts - which is 50 more than a quicksilver or MDD PSU offers alltogether. how do one come around with that? in case acceleration would be fully supported it wont be a good idea to drive the card to the max i think.

while we are on it, i have a third issue. are there cards of the same type for PCI? or are you limited to one monitor.

This is not correct. The card is 75W. And yes, I have brand new 450W PSU installed (PC->MAC mod), so there is plenty of power to drive graphics and three pro tools mix cards. Cooling is also modified. It's active now with external thermal sensor.
This family is either AGP or PCIe. No PCI versions.

[xerograph]

I tried out a flashed ATI Fire GL X800 GT in a G4 MDD with Mac OS 9.2.1.
It worked with a 27" display in 2560 x 1440 but ofcourse without 2D an 3D accelderation.





Pin 3 + 11 deactivated:







I run some tests and the results were interesting:



Rectengular shapes:


Rectengular shapes with round edges:























Draw Text:


Scrolling:



The performance in most test is quite decent - BUT without QuickDraw acceleration drawing speed of rectangulars and scrolling is very bad - so working with this card is impractical for applications where you are paning and scrolling most the times (for instance in Quark, Freehand or Photoshop).

That big workspace is quite nice for Mac OS 9. The document window (Quark 4.11) in this screenshot is 1920 x 1200. The rest is the workspace you gain - not bad...




The overall situations regarding graphic cards for Mac OS9 looks like this chart:


(As far as I know - please feel free to correct me if something is wrong)

I have a Gainward 6600 GT at my hands that I want to give a try in the next weeks (but I have to flash it first)

[xerograph]

Regarding the maximum viewable resolution:
I have a Village Tronic MPDD+ running in a G4/466 which is my testbed for graphic cards.

The highst resolution you can choose with this card is 3200 x 2400 at 60 Hz VGH with 256 colors.
I have mo moitor for this resolution so this works only with software paning.
It is also a PCI slot card with a modest 2D acceleration. Usable but no racer.

[teroyk]

Regarding the maximum viewable resolution:
I have a Village Tronic MPDD+ running in a G4/466 which is my testbed for graphic cards.

The highst resolution you can choose with this card is 3200 x 2400 at 60 Hz VGH with 256 colors.
I have mo moitor for this resolution so this works only with software paning.
It is also a PCI slot card with a modest 2D acceleration. Usable but no racer.

Real maximum to MPDD+ is 1600x1200 thousand colors at 60Hz. But virtual desktop can be bigger as 3200x2400 256 colors. It's like ATI cards with ATI toolbar.

[IIO]

the original meta-question about the "maximum resolution of OS9" would include multiple monitor setup, isnt ist?

if yes, then the possbility to run 1 30" monitor at the AGP doesnt raise the known maximum - until someone proves that dual dual link DVI works, too, 2 small monitors in this bus offer more pixels.

6*1920=11520

virtual desktops which are based on real space of virtual monitors are new to me - interesting thing. what is it good for, when would you prefer this over conventional virtual desktop space which is rendered only alternatively?

[teroyk]

virtual desktops which are based on real space of virtual monitors are new to me, interesting thing. what is it good for, when would you prefer this over conventional virtual desktop space which is rendered only alternatively?

It has autoscrolling when you move mouse.