Author Topic: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?  (Read 5201 times)

Offline Syntho

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Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« on: March 10, 2014, 10:33:41 AM »
It would be great to have four monitors running on OS9, at least three. It would use an additional PCI slot but no worries there.

Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2014, 10:04:53 PM »
Pci cards should add the monitors if OS9 have its extensions.

On the cheap ATI Rage128GL PCI should add a monitor out at the expense of 1 PCI slot.
I had tested it with a G4 with 1 Rage128 AGP and 2 Rage128 pci on OSX, but on OS9 should work too.

Maybe a more modern setup is a Radeon 9200 pci MAC or Geforce5200-6200PC flashed to mac. Search some info in http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads

One friend of mine  in the age of QS 800 Dual tried a 3 screens setup with an Voodoo 3dfx xx00 flashed to mac on AGP port (Or it was a original GeForce2 MX? He had no ADC converter at that time) and two pci cards and he told me that the system slowed down too much. I think that stressed the PCI bus. You gain more monitors for os9 at the expense of a slower system.
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4

supernova777

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2014, 03:18:52 PM »
i have two running right now off my radeon 8500 card.
i see no reason why you couldnt have an additional PCI 9200 series pci card running aswell!
i could try this out for you ? i have a pci radeon 7500 in my powermac g3 450mhz B&W that i could use to test it
in my 1.25 mdd (2003) at the same time as my radeon 8500

sorry its a radeon 7000  heres an auction thats sellijng tons of them
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-G4-G5-ATI-Radeon-7000-PCI-64MB-Video-Card-DVI-VGA-S-Video-TV-Out-OS9-/200710223413?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2ebb42f635

Quote
This graphics card is compatible with the following Macs:

    G3 Beige Desktop
    G3 Beige Minitower
    G3 Blue & White Tower (Yosemite)
    G4 Tower (Yikes!) (PCI Only, No AGP Slot)
    G4 Sawtooth 2x AGP
    G4 Gigabit Ethernet 2x AGP
    G4 Digital Audio 4x AGP
    G4 Quicksilver 4x AGP
    G4 Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) 4x AGP
    G4 FireWire 800 (FW800) 4x AGP
    G5 Tower 8x AGP
    G4/G5 Xserve

Additional info:

    Full Mac OS 9.2.2 support (drivers available from howfunkel.com)
    Full support for OS X 10.1 Puma and newer
    ATI Displays compatible
    No sleep problems
    Silent operation
    For ADC displays, you'll need to buy a DVI-ADC adapter separately
    Available display modes listed in the chart above are dependent upon your display

they are also selling these usb 2.0 addon cards:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-Macintosh-G3-G4-G5-5-Port-USB-2-0-PCI-Controller-Card-OS9-OSX-Upgrade-/321364394880?pt=US_Internal_Port_Expansion_Cards&hash=item4ad2cf8380


Offline Syntho

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2014, 01:54:49 AM »
I don't have an extra card to try, so maybe try it out and let's see what happens. I may get a new PCI card if it works.

Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2014, 04:09:54 PM »
I can confirm that it works with more than 2 cards. I have tested one nVidia Gforce2MX AGP with 2 ATI Rage128 GL PCI and it worked. I tested only 2 monitors at the same time (instead of the 3 posible) , but every combination worked.

Imagine one magma chassis full of ATI Rage128GL...  ;D   
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4

Offline covrinne

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2014, 11:00:23 PM »
It seems that it does work. thanks.

Online IIO

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2014, 12:17:37 AM »
i would use a third monitor, but i dont have the PCI slot.
insert arbitrary signature here

Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Can OS9 support more than two monitors?
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2014, 11:42:40 AM »
i would use a third monitor, but i dont have the PCI slot.
You deserve a Magma chassis.  ;)
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4