Dual monitor on a G5 ...PCI video cards

[Vultcher]

Hi all

I have removed my second video card from my old faithful G4 and I'm hoping to install it in an PCI X slot on my dual 2 GHz G5.

The card is An ATI 128 GL device ID 0x5245 16 Mbytes Vram

Its to give my G5 a better chance of running Apple Motion. At the moment the AGP card runs two monitors effectively splitting its VRam.

I have heard that a 66MHz card can damage the G5 PCI X slots though i thinks its the voltage issue my G5 likes 3.3v and some cards are 5v ouch.

Does anybody know if my ATI PCI card is safe in my G5 ?

The card is an ATI 128GL device ID 0x5245 16 MB Vram

thanks

[Pengu]

um. i don't think a 16mb PCI video card is going to do anything for motion.

[Vultcher]

My explanation of my set up was poor, I run Motion across two screens.
Screen one is the business end showing the real time video processing, screen two is the boring screen showing the browser bin etc (not too demanding).
Currently the factory fitted ATI 128 MB VRAM cards does two screens, splitting the Vram on the card equally between the screens.
I intend to use the "cheap" video card to drive screen two all the boring not too demanding video stuff(browser bins etc), allowing the much better factory fitted card to do the actual video stuff on screen 1.

[Pengu]

ok, so the current card isn't performing well with motion, and split memory?

[Vultcher]

As you ask motion to do more in real time the current card struggles, I believe motion uses the video card to do more than just draw to the screen via Open GL commands, the video card using its onboard processor and VRam does some of the maths usually done by the systems main processor.
When I use the card to drive two monitors the cards VRAM is split between both. One screen is doing all the clever stuff and the other screen is doing nothing much despite hogging half the available Vram. If I can totally dedicate the main video card to one screen doing the clever stuff hopefully I'll see an improvement in performance.

[Vultcher]

Well all to summarise, I installed the second video card and it works fine. Using Apple motion installing this second cheap video card and freeing up VRAM on my main card speeded up sequences by approx 50%

[Felipe_22]

thnx for finding out ;-)

Im going to buy a G5 and have the same set-up in mind. But now i'll install my old card too... to run my second (more boring and small) 15 inch screen.