# How can I connect 4 monitors to one card?



## Imagine (Jan 30, 2004)

Is there not anything on the market where I can connect 4 monitors to one card?

Your help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Dean


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## bobw (Jan 30, 2004)

Doubtful. Just get additional PCI cards.


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## brianleahy (Jan 30, 2004)

That depends...

Do you want:
(A) all four monitors to display the same image or
(B) The four to behave as a single, continuous, quadruple-sized desktop?

A is probably do-able, B definitely isn't.


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## Zammy-Sam (Jan 30, 2004)

brianleahy said:
			
		

> That depends...
> 
> Do you want:
> (A) all four monitors to display the same image or
> ...


Even A is not do-able from what I know. A VGA connection is having a "duplex" communiction with the pc. There are not just signals going to the screen but also back. Taking the signal and just spreading it to some other screens and - let's say - amplify it shouldnt work. (I believe this was your idea, right?)
So, my answer would be: no it's not possible. Can't even imagine a system running 3 more PCI graphic cards without any problem.


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## lurk (Jan 30, 2004)

As for (A) next time you go to BestBuy and look at the monitor display with 20 monitors all showing the exact same thing think about haw hard it must have been to synchronize the 20 PC's in the back room to do that ;-)  This first option is not hard but you will need a splitter box which might be expensive.  Another problem is that the resolution is usually limited to something kinda low.

As for running multiple cards that is not a problem at all.  Just slap them in there - it is a Mac and it will work.  There was a picture of a guy with 6 cinema displays running off of one machine running around the net last year.  Your best bet is to get cards with dual outputs so you will only need two to get four displays.


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## mindbend (Jan 30, 2004)

I think the best you can do is two monitors from a single card. I know that card exists. Have no idea which card it is as I had no need for it when I read about it.

Is there a particular reason they need to come from one card as opposed to multiple cards?


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## brianleahy (Jan 30, 2004)

Well, if he wanted to bite the bullet and convert the signal to NTSC, the sky'd be the limit...


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## HateEternal (Jan 30, 2004)

If you want to get multimonitors going on there is that matrox card that is made for 3 monitors... but it sucks(like radeon 8500 performance)... and i dont think they made a mac version.


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## Fahrvergnuugen (Jan 30, 2004)

i was able to connect 4 monitors and 2 TVs using two cards: radeons with s-video out.
There are 4 head video cards out there, but I'm not sure of any supporting OSX.


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