hooking external display to ibook...what res?

obeythelaw

Registered
i had hooked up an external flat panel monitor to my ibook. however, the resolution on the flat panel is at 1024 x 768. is this the highest my flat panel will be able to display? if so, is it a limitation on the ibook? any workaround? how about the mac mini? what is the max res you can get out it?
 
Well, first off knowing what model iBook (basically the specs) you have would be a good thing for those trying to help you. That said, all the newer ones I've seen are pretty much limited to 1024x768. There was a firmware hack to enable larger sizes on the late G3 models, but I'm not sure if it would work with ones using different video cards or not.

What's the native resolution for your LCD? The best quality comes from running it at that resolution. Check the specs from the LCD for that info.
 
With the iBooks, you can only mirror the image on your internal display to an external display at the exact same resolution as the internal display.

Short answer: yes, you're limited to a maximum of 1024x768 on both the internal and external displays.
 
well, the ibook is realtively knew. 1.2 Ghz and 768 MB of RAM. I guess I'm limited to the lower res on the ibook. Its odd, though that on Apple's website, the Mac Mini using an ATI Radeon card with 32MB of Video Ram can support resolutions up 1920 x 1080 which is quite large. The ibook also uses an ATO Radeon card and has 32MB of RAM but can only support up to 1021 x 768. I would seriously consider getting a mac mini and giving my sister my ibook to use for school. But don't want to buy the Mac Mini right now since Apple has "secretly" upgraded the Mac Mini specs but are not labeling the Mini's as such. So I don't want to pay for something knowing that I could have gotten a slightly better product. So I am waiting until Apple officialy announces that the mac Mini's have been upgraded.
 
The fact that the iBook can mirror only up to 1024x768 has everything to do with the fact that it's an "i-" piece of hardware and nothing to do with the kind of video card it has.

Apple intentionally cripples the iBooks and iMacs to be able to only mirror their displays at the maximum resolution that the attached flat screen can support. Both 12" and 14" iBooks can do a maximum of 1024x768 on their internal screens, so they're crippled to mirroring at a maximum resolution of 1024x768 on external screens, even though the video cards they sport may be able to handle bigger resolutions.

Apple chose to cripple the "i-" machines, relegating the ability to extend (rather than mirror) the external monitor at greater resolutions to their "pro" machines, like the G5 tower and the PowerBooks.

There are hacks out there that allow the iBooks to sport "extending" rather than "mirroring" functionality, and may allow the iBook to use external monitors at resolutions greater than the maximum internal monitor resolution. As always, though, it's a "use at your own risk" kind of thing: it is a hack, and no hack is ever guaranteed not to make your computer blow up into little pieces:

http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html
 
The firmware hack allows you to go larger on the external screens, as well as allows side by side (spanning) on the iBooks. I used it a bit for a 19" LCD I had at the office which had a 1280 X 1024 native resolution...worked pretty well.

Of course it's not at all supported by Apple and it could lead to failure...so it's a user-beware option. If you still want to look at it, here's the link. It should, according to their 'supported machine list', work with your model. The xlr8yourmac site also has some info on this.
 
thanks for the suggetions. i did download that spanning program. it "worked" to a degree. I mean, I was able to choose the higher resolution for my flat panel, but with the higher res, i now get a black screen around that edges on my flat panel. i tried changing the settings but nothing will stretch the display. anyone use it and encounter the same problem?
 
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