IMac :: 27" Graphics Performance With A Second Monitor?
Jul 10, 2010
If there's no refresh this coming week, we're pretty much going to be forced into settling for one of the 27" iMacs (we're on our third) and hooking up a second (probably 24") monitor to do color sensitive work.
Does anyone out there have a dual-monitor setup running with the 27"? I was wondering if you notice any sort of graphics performance hit with the second monitor attached.
Has anyone ran some tests with the new Snow Leopard Graphics Update Apple just released. I am primarily interested in the performance increases it offers SC2. I am at work and will not be able to install it until late tonight, after which I will post before and after FPS and settings for SC2.
is it possible to add another monitor to a Imac with the 256MB graphics card on it? The system will have 4gb Ram.Is this graphic card strong enough or is it better to get the 512MB one?can I easily run lets say... dvd encore, premiero pro type of software?
I want to run an Imac and an external Monitor, but I want to use the complete graphics power on the external Monitor, so no mirroring of the displays. Is there any way to shut down the internal display?
I just noticed that Xbench gave me a better OpenGL score on my new late 2008 MacBook compared to 10.5.5, so I was wondering if anybody knows how much better the graphics performance actually is in 10.5.6? Although I just traded in my old white MacBook with a crappy intel graphics card for the new MacBook with a rockin' graphics card, I am curious how much the 10.5.6 update improves performance on the intel graphics cards. Can anybody compare the OpenGL results from 10.5.5 and 10.5.6 to see if I'm the only one who is seeing an improvement. Did Apple update the graphics card drivers or is there some other reason I'm seeing better performance?
give me a good explanation from a modern-day perspective, of the inconsistent video performance of my iBook (12" G4, 1.07GHz, 1.25GB, Radeon 32MB GPU?) It can play a DVD at full-screen, full sound without missing a beat, but can't play a lo-res YouTube video without stop-motion and clipped audio. I can plug in a USB webcam and do a real-time video chat, but if I record the stream, it plays back at, like, 2fps or less.
Just want to hear some User Experiences with it so far Kinda more interested in the new graphics card performance...like what around what year of games can it play on the highest settings with great framerate? (speaking about the 13inch specifically)
What I have: MBP Penryn 2.4 Ghz, 2 GB, 200 HD, Matte. What I'm looking at: Unibody 15" MBP 2.53 Ghz, 4 GB, 250 HD, Glossy. Love the new trackpads on the MBP, not sure how I'll like the glossy screen. Would be doing some video work down the road (Canon HV40). Please tell me the difference between the performance of these graphics cards and lastly which one you would opt for.
I am seeing very slow performance when using spaces and expose in 10.6. I am on a mac mini with the 9400m graphics chip. It worked perfectly in Leopard, and now it runs at what appears to be 1fps. Sometimes it doesn't even seem to animate, it just jerks into place, from starting point to the end. I realize one solution could be "do a fresh install" but that seems like quite the pain at the moment, and is extremely undesirable. The upgrade worked perfectly on my macbook pro with similar specs. Is there anything I can reset or reinstall that might refresh the graphics performance?
This seemed like the most logical place to ask this, since the Mac Pro forum seems to be where all the higher level hardware/software modification discussion is. Currently the Starcraft 2 beta is suffering from horrible performance problems. Many of the threads I've read on their support forums point to graphics drivers as the main culprit, with DirectX->OpenGL porting being close behind. The main problem with both seems to be shaders.
One thread I found, however, is in reference to performance on Hackintosh machines. Apparently Hackintosh users, who all use custom graphics drivers for specific graphics cards (ones not ever supported by OS X, like the GeForce 9800) are getting performance on par with boot camp users, at similar settings. So my question is this: is it possible to write custom graphics card drivers for normal mac users (I myself use a flashed 4870) that optimize the use of extensions for shader intensive games like SC2? If so, where should I start looking to figure out how?
I have a 2 x 2GHz Dual Core Intel Mac Pro, with 9GB of DDR2 RAM and 2 Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT graphic cards each running a Samsung 24 inch screen. I recently bought Call of Duty 4 and found that the game runs terribly on anything higher then around medium sort of settings. I know the 7300 Graphic cards aren't the best for gaming, but they have done the job for me perfectly until now. I'm a photographer so I calibrate my screens with a Spyder and run a separate colour profile through each video card per screen, and its always calibrated perfectly.
I'm just curious if there is any actual performance advantage of having 2 video cards other then running a separate colour profile through each card? So for example, If I'm playing call of duty and only 1 screen is displaying information, does the other card just sit there, or does it jump on board and process information for the game being played? Because I would have thought having 2 7300's would somewhat give better performance during gaming then just the one?
I have been reading that several people are seeing much cooler temperatures on their Mac notebooks and they think it's due to better graphics drivers with the update to 10.6.3. I however thought about the huge performance hit in OpenGL going from Leopard to Snow Leopard (probably same thing). So I decided to check my OpenGL results after installing 10.6.3. However, I didn't check my xBench results before upgrading to 10.6.3. I went and found an old result which shows 67 points for "OpenGL Graphics Test." My new result for "OpenGL Graphics Test" is 111 points. When I check the xBench archives, people with rev "C" MBA's with 10.6.2 all show OpenGL Graphics Test scores in the 60s.
If this is correct, we could all have some big improvements that really show huge effects on the MBA. It should help everyone running Snow Leopard. It should lead to graphics performance gains and lower heat due to graphics demands. Could someone else running 10.6.2 on a 2.13 GHz CPU MBA run an xBench test before the 10.6.3 upgrade? Then upgrade to 10.6.3 and run another xBench test. Then please report back here with your results for OpenGL Graphics Test and hope this result is great for all of us. I believe this would be a big improvement for the original MBA too?
I have a 2009 2.53GHz MacBook Pro which I bought a couple months ago. It's been working great, but lately, I've been noticing a lot of strange issues with video playback/general graphics and UI. These includes:- Laggy video performance, frame skipping, generally 2x slow video -- on both iTunes and web video. It's not as smooth as it used to be, though admittedly not totally unbarable - VLC shows a black screen, doesn't show the video - Randomly pixelated icons in the dock (it's almost like the Mac picks a new one everyday to pixelate), dock animation not 100% smooth, although fairly good (not sure if it used to be this way)
I run Rhino (64 bit) with windows 7 through bootcamp. The software mfg's recommended graphics card is the AMD FirePro v7900 or v5900, and user group recos the nvidea quadro 4000. I am currently using an Nvidea gtx285 and driving two displays from it. Looking to upgrade both memory and video card for optimal performance.
Info: Mac Pro, Windows 7, osx 10.7 , 16g ram nvidea 285gtx
1) I am in the possession of a June 2004 PowerMac G5 DP 1.8. 2) It's the AGP+PCI variety (not PCI-X, not PCIe). 3) It's running Leopard 10.5.8 4) I've got an Ultra 6800 DDL installed.
Main Question:
What is the best way to add another (3rd) monitor?
this is kind of a dumb question. I have a Radeon 8500 in a Power Mac G4 that I'm repairing. I have a PCI Radeon 7000, and I was wondering, if I put it in too, would having two GPUs affect performance even though the monitor was only attached to the 8500?
If I was to hook my MacBook Pro 13inch 4GB RAM, 250 HD to a monitor and use the Magic Mouse and Apple wireless keyboard would it slow the performance of my laptop?
Occasionally however, I have video graphics glitches on my MacBook Pro. Sometimes it happens when using an external monitor, sometimes it also happens on the notebook display. I often get a distorted task switcher:Also, Safari sometimes renders the content in a weird way, with yellow and red blocks:And finally, the translucent part of the taskbar sometimes looks funny, with stray pixels running through: I wanted to mention that it's not a big concern, but when typing the previous version of this message, I detached the external monitor and then all I got was a black screen when opening the lid. I had to power down the MacBook.
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Mid-2010 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Do not want a nuisance to escalate into a serious problem thru benign neglect. Random black screen -- Turn monitor off then on, and all comes back fine. No loss of power in machine, no fan quirks, no overheating. Is it the Monitor? or the graphics card?
I was surprised one day to find an inch of white line running from top to bottom on my screen. Then after a week it expanded to two inches white line, then suddenly it turned all black and I can't see two inches of my screen from the right edge. I was reading some forums and found out that I can use a dell monitor as a secondary monitor, but is it possible to use the dell monitor as the primary monitor in case the black line will spread throughout the entire iMac screen? so the iMac would serve as a stand alone processor like a regular desktop?
Just got a refurbished 27" Imac I5 with the Radeon 4850 yesterday.This happened twice yesterday, so today, when I powered on I had my blackberry ready to record.As you can see theres a large green band (yesterday it was accompanied with a red one) that spans the vertical aspect of the screen. The bars disappear after 30-1min.I've tried searching and haven't found anyone with a similar problem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGK3LYb23mc
currently i have a blackbook and imac core duo, 17 ". My macbook beats the imac in everything except graphics. Before i got my imac i seriously considered a g5 dual 2.0, but the money wasnt there. I see an apple refurb dual 2.0 for 1599, and im sure i cud get one a lot cheaper used here or on another board. How much of a performance increase will i see IN APERTURE going to the PM, if any? i would need a good increase to justify it, and eve then im not sure my parents would be ok with me spending a few hundred bucks to upgrade
i have a 13" macbook pro 2.53 and i will be running alot of photoshop and illustrator in the near future.. obviously i have an external screen for this (24" led cinema display) but will it run much slower using the external? ..would the dedicated graphics of the 15/17" benefit in this department?any experience of using photoshop and creative suite with the 13" 2.53and what does the gpu actually do? ..sorry i have read afew posts on what the gpu does but will it help in creative suite and garage band and office applications?
I recently read somewhere that I can actually change the graphics card on my mac. If so where can I buy the ATI Radeon 4850 graphics card? and how much will that set me back?And could I get this upgrade done by my local nextbyte retail store?If it is possible to have nextbyte upgrade my card would they send it off to apple? I really just need this card so I can play aoe3 on all settings high and be able to handle games like cod4, quake and all those graphic hungry games.
I have a new 27inch base model iMac that comes with 4GB ram and a 4670 256mb Radeon graphics card. I noticed that when I copy/paste images in photoshop cs4 and drag the images, the pasted image usually gets blocky and moves in slow motion when i drag it. My friend has a Mac with a 512mb video card and 4gb of ram and has no such issue. I'm wondering if the difference in VRAm is what is causing my sluggishness in Cs4
My question is: should I have opted for the 512 model graphics card? I have another week or so to return my iMac. Or is this a RAm issue, and should I upgrade to 8gb of ram? I guess I'm wondering how much of a difference video memory makes on system performance. Thanks!!
This is what my monitor looks like when on this screen saver.Not actually that red as I'm typing now though this screen saver really shows it up.url...
I've got an iMac that's a couple of years old, and time (along with software) has taken its toll on the speed of my iMac. I've run Onyx, I've downloaded a utility that lets me set time machine to run once a day instead of every hour, but I'm still not happy with some of the slowdowns I get. So, my question is what will give me the best performance bump?:
1 - Clean install of 10.5 2 - Add more RAM (currently I only have the 1GB it came with) 3 - Upgrade to 10.6 4 - Something else I'm not considering