Firelight

So at this point 2 people have contacted me with difficulties getting their dual monitor setups working. I have a good number of details from one, but very few from the other. For the fearful, the monitors which do not appear to “just work” are the Dell E196FP, and Samsung Syncmasters.

However, for me the setup still works fine. For people who bought it but are having some trouble with it, the settings I’m using are below. No guarantee they’ll work for you, however:

Custom:
Pixel Clock: 168.91MHz non-interlaced
Active: 2560H, 1024V
Front Porch: 24H, 1V
Sync Width: 32H, 12V
Back Porch: 24H, 29V
Scan Rate: 63.981H, 60.02V
Scale to: 0H, 0V
Positive Sync: H – Yes, V – No

Both of my monitors are able to sync properly to this signal. If this doesn’t work, try experimenting with the settings. The vertical scan rate should really be as close as possible to 60Hz, any higher, and the dualhead2go starts producing very lossy pictures, any lower and the monitors have a difficult time syncing. The sync width and porches are the primary modifiers here.

Unfortunately without an oscilloscope I can’t see exactly what the adapter is doing versus what normal output should look like, so it really boils down to try, try again. However, I have confidence that there is some setup that will work for everybody.

If anyone has any info or questions, please feel free to contact me.

When we set up the company, we bought a batch of mac minis to get running. They perform admirably, and I’ve been pleased with them.

However, I’ve been offered a g5, and would like to sell one of the minis to pay for it. The mini is a 1.25ghz machine with 512MB of ram, in box. It’s running 10.4.5 with the stock 40GB hard drive. It’s got the Radeon 9200, with 32MB ram.

In addition, I’ll no longer need my dualhead2go. (I wrote about the setup previously at https://blog.firefall.com/2006/02/mac-mini-dual-monitors-using.html). This thing has been great, but the powermac has dual outputs built in. I have the box for the dualhead2go as well.

I’d like to get $400 for the mini and $120 for the dualhead2go, but first fair offer takes them. Sold separately or together. Tell your friends!

Aniel

EDIT: I changed my mind. I’m keeping the mini, and all your base are belong to me. Too.

Edit: A couple people have reported problems using the dualhead2go with different types of monitors. I’m looking further into the problem. Check the comments for more details.

After being dugg on our article about the dual head mac mini, there were several good questions pointed out on various sites. Most of these centered around things like DVI support, crap on my desk, software I am running, and the capabilities of the system under such a load. This post is aimed at answering those questions.

1) From zwitl at digg.com:

I dont understand these guys: they get the most limited and less upgradable of all macs (wich are known for ages to have a limited upgrade path, with various models with soldered cpus and complex to open cases). And yet, they go to extreme means to do things a slightly superior model can do out of the box. In this case, it’s completely stupid: do dual display with only one VGA output and find an expensive way to split the signal over two screens, but then
– Since the OS thinks its driving one move monitor, every popup and windows appeir in the middle of both screens.
– Signal sync is hard to acheive and produce blur, a problem you can’t have with DVI.
– Need a third party app to set the proper resolution.
– Add a lot of clutters on the desk, while having a iMac integrated into the screen driving a second monitor is a so easy and clean.

At the end, you lose the point of having a mini (small and simple) and get that ugly setup:
a white mac mini, a black microsoft mouse, two ugly grey 17″ lcd, a black microsoft mouse and a beige keyboard.

Next: add an external videocard because the mini is unable to handle that resolution?

These are valid points. The reason we bought this particular mac, and not one that might have more upgradability is simple: 1st, Scott and I just went full time with Firefall 5 months ago. As part of our startup cost, we had to purchase enough computer equipment for four full time employees, plus a server. We picked up the minis at $500 a piece, plus gigantor 22″ CRT’s for a combined cost of around $800 per computer. Throw in extraneous software and peripherals and the price came to a level $900. This is $400 less than the cheapest current iMac, which would have been a 17″ monitor, and thus a drastic reduction in resolution.

Now no one is saying that we had the expectation of being able to upgrade the minis from the factory. At most, we intended to double the RAM, and maybe, just maybe, upgrade to a faster/larger HDD, be it through firewire or a replacement of the internal. And no one is saying that this particular solution to the dual screen output is completely ideal. But I will say this: it works, reliably and well. A cost comparison between this solution and using an iMac with two monitors comes out to $1170 vs. $1550, maintaining a significant margin.

With regard to the comment about the imac with a second monitor being “a so easy and clean,” I personally feel that it is much less strain on the eyes to have two monitors which are exactly the same, vs. an Imac and a second totally disparate monitor, since Apple produces nothing in terms of standalone monitors that really matches it. And upgrading to an iMack also solves none of the lack of an upgrade path problem. To solve that, you need to move up to a G5 tower, which, as you may have guessed, costs a fair amount more.

2) Wouldn’t DVI provide a cleaner output by avoiding the blurryness caused by sync difficulties?

Indeed it would. However, there is nothing on the market which provides this type of split capability via DVI. perhaps in a year or two, there will be, and that will completely nullify this solution.

3) Wow, your HCI is cluttered.

You could certainly say that, although I would say it’s just right. I have two Westinghouse 17″ LCD’s, an Apple Extended ADB keyboard, a Microsoft optical mouse, a pair of headphones, and a mini. Also pictured is an ipod 5G. This set up was completely iterative. Originally it was simply a mini and a Phillips 22″ CRT running at a breathtaking (and blinding) 1920×1440. We had also originally purchased sets of MS keyboards and mice, as they were cheap, and completely functional. The first swap was the ADB keyboard for the MS keyboard, since, as Scott said, I like “clicky” keyboards. They remind me of the Sun 386i I was weaned on. Then came the monitor upgrade. The reason I used Westinghouse as opposed to a prettier brand was because I had one sitting in a closet at home, and I like it when things match. the LCD quality on them is completely acceptable to me, as is the price / resolution, at $200 for 1280×1024. This of course, doesn’t mean you couldn’t use a more classical mac mix of hardware. This is what makes me happy.

4) Your mini’s back must be on the verge of breaking from all those pretty pixels.

Yeah, it does seem to groan more often set up like this than with a lower overall resolution. Growl really sets it off, among other things. However, it’s only the flashy chrome crap that contributes nothing overall to the user interface that takes a hit. In general use, it’s extremely responsive, as if it was running half the resolution. There were some thoughts floating around the intarweb about external video cards. The only thing I have seen on this front is the Tritton SEE2 USB to SVGA adapter which is not Apple compatible, and is in my opinion a vastly inferior solution. Perhaps if it ran on FireWire things would be different, but as it stands, this is the best solution imho.

There was also a question about running a setup like this with quad monitors. Yes, that should definitely work, using a dual output videocard, and using one dualHead2Go on head output. However, if the computer is at all upgradeable, I would strongly recommend simply using 2 dual head monitors, or four single head monitors, or some combination thereof. You’ll spend much less money, and get better speed on 3d apps and whatnot.

Questions were also asked about compatibility with other Apple products. As near as I can tell, the dualHead2Go should be compatible with any mac, provided that it has at least 32MB of VRAM. This pretty much constitutes any modern system, from the iBook or Mini on up. The output is limited to either 2048×768 or 2560×1024, which means that whatever monitors you use should be natively able to display 1024×768 or 1280×1024, but other than that, there are no limitations.

5) Isn’t this unusable for any sort of fullscreen app?

Actually, no. The dualHead2Go will automatically switch from split screen to mirror mode if the resolution is changed to 1280×1024. This means you just need to set the game or app to display at that resolution, and everything will be hunky dory, with the output mirroring on both monitors, instead of splitting across them.

6) Tell me about that wonderful thing you have on your monitor.

The background image is from 9xmedia.com. They have a small, but beautiful collection for dual screen and triple screen outputs. The translucent looking thing is the object inspector from the nightly build of Webkit, an infinitely useful tool comparable to Firefox’s DOM inspector, only in my opinion more useful, even though it’s only half complete.

The final thing people asked was about how to center the dock. The best thing I have found for this is the tinkertool. It will let you bind the dock across the bottom on the left or right side. This will keep it on one screen. I tried it that way for a couple days, but reverted to centered across the bottom and decided to simply make the dock larger to increase the readability. I have it hidden most of the time anyway, so it doesn’t effect me too much.

I think that about does it. Any further question, just let me know.

Edit: A couple people have reported problems using the dualhead2go with different types of monitors. I’m looking further into the problem. Check the comments for more details.

EDIT: Further information is available in this post

When we first set up the office here in NYC, we made an early decision to go with Apple products for development. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Apple, indeed I am a recent inductee into the Apple Fan Club. However, I have noticed a few… insufficiencies with the platform, many of which have little to do with the company itself. For example, the lack of a good time management system (apologies to iBiz).

Aside from my minor grievances on the software grounds, I have been a pretty happy customer. Except for one thing. The total lack of upgradability in the Mac Mini.

Now, I’m not retarded. I understand that the target market for the mini is not expected to have a 300GB drive, or 4GB of ram in the system. Hell, they’re not expected to do one damn thing to it. I understand all this, but it still frustrates me that not only is it difficult to perform many of these upgrades, some of them are downright impossible.

Or are they?

One of the things that dissatisfied me most about using a mini day in and day out was the inability to drive dual monitors. Up until extremely recently, there was simply no way to achieve a very wide display. But then my own personal Christmas came, and I discovered the Matrox dualHead2Go. Many many posts and reviews have discussed this device since it came out. But what is it?

Simply put, this box acts as a splitter for a VGA signal. It effectively takes one VGA input, and splits each horizontal line in half, and feeds one half to one VGA output, and the other half to the (you guessed it) other VGA output. Unfortunately, according to Matrox, it’s only supported under Windows. Well, I’m happy to say that this jigger works great under OSX too.

Required Hardware:
1x Matrox DualHead2Go
2x Monitor capable of 1024×768 or 1280×1024

For my particular setup, I went with the Westinghouse 17″ 1280×1024 monitors, since I already had one. I picked up a second one for $190 on eBay, bringing my total outlay on monitors to $390. Add in the $170 on the dualHead2Go, and the total cost for hardware comes to $560, or about $300 less than Dell’s 24inch widescreen. The total resolution on the dual screen monitor comes to 2560×1024, or 2,621,440 pixels, vs. Dell’s at 1920×1200, or 2,304,000. While it would be nice to have all that space on one monitor, those savings are significant, at about a one third discount for the dual screen, or 50% increase to merge them into one screen.

once you receive all the hardware, you simply plug it up in the (somewhat) natural way, mini to dualhead2go, out to two monitors. I added the custom resolution to the system using the SwitchResX tool, which has a free 15 day trial, and then costs $15. This process is fairly painless. You simply open up the SwitchRes control, and in the Resolutions tab hit Custom, then New. Put in 2560 for Horizontal, and 1024 for Vertical, hit Ok, and you’re good to go! Shut down your mini, then hook up the Matrox box, restart, and you should be putting along in dualscreen mode.

Caveats, Warnings, Et cetera: This system does have it’s downsides. For one, the system thinks it’s driving one big monitor, which means it’ll pop crap up in the middle of the screen, effectively splitting all dialog boxes and popups across the two monitors. Also, since the Matrox box is dealing with relatively high frequency signals, your monitors (as mine did) may have a difficult time syncing to the VGA signal. This means you may have to manually adjust the width and sync settings on your monitors. This has the additional negative that it can be extremely difficult for your monitors (particularly LCDs) to sync one pixel of incoming signal to one pixel of output, meaning that the output will be a little blurry as it averages the signal across two or more pixels of output.

However, to me these tradeoffs are more than worth it. As many already know, once you operate with dual screens, it is almost painful to go back. I’m very pleased with it.

EDIT: Further information is available in this post

Now, my own guilty past includes the fact that I, in fact, have a livejournal. This is in no way nearly as bad as, for instance, having a xanga; but it’s bad enough.

However, I have many friends who also have LJ accounts, and in fact keep them regularly updated. Something fascinating I found upon my last visit was the fact that somebody, and I honestly don’t know who, but somebody hooked up a link from LJ to our Blogger feed. This means you can add firefallpro as a feed to your friends view, and get the updates you crave easily.

Also, that dashboard tool that Scott mentioned earlier? yeah that thinger only works about 50% of the time. Untrustworthy.