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Cadaver · May 22, 2004, 12:20 AM

Owners of the retail Radeon 9800 Pro owners, question for you.

I'm considering purchasing the card plus two pivotable LCDs - I do a lot of writing, and I'm really interested in being able to pivot one display in to portrait mode to show a full page (at standard 100% magnification) in, say, Word or Acrobat. I have a pivotable Dell LCD on my PC at work, and its a nice feature for writers.

However, I'd also like one of the displays (probably the primary one) to remain at the standard landscape layout.

Now, I know the retail Radeon 9800 has the VersaVision feature. My question is this - is it possible to just pivot ONE display out of two, or can you not control them independently?

If someone would be willing to try and post the results, that'd be great. There's nothing on the ATI website about this...

Thanks in advance!

ReggieX · May 22, 2004, 10:20 AM

So you want both monitors to show the same thing, but one as portrait and one as landscape? Kind of a waste, isn't it?

Oh, and I found this:
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/macosx-r...5_read_me.html

VERSAVISION & RADEON 9800 Pro: VERSAVISION Display Rotation works while multiple displays are being mirrored, however, it should be enabled before mirroring is turned on to prevent possible visual corruption. Mirror mode should be disabled any time the display is being rotated and re-enabled when the desktop is in the preferred orientation. VERSAVISION is currently only available for RADEON 9800 Pro Mac Edition.

VERSAVISION and Current Resolution
When running in most resolutions, activating one of VERSAVISION's portrait rotations (90 degrees) may switch to an unexpected mode once the display has been re-oriented. Example: initial mode was 1024x768 and after rotating the new mode selected by Mac OS is 1024x1280, instead of 768x1024. Simply select your desired mode from the Apple Display preferences after rotating to run your desired resolution.

Cadaver · May 23, 2004, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
So you want both monitors to show the same thing, but one as portrait and one as landscape? Kind of a waste, isn't it?

No, I don't want to mirror the monitors. I want desktop spanning; one display landscape, the other portrait.

Nothing on ATI's site, nor the documents linked above, state whether this is possible or not.

I posted same question on xlr8yourmac.com's forums, and it seems as though it is possible to do this...

rhogue islander · May 23, 2004, 05:16 AM

Just tried it here on a Dual G5. Monitors are a CRT with an LCD to the right.

I was able to rotate just the LCD to portrait while keeping the CRT in landscape mode.

Cadaver · May 23, 2004, 06:22 AM

Originally posted by rhogue islander:
Just tried it here on a Dual G5. Monitors are a CRT with an LCD to the right.

I was able to rotate just the LCD to portrait while keeping the CRT in landscape mode.

Thanks a ton, Rhogue!

rhogue islander · May 23, 2004, 09:45 AM

Why you're very welcome!

ReggieX · May 23, 2004, 11:09 PM

Originally posted by Cadaver:
No, I don't want to mirror the monitors. I want desktop spanning; one display landscape, the other portrait.

Nothing on ATI's site, nor the documents linked above, state whether this is possible or not.

OK, your mention of Versavision had me wondering, since the only mention on ATI's site talked about mirroring displays, not having them as 2 separate displays. I can't see why it wouldn't, unless the pivoting screens themselves were not supported somehow.

Glad to see it'll work, that makes me think about getting a pivot display when I finally get my G5!

Cadaver · May 25, 2004, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Glad to see it'll work, that makes me think about getting a pivot display when I finally get my G5!

Just make sure you use a retail ATI card; the OEM ATI cards do not have VersaVision support in the firmware.