[zacharydz]

I was just wondering how many people are using their iBooks with an external LCD with a resolution greater than 1024 x 768, and how well it works.

Currently, I'm using my 800 Mhz iBook G4 with an old 19 inch CRT monitor with the spanning hack. However, the 32 Mb of VRAM that this computer has is pretty weak, and I really feel it when each monitor takes 16 Mb of VRAM.

Because of this, I often revert back to monitor mirroring when I am doing anything video-intensive so I can use all my VRAM. This isn't too much of a problem for a CRT to downscale the resolution, but I imagine that it would look pretty awful on a LCD. I know using clamshell mode should theoretically allocate all the VRAM to the external monitor, but the spanning hack presently still only gives half the VRAM to the external monitor.

So, I was wondering what people are doing with respect to this little problem. Do you think a 17 inch LCD would be better, or just get a 15 inch, so its native resolution is 1024 x 768?

Thanks

[omar96]

I have an IBM LCD that does a REALLY AWESOME job with stretching in both Panther and WinXP. At the same time, I have a Toshiba laptop running XP and the scaling looks REALLY SHITTY. What brand of monitor do you have?

[zacharydz]

I am currently using a 19 inch Dell Trinitron CRT here in NY because the IT department was selling them cheaply. I'm going to get rid of it at the end of the semester since it wouldn't make sense to pay to ship it back home to Nevada. I do have a 15 inch Samsung LCD at home, and thus I was wondering if I should just use that, or if investing in a 17 inch LCD would be worth it for next semester.

[omar96]

Does your particular iBook have DVI? I imagine that if you had a DVI monitor and plugged it in to a DVI port on your laptop that the image would look pretty good. A 15" monitor usually has a max 1024x768 resolution, so your monitor at home may not be scaling at all in the first place. Most 17" monitors have a 1280x1024 resolution and would have to scale some, but I don't know how bad; usually varying on the manufacturer. Try to take your laptop to a store that will let you try them out with your setup. If they want the sale badly enough, they'll let you do it.

[iREZ]

I use my Powerbook in spanning mode with my Samsung Syncmaster and have not noticed any lack of performance due to the VRAM splitting other than expose and I'm sure gaming would take a hit too, but anybody who plays Halo while spanning on a Mac shouldn't be complaining.

I don't know of any iBooks that have DVI....don't they all come with VGA?

[D'Espice]

There is no iBook with DVI, that - just as clamshell mode and screen spanning - was labeled "pro" by Apple hence is only supported by the PowerBooks
As we know, screen spanning works with iBooks too, yet the clamshell mode often doesn't.