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Karpfish · Oct 1, 2006, 06:27 PM

anyone have pics of an iMac spanned onto a second monitor? IM getting a dell 2007 for mine, aperture will be amazing with one pic full screen on the dell and other stuff(aperture or camino or w.e) on the iMac.

mduell · Oct 1, 2006, 06:33 PM

FYI you can rotate the Dell 90 deg for viewing portrait orientation photos.

Eug Wanker · Oct 1, 2006, 07:07 PM

I'm kinda disappointed with the GUI speed with my 24" iMac C2D (7600 GT) when it's spanned to the second monitor. Exposé gets all choppy.

Since you're interested in Aperture, here's my 20" G5 iMac 2.0 spanned to my 27" LCD TV (1360x768, via VGA), with Aperture loaded:

(Click to enlarge)

wtmcgee · Oct 1, 2006, 07:37 PM

okay ... i want that.

Eug Wanker · Oct 1, 2006, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

I'm kinda disappointed with the GUI speed with my 24" iMac C2D (7600 GT) when it's spanned to the second monitor. Exposé gets all choppy.

Hmmm... After a reboot, it's much smoother. Still not quite 100% as good as with just the built-in screen though.

mduell · Oct 1, 2006, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

I'm kinda disappointed with the GUI speed with my 24" iMac C2D (7600 GT) when it's spanned to the second monitor. Exposé gets all choppy.

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Hmmm... After a reboot, it's much smoother. Still not quite 100% as good as with just the built-in screen though.

I'm surprised that something as "simple" as Expose gets choppy with a higher-end GPU like that. Espically given how good the Aperture performance is.

Eug Wanker · 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

I'm surprised that something as "simple" as Expose gets choppy with a higher-end GPU like that.

So am I, especially since it has 256 MB of GDDR3 too.

Actually, after the reboot, it's not really "choppy". It's usually very smooth, but once in a while it has very slight stutter. This is in contrast to when I have just the one screen running, where it always is buttery smooth.

I wonder if the screen size makes a difference here: 1920x1200 (built-in) and 1400x1050 (VGA).

(It was 1400x1050 because for some reason my Macs don't default to the 1360x768 of my LCD TV, even though they sense it just fine and give me that option in the Displays prefs. I have to manually select it from those prefs, but for the Exposé test, I didn't bother changing it.)

P.S. For the G5 iMac picture above, I had to turn on spanning with that spanning enabler app. Luckily, you just have to run that enabler once, and then it always retains this ability. It causes zero problems too, which is unlike Front Row Enabler. (For the consumer Macs, it's only the Intel ones that have spanning enabled by default.)

JKT · Oct 2, 2006, 03:32 AM

If it is a VGA connection, doesn't it have to convert from digital to analogue - could that be why it isn't as smooth?

Peter · Oct 2, 2006, 05:57 AM

Nah it wouldn't slow down *just* the expose effects.

tooki · Oct 2, 2006, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

If it is a VGA connection, doesn't it have to convert from digital to analogue - could that be why it isn't as smooth?

Absolutely not. There's a component in the graphics circuitry called a "RAMDAC" that does the conversion in hardware. The CPU and GPU really don't care how the output is being delivered to the display.

tooki