WOW! {Or Holy whatever}

[Eric Crist]

On May 9, 2007, at 8:34 PMMay 9, 2007, Gary Kline wrote:

> On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 07:18:52PM -0500, Eric Crist wrote:
>>
>> Gary,
>>
>> Most cards that might come with DVI output instead of the standard
>> VGA output usually include at least one DVI-VGA adapter, an
>> additional one could be purchased at most computer retailers or your
>> local Radio Shack.
>>
>> HTH
>
>
> 	It does help, thanks, Eric.  I may have missed the cord adaptor
> 	that was stuck in the box.  Need help to open/check.  Meanwhile,
> 	I need to look at the specs for this Dell 8200 to see what kind
> 	of card is in there.  What's there is a jack with two rows of
> 	sockets.  I'm guessing this is the standard Dell "DVI" connector,
> 	yes, no, other? :-)
>
> 	Also, in your opinion, since I'm not a gamer and just want to
> 	display at extreme most 1600x1200, do I need anything seriously
> 	upscale?  I've seen and skipped past lots of questions about lots
> 	of drivers.  So let's say that I went totally ape and bought some
> 	AGP card with 256M of memory:: do we have a driveer for those
> 	kinds of very high end cards?
>
> 	thanks again,
>
> 	gary
>
> 	PS:  Does anybody know of a website that 'splains VGA, SVGA,
> 	     EVGA, and all the rest?  I've been seriously guilty of being
> 	     lazy; I'm fessing up!  ....


Gary,

A DVI connector has 3 rows of 8 pins and a set of 4 hole is a box  
shape next to it:

+------------------------+
|  o o o o o o o o  o|o  |
|  o o o o o o o o --+-- |
  \ o o o o o o o o  o|o /
   +--------------------+

There's also a mini-DVI format that's kinda like this:

+-----------------+
| o o o o o o o o||
| o o o o o o o o||
  `---------------'

I'm sure you know what a VGA connector looks like, so I won't draw  
that for you. ;)

At work, we're using the GeForce 7600 GS AGP cards, which have 256MB  
of RAM and dual DVI output.  We're using the FreeBSD Binary driver  
(available in ports) and running dual monitors with full Open GL  
support pretty seamlessly.  I'd recommend that setup to anyone.  It's  
a feature called Twinview which allows your desktop to span multiple  
monitors, and most programs that support xinerama(sp?) are 'aware' of  
the physical border between monitors, so you don't end up with  
windows popping up spanning both monitors. (i.e. maximize doesn't  
cross both monitors, just one).

HTH

Eric Crist