Multiple monitors on my first-gen 15" MBP, can I get more than one?

November 17, 2008 2:25 PM

Multiple monitors on my first-gen 15" MBP, can I get more than one? How can I get three (or more, large) heads on my MBP and be uber-cool and productive? Is it as easy as a DVI splitter? Is there software that would stretch the screen onto another computer?

So, I have a first-gen MacBook Pro... the kind that only goes up to 2GB RAM. It has one DVI port. I currently use a 19" LCD and the MBP's LCD, both at 1440x900, no problem. However, I am the only one left in the office after a recent layoff and I am surrounded by lots of LCD monitors, Linux workstations, even an iMac 20" (Intel). Help me find a way to have three heads!

posted by dhammala to computers & internet (6 comments total)

DisplayLink

Compresses the hell out of the video, but will work.

And look into various flavors of synergy.
posted by cjorgensen at 2:35 PM on November 17, 2008

There are many hacks and expensive/odd boxes, but there is no great or pure way to do this. You need a Mac with multiple video cards, which these days means a Mac Pro.

Considering Apple's the company that started the whole spanning desktop thing back in the 80's, I find this pretty horrible myself.

I had SIX monitors on a Mac II in 1988. That's 20 years ago!

I'm old.
posted by rokusan at 3:28 PM on November 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I would suggest a previous generation Mac Pro with multiple video cards and synergy as mentioned above.


You basically want one or multiple host machines connected to the displays and synergy to tie them all together. It works really well actually.
posted by iamabot at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2008

DisplayLink does work, I have one that I use on my MBP occasionally. Why occasionally? While the image is perfect and great for semi-still displays like text, it knocks back video performance on the entire system, especially in regard to using Exposé.

It's a very, very cool product but try it before you depend on it for work.
posted by clango at 8:13 PM on November 17, 2008

Fortuitous I should come across this. My brother is a big time Mac user and wants a TripleHead2Go for similar purposes. Worth looking into.
posted by pkphy39 at 2:57 PM on November 18, 2008

I bought 2x EVGA UV-16 UV Plus doodads, which are Display Link devices. The Mac drivers seem to work great! The video is slightly slow when dragging windows around and such, but as two axillary displays, it is fine. I run video and high performance things on my main display. What is nice is that each display is seen by the Mac as an individual display, and so you get all of the neat built in OSX features for managing displays (it remembers where windows were last, etc) where as the TripleHead2Go seems to give you one large display. The UV-16 devices were also much cheaper than the TripleHead2Go option.
posted by dhammala at 10:30 AM on November 24, 2008