[rescue] VGA signal amplifiers

[Matthew Haas]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003, Jochen Kunz wrote:
>
> How do you want to drive all these displays? Each display with an
> inividual machine or do you plug three or four quad head video cards in
> a single machine? (At $WORK we have a machine with fife heads: One on
> the AGP card and four on an quad PCI VGA from Matrox.)
>

 For now the focus is one machine per display, but there is the option
down the road of doubling/triping/quadrupling up on machines. The machines
I'm dealing with are slim profile Dell cases. One free AGP, one free PCI,
both half-height. (With what appears to be a 64-bit PCI covered by the
power supply).

> This depends mainly on the cable. I have all my machines in the machine
> room and use extension cables to get video / keyboard / mouse to my desk
> in the living room. The cables are 10 to 12 meter long. I use high
> quality 13W3 extension cables from Sun and self made cales with RG59
> (i.e. 75 Ohm) coax cable. The usual VGA extension cables are often of
> poor cable quality. I am running 1280 x 1024 @ 76 Hz with very good
> results. But most modern VGA cards tend to have weak video signal
> drivers. So I would try if a simple solution with good cable works.
>

 It seems as though cable quality is sounding to be the important issue
here. I will keep that in mind as I proceed with my project.

 I am looking to run the the LCDs at 1280x1024 at whatever the default
refresh rate is, and the CRTs at 1024x768.

 Thank you for your input. I will be looking into cabling.

---
 Matthew Haas
 Corning/Geneseo, NY