OT: Dual monitors

I have a MacPro Os 10.5.5, 2x2,8 Quad Core, 10 GB Ram. Main monitor is 30" Apple when hooking up a second 20" Apple, the playback in timeline either preview or Canvas stutters. I just moved my browser window to the 20"? Thanks for any help.

Rick

hmm... I run three monitors. My main monitor is on a card (ATI Radeon HD 3870) all by it's self. The other two monitors are on a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT. I've never seen any problems with this setup. Maybe get a second card for the other monitor?

Also, if you are using two monitor on one card, the Vram is cut in half. What card are you using?

ATI radeon hd2600

ATI Radeon HD2600 is a 256mb card. Connect two monitors and you are down to 128mb's per monitor. Probably the most important hardware needed to run Motion is the Graphics Card. If you want to run two monitors off one card I'd change that HD2600 to a, ATI Radeon HD 3870. It's the best card right now for Motion. It has 512mb of Vram so you should have no problems running two monitors off it.

Hope this helps

oh, I have the same problem. I have the new ATI HD 3870 now but still have to turn my second monitor off. Should I use the cross fire thingy to install a second card?

Crossfire doesn't work on Macs. If you have a Crossfire card, you have the wrong card.

And turning off a monitor doesn't stop the card from splitting the VRAM, AFAIK - I believe you have to do that in a card setting in a Pref pane - can anyone verify?

It's not a crossfire card, it's a little thing to connect two ATI cards together!
Oehm, my performance in Motion improved considerably when I turned deconnected my second monitor! But...that is not a nice permanent solution.

Ah ok. You did connect the graphics card to the motherboard of the computer with the included cable, right?

Right! I'm just considering now to buy a second ATI 3870 and connect them both with that crossfire thing ... I know it's best to just deactivate some of the lights and layers while I'm not using them but especially in Motion I feel like it's better to have a look of how everything works together...which you can't do when you deactivate things.
Is it possible to have my second monitor run on my old graphics card while the ATI is running my cinema display?

Again, crossfire DOES NOT WORK with Macs. Yes, you can have two cards, each running a different monitor. You may have issues spreading the Motion UI across those two monitors, however.

oh ok, got you wrong before. So they included the crossfire for the ATI PC users...got it
I'll try installing the old card to see if performance increases...

This is how I have my dual monitor setup... actually I have three monitors. My main monitor (Dell 24" is connected to the ATI 3870. The other two ViewSonic 19" are connected to a NVIDIA 7300 GT. I only use Motion and FCP on the main monitor. The other two I use for looking for files and being on the internet watching tutorials, etc while I'm working in Motion. I do a lot of Photoshop work so multi monitors are great for that.