Multiple monitors from my Mac Book pro?

frobisher

I know I can take a monitor out of the DVI output and have 2 monitors, but can I have 3 or more? And if so how?

babypink

you'll have to get an external graphics card setup.

check this out: http://www.villagetronic.com/vidock/index.html

it'll let you have 3 monitors externally. One from the internal out and 2 from the external gfx card.

J-blk

You can also use DisplayLink adapters to hook up monitors over USB - many different manufacturers make USB to DVI or VGA adapters now. I have this one from Gefen:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=4517

And it works fine - there are limitations though: the Mac OS X drivers are in perpetual beta and the 3D/OpenGL acceleration is pretty much non-existent (works in Windows only). You are also limited to a maximum of 4 DisplayLink adapters (6 on Windows).

These require CPU processing so if you want to view video, you're going to need a speedy system and it will hog the CPU. For anything fairly static (web browser, text editor, iTunes, etc) it's perfect - for video, my SlingPlayer takes around 70% CPU usage on my 2Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook when I have it on the DisplayLink monitor... Maximum resolution is 1680x1050 (so up to a 22" monitor should be fine, but most 24" are 1920x1200 so you won't be able to run them in their native resolution).

Similar to what Babypink suggested, Matrox had the DualHead2Go and the TripleHead2Go but I think these have certain limitations about how you can set up the monitors - I have no experience with them to be sure though...

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/

thecommander

Dualhead2go or triplehead2go