ATI Radeon 9800 and Apple Cinema Display

[George Chapman]

Hello everyone. I have spent the last few hours searching google for
some answers to these questions without much luck, so I thought I
would post them out there and see if anyone can help.

I have a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card. I
am running Windows XP.

I am interested in picking up an Apple 20" Cinema Display. I know
some people have had some luck with this (especially with the ATI
cards), but I still have some concerns:

1) The native resolution for this monitor is 1680x1050, and although
the ATI drivers support it, some people have reported problems seeing
anything on the monitor until Windows boots (thereby precluding access
to the bios settings). Can anyone confirm if this is true? I would
have thought the PC would try to put the monitor into some other
resolution that it could handle.

2) What happens if I pick a game and try to play it at 1024x768 or
1280x1024? Does the game get centered in the monitor or does it get
stretched? Is that something that is configurable?

Thanks in advance for any answers you all can provide. They are much
appreciated!

 

[Kristin]

Hello everyone. I have spent the last few hours searching google for
some answers to these questions without much luck, so I thought I
would post them out there and see if anyone can help.

I have a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card. I
am running Windows XP.

I am interested in picking up an Apple 20" Cinema Display. I know
some people have had some luck with this (especially with the ATI
cards), but I still have some concerns:

1) The native resolution for this monitor is 1680x1050, and although
the ATI drivers support it, some people have reported problems seeing
anything on the monitor until Windows boots (thereby precluding access
to the bios settings). Can anyone confirm if this is true? I would
have thought the PC would try to put the monitor into some other
resolution that it could handle.

2) What happens if I pick a game and try to play it at 1024x768 or
1280x1024? Does the game get centered in the monitor or does it get
stretched? Is that something that is configurable?

Thanks in advance for any answers you all can provide. They are much
appreciated!

George...

I am using an ACD as my primary monitor (along with a samsung crt) on a PC
(XP Home), 9800 Pro. I am new to this but I will give you my experience.

1. I love the clarity of this monitor!
2.I am using the 1680x1050 setting. When I boot, I see the boot info on my
secondary monitor...the apple is black until windows is loading. I suppose
if I wanted to make some changes to the bios, I would set the crt as primary
display temporarily.
3.If you use another resolution, in "display properties" of the ati control
panel you are given the option of "scale image to panel size". If you choose
this option, the image will be stretched. Otherwise it will be centered.
4.I chose not to install the hydravision features on advice from this group;
the dual display capability is seamless. The extra real estate (second
monitor and the size of the acd) leaves me wondering how I ever had room to
move!

Like I said, I am just getting acquainted with this setup so...hth...

regards,
kristin