Question about 2560x1600 res

Alright. I have always been a CRT man, I love my 3 year old NEC FP 2141 the same as the day I bought it...

But the thought of a monitor far larger with a resolution to match, even if it is an LCD, intrigues me.

How does one get a 2560x1600 resolution from a normal video card? I honestly see no way other than having two video cards plug into it and do the old two monitor setup, just with one monitor instead of two. I am sure two video cards doing 1280x1600 would do it just fine, yet in many of the pictures I have seen of the LOVELY dell 30 inch, i only see one monitor DVI thingymajig.

I know theres a long ass thread about the dell monitor but I felt this needed a separate thread. Can someone shed some light on how one video card would accomplish 2560x1600?

You need a video card with a dual-link DVI port. That's a single dual-link DVI port, not two (or dual) DVI ports. Nothing else can drive the two monitors that currently offer 2,560 x 1,600.

I can probably tell you the answer for an nVIDIA video card. First, you need to make sure that you have the latest driver. I would also reccomend installing any monitor drivers that came with your monitor. Next, right click on you desktop, go to properties,,click on settings tab, advanced, the tab with the nvidia symbol and is named after you video card. Here, expand them menu that is labeled after your video card and go to "screen resolution & refresh rates". Then, make sure the box that says "hide modes that this monitor cannot support" is UNCHECKED. Now, you should be able to view up to the highest screen resolution your video card supports.

Hope this helps.

Silly cyber, I dont have the 30 incher yet. Maybe one day.

I am just unfamiliar with how getting to a res beyond 2048x1536 would work.

caboose, youll have to forgive the amount of noob I have sitting in me but... dual link? Is that like having two connections in one cord?

Its time to start researching things again. My knowledge of new things is clearly behind.

Dual link is in a way like having two connections in one cord. Dual link dvi cables/connectors use an additional 6 conductors in the middle to provide a 2nd link.

One thing to remember is that DVI doesn't have a set resolution limit, it is limited by bandwidth. Single-link dvi is capped at 165MHz, it doesn't matter what resolution or refresh rate you send as long as it doesn't exceed 165MHz. You must use a 2nd link to achieve enough bandwidth to transmit a resolution such as 2560x1600@60hz.

I have a 3007 and you MUST use a video card with dual link dvi. It's still one actual connector, but as stated above the connector has additional pins/hardware to support 2 dvi streams on the same cable.

It doesn't matter if your video card has 1 or 2 dvi connectors on back. You cannot hook the two seperate dvi connections together in any way to drive 2560 x 1600. So most older cards do not support 2560 x 1600. I know the ATI x1000 series supports dual link dvi (hence 2560 x 1600) and the nvidia 7900 series does as well. With any other cards I have no idea if they will work or not.

Yeah I have been looking around at this today and youre right.

I would have to upgrade big time on video card hardware too, I only got a 9800 pro.