Compatible laptops

[Jim]

I'm starting this topic as I think it may be useful to get together a database of laptops that work, don't work or work when an updated driver is used, with Zionworx.

The reason I started thinking about this was simple - we just bought a laptop for church that is absolutely useless for song projection as it does not support dual view / extened desktop so it can not drive two independant displays - needed for Zionworx and a boon for powerpoint too.

Anyway, what do folk think (I'm running a Poll for the next two weeks as I'm off to help lead a CPAS venture in Wimborne)?

By the way, we bought an Acer Aspire 1310 series (1312XC) for those wishing to avoid, a great laptop - no good for us though.

[Tekman]

Hi Jim

I think you are right to make everyone think about what sort of laptop they buy for use with ZionWorx/PowerPoint. A laptop that does not support dual monitors i.e. a projector would be absolutely useless for church services.

I went with two other people from my church to go and buy a laptop and at that stage we did not have ZionWorx. I think it was the case that all of us knew virtually nothing about dual monitor support and how to set things up properly at that stage in our ventures. It was only after having ZionWorx for two or three weeks that we began to understand how to set things up and to run them successfully.

I now realise how lucky we were to buy a laptop that can run a projector. I feel that this was just one of those lucky accidents. The only things we considered was the usual stuff about memory, disk size, CD/DVD, etc and the input/output connections provided.

We literally walked into the shop clutching an advertisement that one of us had printed off from the Net and started talking to the salesperson. On the face of it the machine seemed a 'good spec' and would do what we required. With hindsight I now realise that we could have got it totally wrong and the machine we were specifically buying to run our church services could have been more or less a 'white elephant'.

I think that it is also important to consider what version of Windows to use and likewise the version of PowerPoint. Like most things, the latest versions seem to be better equipped for running projectors and anything connected with multimedia presentations.

So thank you on behalf of everyone else for your post on this matter.

The Tekman

[webmaster]

I found this device for laptops which do not have dual screen support.

From Mergi

http://www.margi.com/products/prod_dtg.htm

Cost starts from a $149.00 from the US although they may have a european distribution I did not Check.


It has alot of features

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Features

Multiple Displays
Multitask faster and increase the virtual size of your desktop by adding additional displays to your notebook PC. You'll be able to see "the big picture" more clearly with the ability to control several displays through a common desktop location.

Typical Applications

Connect multiple LCD displays to provide a seamless display - save space
Give a PowerPoint presentation, while simultaneously, viewing notes on the laptop
Track HTML code on one display and Web page content on another.
Compare multiple versions of a layout, graphic, or design from different displays.
Create a panoramic view of a large or very detailed spreadsheet.
View stock quotes on the Internet on one display while analyzing financial data on the other.
Station conference attendees at different displays and conduct a Microsoft® PowerPoint 2000® presentation from your computer at the front of the room.
4MB RAM, 64bit Graphics - upto 1600 x 1200 resolution
4MB Graphics RAM lets you work at a resolution upto 1600x1200 and 16bit color. In addition to providing a larger working area, the Display-to-Go 4MB card also keeps your presentations jitter-free.

Non-Standard Resolution Support
Some LCD displays work at resolutions that are not VGA standards. DTG makes it possible to support these devices.


Plasma Displays with "letterbox" or "16 x 9 format" resolutions.
Apple Cinema at 1600 x 1024
Silicon Graphics 1600SW which runs up to 1600 x 1024
Complete List of Supported Resolutions

DVI, DFP and VGA Interfaces
Increase your productivity. Remove your compatibility worries. The same Display-to-Go 4MB card can be used with the VGA, DFP and DVI adapter cables to plug into analog or digital displays including Apple Cinema displays..





MacOS Support
Our commitment to platform independence remains strong with support of MacOS 9.1 powerbooks. This includes support for both Studio Display and Cinema display with DVI connectivity*.

* New Cinema displays featuring the ADC connector can be connected using Dr. Bott's DVIator. DVIator allows the use of Apple's ADC flat panel displays on any Mac with DVI video.

Desktop Management Features
The desktop management software increases your productivity through hotkey support for quick information access, drag-and-drop application positioning & stretching across multiple displays.

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Cheers
Edd

[mango]

We bought a particular NEC model earlier this year and had to return it, we were also going to get an Acer but found out beforehand that most Acers, if not all, also have the same limitation. And try avoiding Asus too. My suspicion is that all these laptops are using the same culprit mobile graphics chip. From what I can remember, you can actually get dual display running but the primary display ends up on the projector and secondary on the laptop's LCD screen.

Jim, if you're stuck with the Acer, and no budget to buy an external graphics card, then you could beg Christian nicely to add a special feature that puts the operator's window on the secondary display and the presentation window on the primary display. PowerPoint will still have the same problem though

[Christian]

Very good idea Jim...

We actually ended up going for a desktop PC at our church on a wheelable trolley that we lock away in a cupboard. This works well for us and meant we could get a decent computer at a cheaper price than a comparable spec laptop.

That said, I think Dell, Toshiba and Sony make some good dual monitor laptops, but again you have to check the small details - I really can't understand why laptop manufacturers seem so slow to pick up on the significant benefits of dual monitors

Another important consideration is whether the graphics chipset supports displaying video on the secondary video ouput. I'm amazed that some chipsets simply don't seem to support this. The same issue is important for dual monitor AGP/PCI graphics cards as well. I'm only just realising how important this is now that I'm doing some experiments with video backgrounds for v3.0

My development PC has a (pretty old) dual output Geforce2MX (nVidia chipset) card which supports video on both monitors, but when I recently ran tests on our church computer, which has a Matrox G450 card, I was disappointed to find that the Matrox chipset did not appear to support video on the secondary output

This is a real fly in the ointment, and even more reason why we need to work out what are the best graphic chipsets, laptop models and dual output AGP cards to buy for our purposes.

[Jim]

Hello all,
I must admit to being overwhelmed by the response. First off I'll clear some stuff up.

The Acer we bought has NO dual view support at all - I've tried a few different drivers but suspect this is a hardware issue.

Now there seem to be three problems here:

Firstly, no dual view support at all EG all displays are treated as the same, primary, desktop, with no support for an extended desktop. The easiest way to think of this is that the screen is simply echoed on to all the other attached devices.

Secondly, primary and secondary desktops appearing the wrong way around. EG the primary is the second video device and the secondary is the first video device (Flat pannel in the case of laptop).
I experienced this when connecting my work laptop to the churches projector - my desktop appeared on the projector and the extend desktop appeared on the Laptops Flat Pannel Display.
It was easy to correct in the drivers settings pannel (ATI Rage Mobility-M1) as you can set the primary display here.

Thirdly, video overlay, I picked up a cheap web cam to play around with this, now it is true that some cards can only overlay video to the primary desktop (literally put moving video, either live or from a file on top of the desktop) and not to the secondary / both.
However this need not be an insummountable problem if you can switch which display is the primary and have the control screen on the screen not in use for video.
You could even have a set-up wizard to guide you through various configurations - now I am dreaming of the ideal.

Sorry if some of this is pitched to high, to low or deep in the back of my own head - I've just returned from a CPAS Camp in deepest Dorset and still need to rest up after the mania of 70 challenging 8-12 year olds. Many of whom have moved on in their faith or come to faith, PTL.

Anyway hope this isn't too essay-ish, God bless,

Jim

[sirhcllenrad]

I am fortunate enough to say that ZW has worked without a single problem on my laptop (a Toshiba Sattelite 2600) apart from a single hard drive failure (which I won't blame ZionWorx for.

Rather fortunate considering that I didn't even think of running multiple monitors when I bought it a few years ago.

Chris

[mango]

Another important consideration is whether the graphics chipset supports displaying video on the secondary video ouput. I'm amazed that some chipsets simply don't seem to support this. The same issue is important for dual monitor AGP/PCI graphics cards as well. I'm only just realising how important this is now that I'm doing some experiments with video backgrounds for v3.0

I must reiterate the importance of Christian's point if you're hunting around for a laptop. We didn't think about this point when we bought ours earlier this year, now we're stuck with ppt presentations insteand of video unless we switch back to single display. Wish we had thought about this earlier

[Williamting]

It is indeed a good idea for a list of supported laptop. It is also for this reason why I ended up buying a desktop with a dual port display card. I have not regretted it. I found the most annoying thing is that most reseller are not aware of the dual display capability and we have to buy things off the catalogue.

We seem to have the same set up as Christian - everything on a trolley. The only draw back is that the congregation sometimes stand in front of the projector during communion or altar call.

The card we are using is ASUS V9180 (GPU NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX440-8X) graphic card. We can swap primary and secondary display by a click of the button.

The DVD player software automatically project a full picture on the seconday display. This leaves the primary display quite free for us to continue on "using the PC", eg, editing document, etc - like a true multitasking system.

The other drawback, though not very serious, is the inability to click on the "hot link/hyperlink (to file)" on a powerpoint presentation. Naturally this is not the fault of ZionworX.

[webmaster]

I never checked this too. but recently found reverting my Compaq Armada M300 to windows 98 found the correct ATI drivers and hey presto...Dual screen. Never knew I had this so now I have a church a rack mount pc in the Multimedia desk and monitor installed into the desk with the ability to run the laptop at outdoor and out of church events..

Edd

[Williamting]

Hi Edd,

I found out that Window 2000 and XP does not support dual monitor on the ATI video chipset. I don't know if this is true for newer chipset. I am using ATI Rage Mobility Chipset on one of my notebooks.

After tweaking on my laptop (Compaq Armada E500) for the past two weeks, I finally dumped my XP and W2K and installed Win98. Dua monitors work instantly! So, now I can use Zionworx in my Cell Group meeting.

For all others who are using ATI chipset and is on Window XP or 2000, perhaps it is worth trying out Windows 98 and I believe ME should also work.

You can download driver from http://www.driverguide.com.

God bless,
William

[Diceman]

The database sounds like an excellent idea,

It would need to be well researched to be effective for the range of hardware (and software), OEM, and different versions of the 'same' laptop product. What sort of fields would it have?

Any suggestions

Diceman

[David]

A list of laptops compatable with ZW would be very useful as I am just starting the process of buying and setting up a data projector with laptop for our Church. Any help or advice would be greatly apprecated.

[Diceman]

Laptop manufacturers vairy tremendously, but there are not as many laptop graphics chipsets. They are manufactured by:

ATi (Asus)
nVidia

Intel
AMD
VIA


Zionworx users really come in two major groups. Those who need composite video output (to send over a long distance, through a video mixer or to a video display which does not support the d-shaped vga adapter) and those who just need dual display output via a VGA connection.

1) Do you need composite video (the phono connector marked yellow)?
yes - goto 2 no - goto 3

2) When you go to check a laptop out. look at the back of it. does it have a round yellow connector phono (supply picture) or a round black connector with 4 pin holes (supply picture) s-video?
yes - goto 3 no - forget it - it won't do what you want - keep looking.

3) In order to find out that you can use two screens with the laptop's hardware you need to find out who the graphics chip is made by and what the model name is. Ask the sales assistant to supply you with this information. And write it down. Check it against our graphics chip compatibility list.-link to list-

With Ati and Nvidia things are quite straight forward since the graphics chip name will usually be touted on the laptop feature list.

ATI: all but one of Ati's mobile chipsets support dual head (independant screen output). The original version of the Rage Mobility is the only card that is completly useless for your purposes (The Rage Mobility M1 supports dual screens). Of the remainder all have support for composite video out except the MOBILITY RADEON 7500 and the MOBILITY FireGL T2.

BUT BE WARNED - Just because a chipset supports video out does not mean that the laptop manufacturers have included the connector on the back of your pc. Always check the model you are considering by looking on the back for the yellow phono socket.

If someone wants to re-write the above info more clearly - please feel free.

The thrust of research so far says this: for dual head Zionworx compatible output through a vga cable your safe with all laptops which use Ati cards except: the original Rage Mobility (now discontinued).

For Nvidia AMD Intel and VIA, you'll have to do your own homework - until I get around to it. I'm compiling a comparison chart of all manufacturers, models, and their properties.

Diceman

[Christian]

Thanks for your efforts Diceman - this will help a lot of new users. If possible, maybe you could consider too whether each chipset supports video on the secondary output as this will be important when v3.0 is out...

Cheers