[clug] Video cards to swap

[Andrew Loughhead]

Chris Smart wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-05-05 at 07:27 +1000, Fred Pilcher wrote:
>   
>> Looking for a video card that'd support acceleration, I bid on, and won,
>> a couple of low profile Nvidia NV34 FX5200 128MB cards at auction.
>> They've got DVI ports, but various people told me I could get adaptors
>> that would let me plug in my VGA-ported monitor. Pft. Yeah, right.
>>     
> Hey Fred,
> Actually that's true, you should be able to plug in a dvi-vga adapter
> and use them on your vga monitor. Some converters are missing pins and
> may not suit that card, but you can get converters that have a full set
> of pins which should work?
>   
Looking at the Wikipedia article on DVI, it seems that if the card is
DVI-D, which means digital only, then the converter gadgets aren't going
to help.  Also if the socket on the card is DVI-I, but only the digital
pins are active, then again the converter won't help. 

At work we have some fairly high end nVidia Quadro something cards, with
DVI sockets. They have to be configured in the windows driver as to
whether the monitor is analogue or digital, as we discovered when trying
to use a large TV with VGA in as a presentation monitor, and a DVI-vga
converter at the card, instead of the usual digital flat panel monitors.
Maybe X needs to be configured to turn on the analogue pins of the card?