VGA to USB?

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:52 pm

Is there a cord or adaptor or something that can plug into the USB port of a laptop, and then I could plugin a graphics card to that? Then I could have a graphics card that actually worked on my laptop.

sRc · Post by **sRc** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:24 pm

USB is incredibly too slow and too latent for that kind of operation. Matrox made some PCMCIA graphics cards for specific things, but they are pretty outdated nowadays. there might be some ExpressCard equivalents if you have a newer notebook that supports ExpressCard, although I haven't looked in a while. ASUS was also working on an ExpressCard adapter for desktop PCI-E graphics cards, but I don't know if they ever released that.

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:27 am

Yeah I think I have express card support. I have a Compaq presario notebook. Is PS/2 fast?

DavidJE13 · Post by **DavidJE13** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:56 am

unless I'm mistaken you mean the ports for connecting mice/keyboards? if so then no... god no. it has the slowest connection of any port short of an audio jack.

sRc is right - you need to use the express card slot. But the card will need it's own power supply & cooling, and will still be quite slow (much slower than it would be if internal). No other ports on a regular computer will be anywhere near fast enough, even if they could be connected somehow.

If you're interested, I think USB3 is currently the fastest standard non-graphical port, followed by firewire 800, USB2, then a whole load of random types. None of them could be used for connecting a graphics card.

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:15 pm

Yeah, but anything must be better than integrated graphics. Which is what I have now. Is there a way to use the processor to run GLSL shaders? I just need to be able to test and write GLSL shaders.

sRc · Post by **sRc** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 6:11 pm

well what do you know, some people did get it out to market

http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpres ... index.html
http://www.mpitta.com/index_files/ViExpressBox1.htm

keep in mind, the ExpressCard slot is only PCIe 1x, and most graphics cards use PCIe 16x, so it will operate somewhat slower than you would normally epxect out of the card. but that's what you'd want to look for

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:03 pm

Finally, a ray of hope in this fight against integrated graphics

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