Multi-monitor question

[mark98012]

I've added a second monitor this evening. First of all, it didn't drop the FPS like I thought it would. It was about a 3-5 FPS drop. That really surprised me given my system and the second video card (see below). I've had incredible luck with it so far. Great for the radio stack, GPS, kneeboard. I did find it really odd when I put the ATC window on the second display, the FPS dropped dramatically (i.e. to 3-4 FPS). Once back on the primary, FPS went back to normal. I did not see a noticable effect when GPS/radio/kneeboard were moved back and forth. Not too worried why this is. Just happy I'm having such good luck with my mid range system!

Question: In the panel.cfg file, what can I edit (if anything) that will let an undocked GPS display on the second monitor? In other words, when I click the GPS button, it should not have to be undocked and dragged over. I've looked in the FS2000 SDK book, but don't see anything related.

Sys specs:
Dell Dimension P3 600 MHz
384 MB PC100 Ram
26G 7200 rpm HD
ATI 32MB DDR AGP w/19" monitor (primary)
Diamond Stealth 3D 4MB PCI (S3V chipset) w/ 15' monitor (secondary)
MS Sidewinder FF Joystick

Hey, the 4MB card was free, and 15" monitor an old leftover....

[fahmey]

Well.. I run 3 monitors and all with a 32 MB graphic card, different brands and chipsets.

The only window that will drop my FPS in the primary monitor is when I drop Spot Plane into the 2nd or 3rd monitor. Others are fine, even ATC.

That's all I wanna share with you.

[morse]

I have found this with the ATC window. I run a 32Mb G450 Dual-Head and dragging the ATC window to the other monitor drastically reduces the framerate. Does anyone know why?

On the other monitor, the ATC appears like a DOS window...


Chris "Morse" George

[adsb26]

Your frame rates drop because you're running in software accelerated mode. When running in windowed mode (as opposed to full screen mode) DirectX defaults to software acceleration when a window is moved to a monitor running from a secondary video card. This happens even when you tell it to use hardware acceleration. Its a limitation in DirectX. This is a good starting point for information:

www.realtimesoft.com/multimon

The reason the GPS display doesn't slow things down is the GPS display doesn't use hardware acceleration in the first place (its not 3D).

Another important piece of info you left out is which operating system you use. Win 98, Win2000, and WinXP all handle multi-monitor setups in different ways - particularly dual-head cards. We use GF2 MX Twinview cards with Win2000. You can run 2 windows on the 2 monitors, using hardware accel on both without too much of a performance drop. But if you go full screen, it stretches one screen over both monitors.

What I'm trying to figure out is how you get Flight Sim to run multiple views in full screen mode, each on a different monitor.
Has anybody figured that one out?

Matt

[morse]

>The reason the GPS display doesn't
>slow things down is the
>GPS display doesn't use hardware
>acceleration in the first place
>(its not 3D).

But neither is the ATC window AFAIK? It certainly doesn't look it!

>Another important piece of info you
>left out is which operating
>system you use.

I'm using a g450 DH on win2000, 2 17" monitors with an athlon 900, 512Mb ram lah-de-dah!

At the moment I keep my radio stack, gps, checklist, and throttle quadrant on the second monitor (plus a clock!)

I guess the best way to get multiple views is to use wideview and several machines... expensive though!

Chris

[adsb26]

Sorry, I misread. I thought you were talking about the tower view.

>But neither is the ATC window AFAIK? It certainly doesn't look it!

You never know how Microsoft coded it. :) I tried the ATC window here (on my 733 P3, 256MB RAM, GF2MX, 2 18" NEC LCD's) and it stayed at 30 FPS. How does the Matrox multi-monitor work on Win2000? Does Windows see 2 seperate monitors or one wide monitor? With the GF2MX, I see one 2560x1024 monitor instead of 2 1280x1024. Windows simply doesn't recognize a 2nd screen, so DirectX doesn't have a problem.

We're setting up a wideview based system here because we've had so much trouble with the multi-mon support (trying to drive 4 monitors on 1 computer). I'm nervous about how it will show the AI traffic and dynamic scenery, though.

Matt

[TornadoWilkes]

Just wanted to mention that a Cockpit Building forum is being set up at the moment here, and whilst we're waiting for a link to be placed on the main menu, you can still access it on the drop down menu at the bottom of this page.

I believe that this forum will be invaluable in the future for everyone with similar hardware questions that need raising to the Guru's.

TW