Wishful Thinking And Perhaps Slightly Off Topic : Dual Displ

Sat Feb 01, 2003 11:11 am by Tigis

(Now that I've finally stopped lurking, registered and made my first reply, it's time for the first post.)

Anyone in the know think there might be chance of FL supporting multiple displays at some point? I'm guessing it isn't supported out of the box as I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere. Which makes me wonder if the question has even been asked.

I've been waiting for a game to effectively use dual/multi displays ever since I first tried it out with the good ol G400 MAX.
"Imagine playing an Rpg with the action on one screen and your inventory/stats/skills windows open on the other!".
Eons later I've yet to see it happen. I'm not talking about a stretched/panorama view ala SurroundGaming on the Parhelia, rather an independent 2d overlay on the secondary screen. Much the same way as a dual display operates in Windows. Somewhere you could put all those windows that clutter up the 3d view, without having to close or minimize them. I had high hopes about being able to do this in Morrowind with it's customizable windows, but no dice.

I realize not everyone has two monitors, my primary is a 17 inch flat screen and the secondary is an old 15 inch fishbowl, but every card from a gf2mx up can drive dual displays to some degree. The ti4200 I have now allows me to leave dual display enabled with no effect on 3d performance. Which was the reason I had to keep turning it off on the G400. Not that it had anything you could describe as "performance" in 3d towards the end of it's life anyway...

But I digress (quite often, as you've probably realized by now), the point is : Where is the game that will take advantage of this useful feature? Is my secondary display forever doomed to display trillian chat windows, download progress bars and the occasional help guide whenever I game?

Wow, this turned into quite a rant. My apologies to anyone who managed to wade through it expecting some sort of coherent argument. It just annoys me that something with so much potential has never been fully utilized.

Sat Feb 01, 2003 12:41 pm by Balthazar

Not a bad thought Tigis, it would indeed be interesting with dualscreen support, but as far as I know.. No luck here either.. But if anyone know whether it can be modified to work or if it actually can.. Then please reply..

A have only seen the TLR's movies on fligt - menu's and whether the interface works or not.. I don't know.. If it works, I'm happy..

Balthazar

Sat Feb 01, 2003 1:13 pm by Bhurak Starkiller

It sounds like a great idea, Tigis, but nevertheless, one that would probably take more work to implement than would be justified by the number of people who would make use of such a feature. Barring an official answer from DA or Bargib, I'd have to say no.

Sat Feb 01, 2003 2:23 pm by Boscoe

Hi Tigis, welcome to the forums! Great question too!

Unless there's something I've really missed, I don't think there'll be support for dual monitors. There isn't on the PR build I have, and don't recall any mention of it when I was at DA. It's a great thought, but I can't really see it coming in the near future. Maybe on Freelancer 2???

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The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True
The Last Thing I Said Was False

Sat Feb 01, 2003 3:53 pm by DEATH AT THE DOOR

Good question.
But how a GeForce 2 MX can support 2 displays? I've only seen Dualheads on Matrox and late GF3.

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Would you care to follow me... --DEATH

Sat Feb 01, 2003 5:14 pm by Tachyon

Hmm, probably won't be dual monitor support... Very few people have such a setup but I'm not sure how much effort it would take to implement it.

Sat Feb 01, 2003 7:11 pm by SirCarcass

You mention RPG's using it. I believe Neverwinter Nights has just such a feature where one monitor is your playing screen while the other is used for stats, inventory, automap, etc.

Stormtrooper Tactics 101: Okay class, repeat after me. "There he is! Blast em!" Very good.

Sat Feb 01, 2003 7:27 pm by Godlike Entity

the only thing i know about dual montior support is my graphics card can't handle it and tribes 2 doesn't support dual monitors, if you are look for a game that does support two monitors Q3 does it allows you to increase your FOV that way

Sat Feb 01, 2003 7:38 pm by OMEGA

I believe that Descent 3 also supports it. You can have a forward and rear view simultaneously. That was made more or less specifically for the Matrox G400, but others should work with it.

It would be great if Freelancer did suport dual displays but I doubt there is a need for it. Time will tell.

Sun Feb 02, 2003 3:03 pm by Tigis

Thanks for the replies everyone. It seems I'll be waiting for a while yet.

Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:40 pm by Natrunner

The Parhelia video card supports dual monitors. But functions differently with different games.

I came. I saw. I conquered. And sometimes get conquered.

Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:43 pm by Wizard

Can someone explain me what this dual display support is?

Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:53 pm by OMEGA

Some graphics cards can support multiple monitors independently of each other. For example in a game you could have a forward view on one monitor and a rear view on the other. And it would all work in real time.

This sort of thing is mainly used for applications like animating. They have a large monitor for doing their modeling and a secondary smaller one for keeping all of their control panels and tool boxes on, thus giving them more room on the primary monitor.

Hope that helps

Edited by - OMEGA on 02-02-2003 18:54:14

Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:56 pm by Wizard

Sounds sweet, but shouldn't need two mouses? (I'm a complete newbie on this

)

Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:59 pm by OMEGA

No, the driver for the graphics card treats it like 1 large monitor. So as you move the mouse off one side of a monitor it moves in to the other monitor from the other side.

EDIT: Plus you can have the monitors in any orientation. So you could have the monitors side by side or on top of eachother (if you have the wall mount for it that is). Then when you move the mouse off the top of the screen it comes in to the bottom of the upper monitor.

Edited by - OMEGA on 02-02-2003 19:02:58

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