View Single Post
Old 03-08-2004, 09:09 AM   #96
BigScreen
Registered
 
Join Date: Mar 2003

Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 59
I finally had the chance to give the new version a try on my dual-monitor setup.

While I was really hoping for stretching the aquarium across both monitors, I appreciate the ability to blacken the second monitor.

On my Matrox G450-32MB setup, clone mode takes the frame rate from about 30fps to 15fps in 32-bit mode. If I reduce to 16-bit, I can squeeze 20fps out of it.

I recently upgraded my CPU from a P4-2.4 to a P4-3.06 with Hyperthreading, and it had no effect on the frame rate. I would surmise from that result that my video card was and is the limiting factor in the frame rate.

Switching to Windowed mode so that the window is about 640x480-ish makes it go much faster, upwards of 90-100fps which is kind of cool.

Even cooler is setting it for Widescreen mode! Somehow the aquarium looks more real in widescreen than it does 4x3. I guess that's since I've never had a 4x3 aqaurium...

In windowed mode, I cannot get it to continue refreshing on Monitor 2, the display just freezes until I move the window back to Monitor 1. I would imagine that has to do with a hardware overlay or 3-D acceleration issue with the dual-monitor support on the G450 card.

I have the dual-head mode set up for separate resolutions and separate pallettes, mainly so that I can retain my desktop icons and taskbar on Monitor 1 only.

I haven't tried to set it to stretch the desktop across both monitors to see if MA2.01 can go wide across both. Would that work?

Also, I didn't notice a discussion yet of the "Delay" slider for the Automatic Lights. The best I can figure is that this sets the amount of time before the transition from light to dark and dark to light? It doesn't seem to affect the speed at which the actual transition occurs, which what I was hoping for.
Scott J.
Publisher of The BigScreen Cinema Guide
BigScreen is offline   Reply With Quote