Multiple screen problems

[Ralph]

I like the moving fan corral but... as we are supposed to be critical ..The "sudden" movement (as it changes direction right to left )makes it look like the corral is being hit.. perhaps tweak that a bit slower..

But.. my logo does not toggle on the second screen when in full screen mode.. and I get the smallest bit of smearing on the second screen.. even at native resolution... When we were discussing this issue before I had thought that the problem only occurred while in a non native mode..

[Ralph]

Part 2.. strange stuff.
In wondering if the smear noticed in my last post would be replicated to the "other side" I decided to move my monitor to the left side (as opposed to the current right side). Using my Catalyst control center I have the options of moving the relative positions of either screen. My first attempt left me with no SS.. only music and after toggling back and forth several times between full and windowed my second screen became totally garbled.. Several "esc" efforts and SS shut down.

Subsequently moving the positions of my monitors I found I can control (to a degree) what I can see on my monitors.. My screen shot does not do this justice.. but.. when I place my second monitor above.. or below the main screen still sort of horizontally in line) my main monitor will show a pretty large image of the SS. If.. I place the second monitor directly above... Now I see the SS in a totally huge size.. (the cave takes up almost the full screen ) and one can see a lot of detail missing at normal views.

That moving fan... lots of issues around the edges there when viewed at 3 or 4 times the size

Sorry Jim.. I know programming for this is impossible.. I think

[cjmaddy]

My two monitors are identical, - so life here is much easier! (Thank goodness!) .... Sorry!

In doing some more tests though, it would appear that this current version of MA3 is not happy when the screens are set at different resolutions, - but I can set them to a wrong/lower res, (as long as they are both set the same), .... and I then have no problems!

But strange things can happen when the windowed mode is on the secondary monitor!


Ralph, - re: Your 'Part 2' post...
I really think that what I said here is important re the connecting and settings of the two monitors, Primary v Secondary!

[Jim Sachs]

I don't have a clue what to do about this. Windows allows the user to monkey with these dangerous settings, and my program has no idea what environment it is expected to operate in.

[cjmaddy]

Jim. - Why not just say , that when using multiple screens, it is highly desirable to have monitors of the same size.

..... It seems obvious to me that you can't expect to successfully display one picture correctly across two or more different sized monitors!

[Ralph]

Originally posted by cjmaddy:

Ralph, - re: Your 'Part 2' post...
I really think that what I said here is important re the connecting and settings of the two monitors, Primary v Secondary!  

True.. and I think "trying" to beat Jim with obscure and strange scenarios is unfair... But.. that is sort of what beta testing is all about, there will be customers that run into this (and other issues) and will request / demand a fix. My programming "fix" would be a big disclaimer.. "This SS will work on most system... But you can break it... if you try hard enough. There is no prize for this and you are on your own".

When I first started my Catalyst Control Center to activate my second monitor it was by default top right.. seems there are 3 positions to the left and 3 to the right as well as above and below.. For any other programs the only thing it "seems" to affect is where my mouse will leave this screen and go to the second one.. which gets pretty confusing fast.

With my second monitor placed under my main (image) the view on the second monitor becomes the un smeared one and the smearing occurs on my main screen..

Still it seems that "IF" and this is a big one obviously.. the smearing of the background could be "fixed" then the issue of where to have the second monitor placed would not be a SS problem.. if someone wanted a large image so be it.

Capturing and using "MSPaint" crops the image.. Photoshop seems to do a better job.. This image is with the second monitor under the main.. and where I stop with the silly stuff

[cjmaddy]

I rest my case! ........

[feldon34]

I don't understand why Jim can't just add another large rectangular object behind the "wash" which is an agreeable color and which is so large (especially extending down) that there is virtually no way for this to happen.

It seems that the wash has some kind of fixed limit where it only covers the top 75% of the display and assumes there will be coral in front of it.

[Jim Sachs]

The smearing of portions of the background is not a problem in itself - it is an indicator that the camera is looking at the scene from a position that is not intended. As long as SOME part of the background wash is showing, then the program is working normally. If the configuration forces the camera into a bad position, then there will almost certainly be other visual anomolies, so stretching the wash is not really a solution.

[Edgar]

Jim,
That smearing bug is happening because you are now drawing the background as a separate model per display monitor.
The fix you made for the NVidia bug because the background is too large, now the multimonitor fails to show the background correctly.

I suggest we find a different fix for the background bug like giving the background model more than 2 triangles to render.

[Jim Sachs]

The "short background wash" problem is happening because I'm setting the bottom to be 75% of the height of the backbuffer. Because of the screensize problem on monitors with different resolutions, the camera is "zoomed in" so that part of the scene is off-screen (and therefore not included in the backbuffer size). Edgar and I have been discussing the different-res-monitor situation, but each solution seems to create more problems than it solves.