thirty6hex
23rd August 2002, 01:26
So I have a big ole PC with 2 procs that I run MD on in my living room. I really like the dual monitor thing, since its....well...cool, not to mention that when I take the computer to live gigs its nice to control from one side and put it on a projector, along with MPEG video (Sigma XCard) and DivX, VCR, and live video.
Of course, I ran right out and bought a Radeon Dual Head with TV out...and you all know how much of a mistake that was; I didn't know it was one of the 'brain-damaged' sort of dual displays that just uses an extended resolution and not true, DirectX compliant, independent resolution dual head unless you use Win98 (and only sometimes, on the right day, with the narstiest ATI drivers you can find).
So..I dug around in my closet 'o rotting computer parts and found an old 8 meg PCI card. I installed it into the dual proc board, set it up with true dual monitor, and began to run into some issues.
First off, I wanted to set the PCI board as the primary monitor, that way any sort of un-registerd windows that pop up will show in that screen and not on the one running MD. As MD is so wonderfully (and I really mean that Ryan...its some code and a half) dependent upon your hardware and not your proc speed so much, I can run a lot of stuff on this computer live and never take a hit on the other screen. Throw in a couple hundred megs of RAM and dynamically load all of the presets into a RAM-disk....and the performance is stunning.
But...you knew it was coming....there was a catch with the ole' master plan. Seems that the possible resolutions for MD are read from the primary diplay card regardless of the capabilities of the second. Hell, this might just be a 'feature' of directx and not a bug in the sense that Ryan could do anything about it...but it was quite perturbing being limited to the resolutions that an 8 meg card could do. So...I changed the primary display to the ATI and could run at the larger resolutions without a problem. But having done so, I was free to get smacked in the head everytime an un-registered window came up...much page tearing would ensue until I got it off the screen. I still put the icons and start menu on the little screen, but when the program was running live and there were a copuple hundred people watching, I didn't just want to turn it off so I could grab the other screen from under it.
Trick...right-click on the icon in the taskbar and use the blind 'Move' to automagically grab the top of the window you want to move. That works *as long as the resolution on the other monitor didn't cause the top bar to go off screen* Windows is dumb and doesn't make sure that a new window is on a valid pixel reference when its in dual head mode.
Don't get me wrong, if you were very careful to open all of your windows beforehand, use Alt-Tab to window switch (the prgrammatic capture time between the onClick() and onRelease() causes a stutter in MD if you use the mouse...prolley winamp's thread model's fault), and *never* moved the VJ screen, you could put on a quite intense show with 3 or 4 video sources from a single, affordable, computer without so much as a stutter.
So I ran like this for several shows, and with the addition of an external video switcher it worked out very well, but the Primary monitor problem really caused some heartace. Really it wouldn't be much of a deal of windows was a sane operating system, but its not.
So..I toasted the BIOS in the board running a dicey performance upgrade and shelved the whole thing for a while. Ordered a new BIOS chip soon after, but the 8 meg card never wanted to work with the ATI ever again in that particular motherboard.
I never did like that ATI...drivers sucked and it lost its mind often.
So I got a Matrox 550 because this board is true to Dual-Proc for: its picky on hardware but fast as the dickens;it worked fine and I got true dual-head...MD is happy and I get all that I needed.
Except enough video RAM...32 total, 16 per screen, AAARRRGGGHHH. Runs very well and fast, but the mesh sizes take a hit.
So my options are:
1) get a new PCI card that will do all the resolutions I would like, but only to trick MD into doing them on the other card
2) get comfy with the primary monitor problem again
3) get a parhelia
4) quit trying to do so much stuff live with one PC :) (I don't like that one too much)
Right now everything runs great, I just don't have enough RAM on the card, and could put the Matrox back to single monitor if I didn't have to deal with the resolution problem it would cause when I put the PCI card back in. If people could use thier nice primary card and then pick up a $10 secondary and not have issues, I think MD will find itself a much larger live performance following.
But hey, thanks for the great software in either regard, Ryan; I program for a living and know how overblown a user can make a simple bug sound.
best regards
--Mike
Of course, I ran right out and bought a Radeon Dual Head with TV out...and you all know how much of a mistake that was; I didn't know it was one of the 'brain-damaged' sort of dual displays that just uses an extended resolution and not true, DirectX compliant, independent resolution dual head unless you use Win98 (and only sometimes, on the right day, with the narstiest ATI drivers you can find).
So..I dug around in my closet 'o rotting computer parts and found an old 8 meg PCI card. I installed it into the dual proc board, set it up with true dual monitor, and began to run into some issues.
First off, I wanted to set the PCI board as the primary monitor, that way any sort of un-registerd windows that pop up will show in that screen and not on the one running MD. As MD is so wonderfully (and I really mean that Ryan...its some code and a half) dependent upon your hardware and not your proc speed so much, I can run a lot of stuff on this computer live and never take a hit on the other screen. Throw in a couple hundred megs of RAM and dynamically load all of the presets into a RAM-disk....and the performance is stunning.
But...you knew it was coming....there was a catch with the ole' master plan. Seems that the possible resolutions for MD are read from the primary diplay card regardless of the capabilities of the second. Hell, this might just be a 'feature' of directx and not a bug in the sense that Ryan could do anything about it...but it was quite perturbing being limited to the resolutions that an 8 meg card could do. So...I changed the primary display to the ATI and could run at the larger resolutions without a problem. But having done so, I was free to get smacked in the head everytime an un-registered window came up...much page tearing would ensue until I got it off the screen. I still put the icons and start menu on the little screen, but when the program was running live and there were a copuple hundred people watching, I didn't just want to turn it off so I could grab the other screen from under it.
Trick...right-click on the icon in the taskbar and use the blind 'Move' to automagically grab the top of the window you want to move. That works *as long as the resolution on the other monitor didn't cause the top bar to go off screen* Windows is dumb and doesn't make sure that a new window is on a valid pixel reference when its in dual head mode.
Don't get me wrong, if you were very careful to open all of your windows beforehand, use Alt-Tab to window switch (the prgrammatic capture time between the onClick() and onRelease() causes a stutter in MD if you use the mouse...prolley winamp's thread model's fault), and *never* moved the VJ screen, you could put on a quite intense show with 3 or 4 video sources from a single, affordable, computer without so much as a stutter.
So I ran like this for several shows, and with the addition of an external video switcher it worked out very well, but the Primary monitor problem really caused some heartace. Really it wouldn't be much of a deal of windows was a sane operating system, but its not.
So..I toasted the BIOS in the board running a dicey performance upgrade and shelved the whole thing for a while. Ordered a new BIOS chip soon after, but the 8 meg card never wanted to work with the ATI ever again in that particular motherboard.
I never did like that ATI...drivers sucked and it lost its mind often.
So I got a Matrox 550 because this board is true to Dual-Proc for: its picky on hardware but fast as the dickens;it worked fine and I got true dual-head...MD is happy and I get all that I needed.
Except enough video RAM...32 total, 16 per screen, AAARRRGGGHHH. Runs very well and fast, but the mesh sizes take a hit.
So my options are:
1) get a new PCI card that will do all the resolutions I would like, but only to trick MD into doing them on the other card
2) get comfy with the primary monitor problem again
3) get a parhelia
4) quit trying to do so much stuff live with one PC :) (I don't like that one too much)
Right now everything runs great, I just don't have enough RAM on the card, and could put the Matrox back to single monitor if I didn't have to deal with the resolution problem it would cause when I put the PCI card back in. If people could use thier nice primary card and then pick up a $10 secondary and not have issues, I think MD will find itself a much larger live performance following.
But hey, thanks for the great software in either regard, Ryan; I program for a living and know how overblown a user can make a simple bug sound.
best regards
--Mike