Need to work on 2 screens

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Need to work on 2 screens

_33 (Posted 2008) [#1]

I am looking into using 2 screens for my application. 1 screen for broadcast, the second screen for an interface. I found this nice thread for selecting one of the 2 screens from the graphicsdriver standpoint. http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=21555 ; GfxDriver Examples ; Count how many drivers there are totalDrivers=CountGfxDrivers() Print "Choose a driver to use:" ; Go through them all and print their names (most people will have only 1) For t = 1 To totalDrivers Print t+") " + GfxDriverName$(t) Next ; Let the user choose one driver=Input("Enter Selection:") ; Set the driver! SetGfxDriver driver Print "Your driver has been selected!" ;GRAPHICS Example ; Set The Graphic Mode Graphics 800,600 ; Now print something on the graphic screen Text 0,0, "This is some text printed on the graphic screen (and a white box)! Press ESC ..." ; Now for a box Rect 100,100,200,200,1 While Not KeyHit(1) Wend Any help appreciated. EDIT: What I'll try is set the graphicsdriver whenever I want to address one of the two screens. Just wonder how that will turn out. I'll keep you guys posted on results.

_33 (Posted 2008) [#2]

totalDrivers=CountGfxDrivers() For t = 1 To totalDrivers Print t+" = " + GfxDriverName$(t) Next Print "" Print "press any key to continue" WaitKey() SetGfxDriver 2 Graphics 800,600 Text 0,0, GfxDriverName$(2) Rect 100,100,200,200,1 SetGfxDriver 3 Graphics 800,600 Text 0,0, GfxDriverName$(3) Rect 100,100,200,200,1 Text 0,20, " Press ESC to exit" While Not KeyHit(1) Wend I tried with this, but the first display gets reset when the second one gets initiated. It would of been so easy if I could just set the driver to 2 or 3 on demand and manage the two screens at will. I've consulted this thread also, but I can't seem to set the resolution to 1600x600. The two screens are working fine from the desktop with the windows and mouse travelling across them. http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=54435

_33 (Posted 2008) [#3]

Any help here really appreciated. «bump»

Dreamora (Posted 2008) [#4]

short: it will not happen DX7 has no multi screen hardware acceleration support You can have one 3D screen and one 2D screen at best but b3d only allows you to init one graphics window so you will not be able to achieve it.

_33 (Posted 2008) [#5]

I could do with 1 2D and one 3D screen, that would be fine actually. I absolutely need this feature to work. if I can't make it work on normal monitors, I'll have to use an small LCD pannel and interface with that as my second display. Any help much appreciated.

Dreamora (Posted 2008) [#6]

Well as mentioned, thats the "at best". But B3D won't allow you to have it, you can have one graphics window alive at a time. You can thought, if the purpose of the second screen is mainly for interface and the like, use Winblitz3d from Kev (here on the boards) to create the interface in its own Windows UI window that you then can move over.

Vertigo (Posted 2008) [#7]

Like dremora said.. Use Kev's libary. Create a runtime window in mode 0,3 and stretch it to encompass both screens. Fair bit of warning though.. Dont expect to use a single graphics cards displaying the same 3d window on two screens unless its like a geforce quadro fx or something... because one of the two display windows will choke on the 3d stuff and you get horrible frame rate... you can tell if your card will do this if when you use dual displays, your start menu stretches across both screens. Just my two cents with experience with multiple monitors and blitz.

_33 (Posted 2008) [#8]

The requirements that I have is for VJ work. What I do is I have a broadcast signal on the S-Video that is a duplicate of the MONITOR 1 output or the first HDMI. MONITOR 2 output would be used as my interface so I can tweak parameters and stuff like that (load presets). Currently my X800 series can handle dual monitor happily, 2D or 3D without lag, as it is using an almost 40 gig/sec bandwidth on 256MB GDDR3. There is no performance issues, but more a configuration issue with Blitz3D on 2 monitors. I'll consider the first option with having a Windows API window, will check that out some day when I am up to that task.

boomboom (Posted 2008) [#9]

Why don't you have 2 computers? One has a control panel console, the other is the broadcast one. Then link them together with some simple network messages?

Dreamora (Posted 2008) [#10]

There is no configuration issue with Blitz3D. DX7 does not support it, that simple it is. DualScreen and High Resolutions are a DX9 only feature. As you only need it to tweek stuff, WinBlitz3D should do the job (its commands are very similar to BlitzPlus) The alternative is a twin application approach -> 2 B3D applications that communicate with each other through tcp for example

Blitzplotter (Posted 2008) [#11]

@boomboom and Dreamora, now you have gone and given me an excuse to go diggin' out my B3D again. I'll add it to my list of to do projects, I'll be creating a top 10 before long!