How to run in 2 monitors

BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/How to run in 2 monitors

Boiled Sweets(Posted 2006) [#1]
Hi,

a potential customer is asking if it's possible to run in 2 monitors at the same time. This guy has a 2 monitor setup and my BlitzMax app runs in just one of the monitors.

Is this something MAX can do or should I ask BRL for support for this...


Dreamora(Posted 2006) [#2]
That something you did ;-)

If you set Windowwidth = gadgetwidth(desktop()) and the same for height, it would span :-)

Maximize, if I'm not wrong, only spawns across if the desktop setup is made that way that the desktop itself is spaning across which is normally not done (to prevent problems with games and the like due to the 2x width but only 1x height setup)


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2006) [#3]
AH! I'll give that a go - many thanks.


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2006) [#4]
This doesn't seem to work. I used...

screenWidth = GadgetWidth(Desktop()) 
screenHeight = GadgetHeight(Desktop()) 

screenDepth = GetDeviceCaps(hDC, BITSPIXEL)

If screenDepth < 16
   screenDepth = GetDeviceCaps(hDC, PLANES)
   If screenDepth < 16 Then Return
EndIf 

screenHertz = GetDeviceCaps(hDC, VREFRESH)
If screenHertz < 60 Then screenHertz = -1

Graphics screenWidth, screenHeight, screenDepth, screenHertz


Now the 2 people that were testing this on their multiple monitor setups now say NOTHING appears whereas before using this to get the desktop size it ran in at least one of the monitors

      screenWidth = GetDeviceCaps(hDC, HORZRES)
      screenHeight = GetDeviceCaps(hDC, VERTRES)


Does anyone know how to run BlitzMax to run in both monitors?


Dreamora(Posted 2006) [#5]
That indeed is strange ...
Perhaps they simply have 2 different desktops running and not multi desktop or something like that?

*I know for sure that the trick with gadgewidth(desktop()) works as it happened without beeing meant this way on an app of mine*


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2006) [#6]
I have now created a test app to display what the width and height is - lets see what they report back...


xlsior(Posted 2006) [#7]
Just one heads up if you have never done anything with dual screen:

Most video cards only use 3D acceleration for a single screen, so if you use the graphics modules, expect a massive drop in framerates if you display on both screens at the same time -- the bottleneck being the software rendering on the 2nd screen.

(Even when running in windowed mode, if you drag the window to the side so part of it shows on the 2nd screen, FPS goed down the toilet. Video hardware limitation, though.)


skidracer(Posted 2006) [#8]
BlitzMax does not support multimonitor spanning for fullscreen. Either try using a MaxGui canvas on a borderless window sized to desktopwidth and height or post a request for multimonitor support in fullscreen.

If it's a dual head nvidia the user can also switch to a spanned display where XP will treat both monitors as 1 big one, displayproperties->settings->advanced I think...


Dreamora(Posted 2006) [#9]
Oh ... thought we were talking of an app (ie basing on MaxGUI) ...

skid: the same works with ATI Hydravision I think (but won't work without it)


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2006) [#10]
I'm using Graphics mode - in fact I'm using the screen saver framework in the code archives...