Win2000 and DualHead

[RoGuE]

OpenGL games and DualHead are not compatible, on Windows 98 or 2000. This is not a bug, it is a well known limitation. As you have found out, only by using TurboGL can you leave DualHead enabled and play OGL based games.

[FaRaN]

Thank you for the reply. That is bad news. Now the remaining question. Are the DH-features going to be better or the same in Win2K?

[FaRaN]

Win2000 and DualHead

I saw this mentioned on another post earlier, but I want this to be clear before I completely switch to Win2K (dualboot at the moment), and I hope some of you can answer my questions about this.

Will Win2K support DH with the same features as Win98 does? (different refreshrates, resolutions, etc) and not this crappy stretch the desktop over 2 monitors, and have all popupmessages appear in the middle of those 2 monitors.

And when I try to play OpenGl games with Win2K, I have to have DH disabled. Will this be fixed too? Or is this a fault at my side?

Not win2k related but important:
I can only play with DH on if I use the TurboGL drivers. If I remove the TurboGL .dll, the game (half-Life) asks for an OpenGl card/driver. Just as when TurboGl didn't excist.

------------------
PIII-500, 128 MB, G400 MAX DH on, ABIT BH6, MX300
Win98SE drivers: 5.50.01
Win2K drivers: beta 5.01

[Haig]

Win2k will treat the graphic cards on a device basis. Meaning you can have "X" amount of vga outputs on 1 card but win2k will only see one card. Therefore, you will get a virtual desktop. You can put in 2 vga cards and get your true dual head with different resolutions. Right now, I have a G400 DH running at 2048x768 and a G200 PCI running at 1280x1024 with no problems. Rumour has it that SP1 of win2k MAY address this problem.

Haig

[Chucky Cheese]

FaRaN

as of this time as far as i know, the features of the dual-head are not the same in both oss'.

for example: my system has a 21" monitor on the primary and a 15" flat panel screen on the secondary...i win98 i like to have my 21" at 1280x1024,16 bit and my secondary at 1024x768, 16 bit.......however in win2k i wined up with 2048x768, 16 bit,,thats across both monitors!...its' useable but you spend a lot time sizing your windows...i don't like it.

anyways it's a microsoft problem, not a matrox problem. i heard that that will be fixed in sp1 sometime in june.

chucky

[jms]

That's too bad. So this means that I will have to buy a Relmagic H+ to enjoy my DVD movies on my TV? Does anybody know if the H+ is capable of outputting PAL50?
Jan

[PaulS]

Haig,

Why isn't it possible to have a second "dummy" driver loaded so that W2k thinks it is dealing with 2 cards?

Paul

[This message has been edited by PaulS (edited 23 February 2000).]

[RoGuE]

I's using 2560 x 1024 under NT4 and like it very much I actually prefer the display spread accross both displays.

[wkulecz]

Haig,

Will the G200 driver do 24 or 32 bit color at 1600x1200 as a secondary card? If so, does it need 8 or 16MB of RAM?

I'm not sure I understand the distinction people are making about dual head vs. two displays under wW2K other that having two cards for the monitors.

I have an Xpert98 as primary at 1152x864 and a TNT2 as secondary at 1600x1200 (quality sucks! which is why I'm looking for something else) and it seems to be a "single desktop" where when a window pops up "centered" it is in the "middle" of the two displays. This is very differnet from win98 where a centered window poped up centered on the primary. This W2K behaviour is like what I saw with a pair of Millinieums on NT4 and why I didn't buy a pair back then.

It's hard to decide which is the "proper" thing to do, but win98's approach seems to me to work better for applications that are not multimonitor aware as long as you position the monitors so you don't have negative coordinates on the secondary. It'd be nice to have a choice, and to know what are the buzz words to look for so as to know what stuff will work in which mode. Although it looks like it might be moot under W2K's driver model if my choice of two video cards is typical of how its supposed to work.

--wally.

[Haig]

Hi Wally,

You'll be fine with a 16m card for 1600x1200.

"I'm not sure I understand the distinction people are making about dual head vs. two displays under wW2K other that having two cards for the monitors."

Dualhead is what our G400 cards have - 2 vga outs on one card. Multi monitor is having 2 monitors connected to your PC. It makes no difference whether you use 2 graphic cards or a graphic card with dualhead.

"This W2K behaviour is like what I saw with a pair of Millinieums on NT4 and why I didn't buy a pair back then."

In our display properties, we have a check box called "center pop up...". When enabled, all pop up boxes will come up on the primary display.

PaulS - I'm sure it's possible but I think WHQL has something to do with this. Not 100% sure.

Haig