Virtual desktop 3000x1024, G400, is it possible?

[LevT]

Many times ago I have had a Miro SVGA card the drivers of that supported this feature on Win3.11. Now I hear rumours the nVidia drivers have some hidden tweaks enabling it.

But now I'm old G400 2D user and I'm fully satisfied with this card except that annoying lack. Some people say the earliest versions of PowerDesk supported virtual desktopping. The latest drivers support some similar too: that is the "Zoom" DeskNav feature.

But that I want is
-- the resolution really increasing not zooming and
-- the desktop width and height independent sizing
against the monitor capabilities.

Any suggestions?

[dZeus]

I think it might have been in the earliest few win9x drivers for the G400 (or was it the G200 ?).

They removed it because it somehow interfered with dualhead functionality or something.

[Kruzin]

Virtual desktop was removed in all powerdesk 5.xx and later version, because of Mico$oft WHQL standards.
I believe there are 3rd party softwares that can do this (maybe ultramon?)

[LevT]

Thanks. I know Triplus Winspace www.triplus.com can do it. But it works, surely, in user (not kernel) mode and uses system (not onboard) memory. In 2D realm that I'm interesting only this must lead to compatibility and performance loss.

Somewho from nVidia engeneering staff just promised me to reveal some tweaks needed for virtual desktopping with their drivers. May be, there are some similar tricks exist for Matrox hardware? I really prefer to stay with Matrox.

I use Windows XP.

[Kruzin]

Nope. That part of the code was removed completely.

[Ribbit]

What does WHQL have against virtual desktops? That just sounds daft.

[Kruzin]

I don't remember the exact explanaition, but as daft as it sounds, the feature was removed because of M$ certifications.

[Marshmallowman]

what about the MS virtual dektop powertoy?

[LevT]

Does it support fluent mouse scrolling over _one_ large-sized desktop?

[kevinkar]

Originally posted by Kruzin
I don't remember the exact explanaition, but as daft as it sounds, the feature was removed because of M$ certifications.

Sadly, this was a function lost years ago due to Microsoft stating that Matrox Virtual Desktop function conflicted with their support for multiple desktops in Windows 98.

The fact of the matter was that this was simply not true. I had several Matrox cards including Millenium I, II and G200 and not one of them interfered with multiple monitor support in Windows.

What made the whole thing worse was that Microsoft is the *OS* vendor and didn't need to add multiple monitor support at all since the *video card* vendors already had support for their own cards. Instead, they forced several video card vendors to remove support for anything that might "compete" with multi monitor support of which Matrox's Virtual Desktop was a victim.

So, at a time when monitors were several hundreds of dollars more expensive than they are today and the fact that most people don't have SPACE for a second monitor, the Virtual Desktop mode in our Matrox cards was *perfect*.

Unfortunately, Matrox dropped this and refused to put it back in even though their loyal customers begged them to give it back. So I moved to ATI cards and gave up the Virtual Desktop.

It really comes in handy to view large images I have scanned from negatives because it essentially ran in hardware and was very smooth and capable. Very simple. The only software that comes close is TriPlus WinSpace but it's software based and slower and not as smooth.

Sadly, the only way I can think of to keep this functionality is to install a regular AGP card for daily use and gaming and a PCI Matrox card (hooked up to the same monitor if it has dual inputs) so you can switch between them when you want to use Virtual Desktop.

I wish Matrox would give their customers what they want!

Kevin

P.S. The last driver that supported this on an MII was 4.26 and I am not sure they are even available in an archive.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman
what about the MS virtual dektop powertoy?

Nope, I use that, it's very limited. It only lets you have multiple desktops, no control, no panning, no resolution size.