Dual monitors

devo · Post by **devo** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 2:23 pm

Hi all. An hour ago I decided to try and get my dual monitor setup to work a little better. Now, I've given up for tonight and I thought I would air my problems here before crawling back to my bed - with my pride somewhat degraded since I didn't manage to solve it...this is probably going to be a long, boring and extremely complicated post so you might want to turn the radio on and get some coffee before continuing.

I've got a Matrox Parphelia card and there's a 20" TFT (1600x1200) and a 17" CRT (1280x1024) connected to it. My goal is to have SFP on the CRT and sequencer software (and others) on the TFT. I am running XPSP2.

My setup so far has been setting the TFT as primary and the CRT as secondary. I have SFP popping up nicely on the CRT. However, all popup windows (confirmations et al) pops up on the TFT (because it is the primary, I guess). This is really annoying.

So I tried to make the CRT primary instead. Now, lazy as I am, I didn't move the monitors physically so I configured my secondary screen to the left of my primary in the Display settings. This makes Windows assign negative coordinates to the secondary display and after half an hour or so, I realized that negative coordinates are not well handled by different applications. For example, Ableton Live didn't save its main window position if it was negative (you know, I must have open and closed Live like a thousand times with different settings before I realized this...).

Ok, so switching physical positions and making the secondary stay to the right of the primary with positive coordinates was a major improvement. However, it still seems many applications like to open popup windows in the primary (again, Live can be used as an example with its Options window making guest appearances on my SFP-dedicated monitor).

I've tried to toggle options in the Matrox utilities (Matrox Powerdesk or Multiview or whatever they are called) without seeing any real improvements on any applications (except maybe the one that causes some popups to get centered between the two monitors - probably useful in some cases but definitely not my cup of tea since I got some 10-15 cm between my monitors).

So, I guess one of the major issues there are windows coming from different applications that really like to stay in the primary.

Has anyone found out how to get on top of this behaviour? Are there maybe some useful utilities that can force windows to different monitors?

thanks for listening.

devo · Post by **devo** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 2:45 pm

Just found some info on matrox.com about deinstalling drivers and reinstalling new ones. I try this tomorrow and see if it improves the situation.

Post by **hubird** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 4:43 pm

I only know of Waves plugs that don't function well on one side(faders jumping to zero settings and the like).
Ati Radeon, mac.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:49 am

i am looking forward on getting a four screen card.... or more.
i need scopes mixer on the 1st.
sequencer on the 2nd.
and synths and rewired applications need the 3rd and 4rth..............

any sujestions?
i have agp mobo so i suppose you are going to start from advice about new motherboard, which i do not want since new pci-e ones are still in the beggining and i am afraid of stability incompatibilities with scope.

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:36 am

On 2006-01-21 04:49, ARCADIOS wrote:
i am looking forward on getting a four screen card.... or more.

Hem... Maybe you can ask to Michael Griffin; Don't you think you are a bit exaggerated?

Just kidding.

The price of that kind of boards is very high and in my opinion it's not justified for an audio/musical job. (expecially if you are an amateur

)
Passing from one monitor to 2 monitors you have a great advantage for a small price (I've just bought a G450 DH for 10 euros). Passing from 2 to 3 the advantage is smaller and the price greather (matrox parhelia new 3 head about 350$).
I don't know any 4 head boards, but I suppose they exist and they are more and more expensive.

I've heard about this:
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/products/dh2go/home.cfm
but I don't know if you can chain more than one of that to have mre than 2 monitors. I don't think it's possible, but in the other case this could be a way.

A suggestion I can tell you is to take a 2 monitor solution. On the first you put the seq. and on the second the scope software. Then to pass from the mixer to the effects, to the other scope related windows use the screensets. I've foud them very confortable and fast.

[ This Message was edited by: Lima on 2006-01-21 05:44 ]

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:19 pm

Most programs do open dialog boxes on the primary monitor, and some programs (older ones usually) don't work at all on the secondary monitor.

What I've done is have my programs run on my LCD screen -- I have the Scope Live Bar on the left side of the screen, and then I have Sonar (not maximzed) to the right of it. I have a big enough screen so it works OK. Then I run the Scope routing window and other plugins on the left (CRT) screen. It works great.

Sonar used to have major problems running on a second monitor, but I think they've fixed the bugs recently. Still, I prefer to keep it on the primary monitor. Scope, since version 3.1, has been fully dual-monitor compatible. However, as I said, dialog boxes will still open on the primary monitor. That's just the way it works, I'm afraid.

Shayne

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:23 am

On 2006-01-21 05:36, Lima wrote:
On 2006-01-21 04:49, ARCADIOS wrote:
i am looking forward on getting a four screen card.... or more.
Hem... Maybe you can ask to Michael Griffin; Don't you think you are a bit exaggerated?
Just kidding. ...

I've recently stood in front of an Apple 30" screen and thought it would make for a nice workspace (btw a good panel, some of their recent releases really s*ck)...
...regarding THAT price

cheers, Tom

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:57 am

lima. what did you say about my professional skill?

i already work with two monitors.
350$ for matrox phaelia(if your info is correct) is not that high considering my ax800pro that costed 480 euros.
i will give it a try with screensets(some more info please if possible).
the best tip i have tryied these days that makes it very easy to work without many moves and makes the need of an extra screen less, was this of andre: that you can load devices(synths) directly from the 2448 or 4896 mixers.

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:52 am

lima. what did you say about my professional skill?

Wow, offended? That wasn't my intetion! (have you noticed the "

"? ) My apologies.

i already work with two monitors.
350$ for matrox phaelia(if your info is correct) is not that high considering my ax800pro that costed 480 euros.

Yes it's correct; Search on froogle, but notice that you have "only" 3 monitors, you was asking for 4 or more monitors...

i will give it a try with screensets(some more info please if possible).

Yes: watch your scope bar (extend it if is minimized), at the bottom you can see the sceensets. The concept is simple: you freeze the windows and you can recall them via a simple shortcut. To do this simply close the padlock (clicking on its icon) when you have configured the screen. Then assign the shortcut clicking on the field immediately on the right of the screenset you have just made.
Then to recal it simply press the combination.
For example I've done screensets for the various pages of the sampler (one with a big sample editor etc..). In my mastering chain I've got several page for different effect groups and so on..
Be aware it's addictive

Hope it helps

[ This Message was edited by: Lima on 2006-01-22 10:56 ]

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:05 am

I've recently stood in front of an Apple 30" screen [...]...regarding THAT price

Hi Tom,
Heemm... yes, maybe 2500-3000$ for a monitor is a bit exaggerated

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:22 am

I would love to have a second scree, that must be truly confortable and speed things up a lot.

One of the first guys to start using it, as far as I remember, here in the Z, was Spirit. I think you could ask his personal experience Arcadios.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:35 pm

lima,

i was realy jocking

about screen sets, yes it makes it very fast working.

nestor, are you reffering to a 4 screen video card experience?
cause i already have two screens.

_________________
ELVIS LIVES

[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-01-22 12:41 ]

[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-01-22 12:42 ]

[ This Message was edited by: ARCADIOS on 2006-01-22 12:43 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:23 pm

Ups, no, I was refering to just two...

jea · Post by **jea** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:52 pm

Hi,

I have used 3 screens for a while, then reverting 2, then hoping to just go 1 (per machine).

I found that, the more screens, the more hassle.

I now use several machines (FXT), using each own screen.

That way, it seems to be a lot easier to manage windows popping here and there, and everywhere.

I thing the host could improve in setting a standard for maximum size of vst/vsti footprint on screen, like Tracktion.

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:05 pm

On 2006-01-22 12:35, ARCADIOS wrote:
lima,
i was realy jocking

And Nestor:
A two monitor solution can be very cheap if you don't want the last arrived GPU (useful mostly for videogameing).
I really paid 10 euro for an used matrox G450 Dual head last year and now I'm using my old crt monitor like second head.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:11 pm

Well, I already have an AGP with two outs, one digital and one analogue, but I need the second screen... there are many other priorities in life for the moment. But it is something that I would truly like to have.

devo · Post by **devo** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:04 pm

Thanks for the feedback, Shayne. The driver upgrade brought some new options, but nothing improved my situation. So I've reverted back to my initial setup which seems to be more or less the same that you are using.

There was a setting to force dialogs to popup at different positions, but this did not affect "special" dialog implementations as used by SFP and Ableton Live. It did work with more "vanilla-like" apps though.

At least I am not alone ;o)

On 2006-01-21 12:19, Shayne White wrote:

Still, I prefer to keep it on the primary monitor. Scope, since version 3.1, has been fully dual-monitor compatible. However, as I said, dialog boxes will still open on the primary monitor. That's just the way it works, I'm afraid.