Dual screen spring 98

[very_bad_soldier]

I use a dual screen setup and spring 98 seems to emulate fullscreen by using a borderless window frame, right?
So would it be possible to make spring span the window across both monitors to have a dual screen mode? I tried setting "XResolution" in settings but it doesnt seem to change anything at all?

[jK]

I use a dual screen setup and spring 98 seems to emulate fullscreen by using a borderless window frame, right?

It's an option, but it's default _off_.

So would it be possible to make spring span the window across both monitors to have a dual screen mode? I tried setting "XResolution" in settings but it doesnt seem to change anything at all?

Possible with http://springrts.com/wiki/Springsetting ... Borderless
But I assume you have problems with your configfiles ...

[very_bad_soldier]

Again I fiddled around with the settings and it is working now!

These are my settings now to span a borderless window across both screens:

Code: Select all

AdvSky = 1
DepthBufferBits = 24
FSAA = 1
FSAALevel = 1
Fullscreen = 0
GrassDetail = 3
GroundDetail = 93
GuiOpacity = 1
InputTextGeo = 0.26 0.73 0.02 0.028
LastSelectedMap = Tabula-v4
LastSelectedMod = Balanced Annihilation V8.02
LastSelectedScript = Player Only: Testing Sandbox
LastSelectedSetting = Shadows
MaxNanoParticles = 8807
MaxParticles = 2936
MinimapOnLeft = 0
SM3ForceFallbackTex = 0
ScreenshotCounter = 4
ShowPlayerInfo = 0
SmoothLines = 0
SmoothPoints = 0
TreeRadius = 1555
UnitLodDist = 200
VerboseLevel = 0
WindowPosX = 0
WindowPosY = 0
WindowState = 0
XResolution = 3840
YResolution = 1200
WindowBorderless = 1
DualScreenMode = 1
snd_general = 0
snd_volmaster = 10

Big thanks devs!! I have been wanting dual screen mode since ages for spring!!

But, one problem exists: DualScreenMode is not working properly for me. I think it is supposed to render the game to one half of the window and the minimap in the other half. But for me the minimap-half is completely empty:


Any ideas?

[Jools]

Can't you just drag minimap to the other screen?

[very_bad_soldier]

I can but it has several issues like everything that is rendered in the center of the screen is split in a half to the other screen and is then not readable due to the minimap overlay. Loadscreens look ugly. All GUI elements that are snapped to the right screen border need to be manually placed to the screen center. The mouse cursor can be moved to the other screen which also makes screen border scrolling impossible etc. etc.

[knorke]

Just for note, it was like that in 96.0 already.
(one could always resize a spring-window across multiple screens, except previously not borderless)

Many engine GUI elements are misplaced/broken. For example share-menu (key: H) is always middle of window, so with two screens it is inbetween the screen frames.
Engine resource bars become very long, across both screens. Widgets have similiar problems. Interesstingly with third screen it becomes a bit less broken because now the center is not inbetween screens anymore...

Some stranger things can happen, like engine buildmenu sometimes becoming supersized:
http://abload.de/img/screen00673qouz3.png
(not sure how, combination of trying settings and resizing window)

But, one problem exists: DualScreenMode is not working properly for me. I think it is supposed to render the game to one half of the window and the minimap in the other half. But for me the minimap-half is completely empty:

That can happen in 96.0 too. The "invisible" minimap on other screen works for giving orders. It can also be the other way around: invisible game-screen but visible minimap.
And sometimes it can randomly switch between the two if you resize the window edges a few pixels.
Or this screenshot which is maybe interessting:
http://abload.de/img/screen006725yyr7.png (96.0)
Minimap and "game-window stuff" (engine resource bars, tooltip, timer) are on the same screen which I think is never supposed to happen?

The mouse cursor can be moved to the other screen which also makes screen border scrolling impossible etc. etc.

dilemma: if mouse cursor would be restricted to one screen then one could scroll but could not use the minimap.

[very_bad_soldier]

So dual screen mode is just broken? Too bad, still no usable dual screen mode

dilemma: if mouse cursor would be restricted to one screen then one could scroll but could not use the minimap.

For me personally it would be okay if you just could not move over to the minimap because I rarely use it for giving commands.
Other ideas how to solve it:
-make minimap screen only reachable on the upper or lower screen border. Moving mouse to the center screen border would still trigger the usual scrolling.
-have a little "resistance" on the border. When moving the mouse normally against the border it will start scroll. If you move it further or faster against the border the mouse will switch over to the minimap screen.

[knorke]

It can work: http://h11.abload.de/img/screen00001uwksc.png and played like that for a bit.
from http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... en#p522030 ,hm you posted there too
And some bugs that made it annoying/broken got fixed for example http://springrts.com/mantis/view.php?id=3092
But never could figure out why it sometimes works or does not...
Sometimes it seems matter of randomly resizing window a bit and with bit of luck it works..

Your idea with the mouse might work, with Spring.WarpMouse it could be Lua'ed even.

Bit offtopic on dual screen in general:
Biggest advantage of multi-screen (in other games) is imo the increased peripheral vision, like when looking out of a car or plane cockpit or in FPS. In RTS the focus is usually in center anyway or "around the mouse pointer" and so it just felt less useful.
At first it is quite cool to have much wider view of the battlefield, but even when GUI etc works, it seems multi-screen for RTS is not that useful, the image is just too wide to play comfortable.

Also spring misses a way to compensate for the physical screen frames. (guess some gfx drivers can still do it)
Interesstingly in spring that is not that much of a problem: Usually units or other objects are viewed very small on screen, so rarely do they bridge across screens.
But sometimes it looks really strange if a river does not align or when units suddendly "jump over" to the other monitor, like when scrolling over a base or watching patrolling aircraft.

So the better mode is imo to have a large minimap on its own screen, but that brings the mentioned scroll-dilemma.
Also it feels strange somehow: The minimap is now so large that one has to move the mouse much more when clicking around. That was (or at least felt) SO much slower that I could not get used to it.
Think dual screen in RTS needs some real concept, for example it might be so much nicer if other GUI stuff could be on the non-3D screen too. (playerlist, chat etc) But not sure if Lua can draw anywhere on the minimap-screen or if it might be somehow limited to actual minimap dimensions.

[Jools]

Maybe this is not valid when you have the minimap enlargened to a whole screen, but in general the problem with the minimap is not that there isn't enough stuff there, but instead that there is too much of it. The whole point with a minimap is that you separate what is drawn in game window and in minimap. The moment you start confusing the minimap with the real map you lose the point of having a minimap in the first place.

[qray]

Think dual screen in RTS needs some real concept, for example it might be so much nicer if other GUI stuff could be on the non-3D screen too. (playerlist, chat etc) But not sure if Lua can draw anywhere on the minimap-screen or if it might be somehow limited to actual minimap dimensions.[/size]

I agree. I played around with this: just making one big screen over two monitors and then move minimap and much of the other info stuff to the second one (using IceUI which is easily configurable, this was quickly done).

In principle this was very nice and I had more usable space on the main screen. But the problem was that the camera center is then in the middle at the border between the two screens (or at least close to, if screens don't have same resolutions). And this was not really playable.
If there was a setting to move the camera center away from the middle to the center of the main monitor, this might be a nice option.