Multiple monitors has been mentioned a few times acording to my searches and it is now still early in game development, but it can't hurt to have a thread on it.
I personally want the option of a 'command' screen. It would have the mini-map (maybe not so mini), statistics, resources producing, consuming, who your allies and enemies are, numbers of each unit (or type), maybe production of different factories and the ability to adjust them.
I think the nvidia drivers for dual screen are limited to 3D acceleration on a single monitor (on the GF4MX).
multiple monitors, early ideas
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Re: multiple monitors, early ideas
Lets just put it this way:
The game is very far into its development. Implimenting what you want now would be like switching the game from an RTS to an FPS after you coded the rendering engine. You just don't do that...
Not to sound mean or anything. I am just being realistic. It would have been easier a year ago when the engine was still being coded.
At some point it could be implimented, but know that the SY's won't be coding it (ie, you or someone else will end up coding it). Coding for multiple monitors is really hard. Not even most commercial games support dual monitors just for the fact that most people won't even be able to use it!
The game is very far into its development. Implimenting what you want now would be like switching the game from an RTS to an FPS after you coded the rendering engine. You just don't do that...
Not to sound mean or anything. I am just being realistic. It would have been easier a year ago when the engine was still being coded.
At some point it could be implimented, but know that the SY's won't be coding it (ie, you or someone else will end up coding it). Coding for multiple monitors is really hard. Not even most commercial games support dual monitors just for the fact that most people won't even be able to use it!
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smokingwreckage
- Posts: 327
- Joined: 09 Apr 2005, 11:40
Spring can be placed into 2 monitor mode where the screen stretches over the 2 as if they where one if you have a nvidia card, usually the second monitor is a TV of sorts.
Did you knwo you can move th eminimap? Resize it so it takes up 3/4's of the screen then resize it small again using the top left hand handle and it'll have the same effect, just use that to mvoe it to cover the second screen.
Statistics and that? Fix the NewGUI, that'll give you what you want.
Did you knwo you can move th eminimap? Resize it so it takes up 3/4's of the screen then resize it small again using the top left hand handle and it'll have the same effect, just use that to mvoe it to cover the second screen.
Statistics and that? Fix the NewGUI, that'll give you what you want.
The problem is your grapgic carte will have to render a 2048*768 windows game, instead of one 1024*768 for the game and one for "2d" graphics.Alantai Firestar wrote:Spring can be placed into 2 monitor mode where the screen stretches over the 2 as if they where one if you have a nvidia card, usually the second monitor is a TV of sorts.
Did you knwo you can move th eminimap? Resize it so it takes up 3/4's of the screen then resize it small again using the top left hand handle and it'll have the same effect, just use that to mvoe it to cover the second screen.
Statistics and that? Fix the NewGUI, that'll give you what you want.
But, as Ace07 said, it is overcomplex to implement it.
Graphics cards only render what can be seen on the final image. Otherwise graphics cards would only be able to generate the graphics of 3 years ago or further back using current day technology.
Eitherway an alternative solution would be to have spring on one screen and the desktop on the other and run a groupAI that displayed the stats wanted in a seperate window or sent them to another program on the other screen.
Eitherway an alternative solution would be to have spring on one screen and the desktop on the other and run a groupAI that displayed the stats wanted in a seperate window or sent them to another program on the other screen.
I'm not complaining.Lets just put it this way:
The game is very far into its development.
Ok, would it be difficult for text based console of sorts on another monitor (thus using no graphics and not affecting the rendering engine)? Many people in linux have used text based consoles for quite a lot. The text editor 'vi' and the 'bash' shell are examples of the power of pure text. I could see something like this being used by the hardcore players.
The only reason for me in OTA not to use multi monitor was the fact that the build menu was very far away when you were doing something on the right screen, which made you slower. Since spring can move the interface around, I don't see any problem with that anymore, so no reason not to use multimonitor. It would be nice to have 2 cameras or something that will allow you to see two places on the map at the same time. For instance in a 2v2 it would be nice to have an overview of what your ally is doing, so you can spot enemies coming sooner. Maybe a viewport option for non multi monitor could be used, so you can divide the screen into or add windows to the view to see multiple things at the same time.
Havign 2 cameras brigns up problems such as how do you control multiple view points, and the 2 cameras means 2x as much system resources, which is much mroe than a single camera viewpoint stretched to cover 2 screens.
Although a picture in picture mode for that sort of thignw ould be useful, me and aGorm championed it a while back btu ti never really got anywhere save a request.
Although a picture in picture mode for that sort of thignw ould be useful, me and aGorm championed it a while back btu ti never really got anywhere save a request.
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el_muchacho
- Posts: 201
- Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:06
What is complex is making everything work seamlessly on both screeens (like moving the minimap on all screens, etc). But if we limit the dual screen to simply expanding the viewport to 2 screens, I don't want to speak for the SYs, but I believe it's not that difficult.Torrasque wrote:Alantai Firestar wrote:
The problem is your grapgic carte will have to render a 2048*768 windows game, instead of one 1024*768 for the game and one for "2d" graphics.
But, as Ace07 said, it is overcomplex to implement it.
I've thought about it some as well, and of course it's nice to be able to have a seperate "stat" or "command" window with whatever tactical information you need, and jsut spit it out...
Compared to recoding the entire engine, it would be relatively far more simple to finish the newGUI code so that have the screen on the left or right only spits out tactical information, allied information, text mesages, etc, but the problem with that woudl eb if it wuodl be possible to seperate the terrain rendering from any other GUI elements at all. If you look at the current GUI, you can see that everything is superimposed on the terrain, with appropriate transparency.
If it woudl be possible to completely *not* render the terrain for a certain width of the screen, then you could make the spring engine render half the screen as terrain and ther other half as tactical info, but that first problem needs to be overcome (that of not rendering terrain at all for a bit).
Compared to recoding the entire engine, it would be relatively far more simple to finish the newGUI code so that have the screen on the left or right only spits out tactical information, allied information, text mesages, etc, but the problem with that woudl eb if it wuodl be possible to seperate the terrain rendering from any other GUI elements at all. If you look at the current GUI, you can see that everything is superimposed on the terrain, with appropriate transparency.
If it woudl be possible to completely *not* render the terrain for a certain width of the screen, then you could make the spring engine render half the screen as terrain and ther other half as tactical info, but that first problem needs to be overcome (that of not rendering terrain at all for a bit).