Sage full screen on 2nd monitor, extended desktop

[korben_dallas]

Hi all,

I am trying to get Sage to run full screen on the TV in an extended desktop setup. I have a flat panel lcd and an sdtv. The lcd is monitor #1 and tv is monitor #2. But when I make Sage full screen, no matter which monitor the UI is running it will full screen to #1.

Now, I can make the TV #1 and the LCD #2, and run Sage full screen on the tv just fine, but then I can't get to my start menu and desktop icons on the LCD, which defeats the purpose of me trying to use my PC as normal while Sage runs on the TV.

I have a Radeon 9800 Pro with Cats 4.12. The TV is running on the svideo out. Any ideas?

[stanger89]

What happens if you drag Sage on to #2 and make it fullscreen (I think this is what you are trying).

[Wheemer]

You should be able to drag the start menu and desktop icons back to the lcd and setup your driver to reposition windows properly... I think directx requires primary monitor.

[korben_dallas]

Good news or bad news first?

Good news - I got it to work. Pretty neat, Armageddon playing on the tv while I'm browsing the web on the LCD.

Bad news - Is absolutely lousy in Sage. The frame rate in Sage looks like 10fps or less, and CPU goes to 100%. Works great in WMP. I can drag WMP in windowed mode back and forth between the 2 displays, no problem, and full screen either with cpu <10%. I tried various renderers and decoders, but the problem is Sage.

Oh well, I guess if it ever comes up I'll just use WMP.

[stanger89]

Try picking a different renderer, some (namely VMR9 and Overlay) don't like running on the secondary display some times. If you set Sage to "Default" for video renderer it should run just like WMP.

[Opus4]

And, did you set the TV to be the primary monitor when you did your recent tests? As was mentioned above, you can drag the icons/taskbar back to teh LCD monitor.

- Andy

[dvd_maniac]

Hey Korben,

I had the same problem as you.

My solution was to not use extended desktop. Use Clone mode instead.
Then under the advanced setting of the video card(monitor #1) goto overlay and check theatre mode for 2nd monitor. Full screen.

Now when you open up a video it will use the TV (2nd Monitor I assume) and open the video full screen. You can then use the LCD as normal. Even minimize the video player.

The only problem I have had with this is if you use a second video application, like recode with preview enabled. If you encode video on this tv you will see what I mean. Not a biggie though.

[korben_dallas]

Hey ya DVD,

I'm watching Futurama on the TV while typing this message

Man, I had to go through some hurdles to get this to work. It only works with Overlay in Sage or WMP.

But the picture looks great. And CPU is only 7-10%. The NVIDIA icon is running and I can access the properties.

Now, what is the difference between VMR9 and Overlay? Seems like I settled on VMR9 because the NVIDIA decoder was the first one where I could use VMR9 in Sage..

[korben_dallas]

Ho hum,

I spoke too soon. The picture looks great but the Streamzap remote doesn't work right.

Well, at least I have a few options for this, albeit limited.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

Now, what is the difference between VMR9 and Overlay?

I'll take a stab, if for no other reason than to force someone else to describe it better because I did such a poor job!

VMR9 uses DirectX and the video card's 3D acceleration hardware to play the image on a 3D surface (just the name of the type of image buffer, not that the image will be presented in 3D) and have DirectX do whatever scaling, etc., is to be done to the image as it is displayed. The VMR9 image is actually part of what is displayed on the screen -- if you do a screen capture, you will also grab the video.

For Overlay, the video is decoded to some part of the video card's memory set to be used as an overlay, where the video card then takes the overlay image at whatever size it is & then scales it and displays it "overlaid" onto the rest of the image to be displayed on the monitor. I believe the decoder simply decodes w/o any scaling, which is then done by the card. The overlay is separate from the 'normal' image that is displayed on the screen -- if you do a screen capture, you will get all the Windows, desktop, etc., but the video overlay will not be in the captured image.

- Andy

[dvd_maniac]

Alright I am confused now???

I have a Radeon 9800 Pro with Cats 4.12. The TV is running on the svideo out. Any ideas?

This is in your first post...Which tells me ATI card running Catalyst driver suite

The NVIDIA icon is running and I can access the properties.

This is in a post after that...Telling me your running NVidia card???

Did you try the suggestion I gave earlier in this thread, If you are indeed running ATI?

[korben_dallas]

Haha,

Indeed both statements might appear contradictory. I am running the 9800 Pro w/ Cats 4.12, but I'm using the Nvidia DVD/MPEG2 decoder (under 30 day trial, at the moment).

I didn't even know what Theater Mode was for until I followed your directions. I can see how this would be useful, especially when making presentations. Unfortunately, without the remote functionality, it doesn't really suit my fancy. No big deal. I learned a few things in the process

[dvd_maniac]

What remote problems are you having in Theatre mode? I use the Hauppauge remote on one machine in theatre mode and ATI's remote wonder on the other. Neither machine gives me any remote problems using theatre mode.