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Holy Crap! Dual Monitor Mame!
Howard_Casto:
The recent updates to the ati catalyst drivers have lead to some interesting results. The catalyst driver display manager now has two new options when you enable a monitor. You can stretch the desktop across both monitors horizontally, or vertically. Don't confuse this with extending the desktop, that just enables two desktops that work independantly of each other. This makes applications think you have one really wide (or really tall) monitor. Enough with the blabbing, on to the point.
This is how you get true dual monitor support on any windows version of mame.
1. Fire up catalyst and in the displays manager either drag your inactive secondary monitor into an active box, or right click it. Select "Stretch Main Vertically onto Monitor" (or tv depending upon the device).
2. Open a command prompt and navigate to mame.
3. type :
mame.exe punchout -resolution 2048x768x16 -screen_aspect 4:6
Poof... full screen punchout with the top monitor on one of your displays and the bottom on the other! No hacks, no tricks no nothing.
Note the resolution above: that is the resolution found in the "desktop area" box in the displays manager after I stretch the displays. This MUST be entered manually as mame can't detect dual monitors very well.
Also note the aspect ratio. Normally it's 4:3 (width is 4 parts to height's 3) but since we just made one really tall monitor, we double the height. Again this MUST be entered manually or mame will get confused.
Before anyone asks NO this will not work by simply enabling a second monitor in windows display properties nor do I know of any way to get it working with any system that lacks the catalyst drivers.
Regardless, there you have it, dual screen mame!
(p.s. you can use the method to stretch non-dual screen games too)
DaemonCollector:
This is good to hear ATI got up to speed on this, ForceWare has had this option for years....Now will that work with an AVGA?
Howard_Casto:
Actually, unless you know something I don't forceware doesn't support this. Like I said extended desktop and a stretched desktop are two different things.
As for the avga, possibly, but there may be issues. Catalyst drivers only have partial control over non ati (or should I say non radeon) cards. Since the avga isn't dual head you'd have to either buy two pci avaga cards (expensive and hard to do at this point) or find a secondary pci card that the drivers can control enough to do the spanning. I have a rage 128 lying around, I may put one in to test it out.
Regardless, at this point the avga is almost a dead beast. Powerstrip has full control over more modern radeon cards and most if not all support arcade frequencies. Mind you it's not as easy to do as the avga but it is definately cheaper.
DaemonCollector:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=41788.msg381914#msg381914
Theres a referance to someone doing just what you did with NView, its not ForceWare perse...but still NVidia and included in ForceWare.
Curious to see how your test with the Rage card turns out
Howard_Casto:
Then somebdy really needs to post how to do it in current nvidia situations then.
I find it sad that this type of post was so buried. Something like that is a big deal and I would expect it to be a multiple page thread. I guess nobody but me really cares. :)
Anyway, I've found that the latest catalyst drivers use a exe to set settings called "CLI.exe" (gee i wonder what that stands for?) It should be possible to add support for front-ends/wrappers/whatever to set these special modes only when needed, since as discussed in the thread you linked me to, spanned mode is rather useless most of the time.
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