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Bladefist 2005-03-12 03:24
Ok, my primary monitor is an AGP card, and my 2nd and 3rd are Appians Gemini card. Now this card is making me mad. The card doesnt give you two seperate monitors, it gives you one big one. So on my monitor setup screen, I have my regular monitor, then a second monitor that is the size of two screens. I hate that, but whatever. I need a way to break those screens into half. because otherwise, ultramon makes all my programs huge and span across two monitors. any ideas?
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Tantalus 2005-03-12 15:27
you're not running w2k by chance are you?
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Bladefist 2005-03-12 16:43
I for sure am, why?
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Tantalus 2005-03-13 08:58
and therein lies the problem.
as much as i like win2000 (it remains my preferred windows OS for the desktop), the way MS chose to implement multiple displays under win2000 had a design flaw (which was later corrected w/XP).
some cards that have dual output may not be recognized by the OS properly...the end result is windows sees a single display which spans across the both.
you will need to search appian's site to see if they have a customized install/drivers for win2000 (which skirts the OS design flaw). if that fails and if the card's chipset is a generic OEM, then look for a compatible driver another vendor.
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ECarlson 2005-03-16 11:55
Or, make sure you have SP4 installed for Windows 2000. The bug was fixed in either SP2 or SP3, but there's no reason not to use SP4. There also might be a registry setting to change after installing the SP - I've seen it mentioned in this forum before, but I've never had a problem, because I always install the SP before I install the video driver when I install Win2K. I even made a slipstreamed Win2K install CD with SP4 already integrated, so I don't even have to worry about installing it after installing the OS.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Tantalus 2005-03-16 14:12
actually, the multiple display flaw that i'm talking about is not correctable in any MS service pack.
it is a fundamental problem with the OS code in relation to certain dual display chipsets...without special driver code written to correct it, when running w2k, all it sees a single spanned desktop across both displays. if this gentlemen is having this same problem, i'm sure installing sp4 isn't going to fix it. in fact, i would say there's a better than even chance he's already go sp4 installed.
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ECarlson 2005-03-17 03:13
Just want to make sure. As far as I know, most dual-out compatible ATI based, NVidia based, and Matrox cards will work correctly in Windows 2000/SP4.
Do you have some more specific information on this bug, and which cards/chipsets it is known to affect?
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Tantalus 2005-03-17 03:56
i first came across this w2k problem in a discussion with some Matrox tech support people several years ago. the exact details are lost in memory, and some of it was even a little over my head, but Christian Studer also touches upon in here: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp#MultimonModes
--- quoted below ------------------------
Dualhead cards and true multi-monitor support on Windows 2000
Due to a limitation in Windows 2000, dualhead cards that use a single chipset to drive both monitors require special workarounds in the driver to be properly recognized by the system. If these workarounds are not implemented, Windows 2000 sees a single large monitor instead of two.
This causes the following problems:
using different resolutions for each monitor is not possible
windows are maximized to the desktop instead of the monitor they are on, and dialog boxes appear centered on the desktop, split across monitors. Software included with the card may be used to work around these problems though
taskbar is extended across both monitors instead of only a single one
multi-monitor software will not work properly
All major video card/chipset manufacturers do now have Windows 2000 drivers with full multi-monitor support.
Appian added support for their Hurricane cards, most likely also for other RADEON VE-based cards.
ATI has added support for the RADEON 9xxx cards, but not for earlier cards. See this forum thread for more information.
Matrox has supported this for a long time, when installing the drivers, make sure to enable support for independent displays.
Nvidia added support in the 28.32 drivers, see this forum thread for more information.
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ECarlson 2005-03-17 16:27
That's the exact bug I'm talking about that was fixed with a Windows SP. Sure, you need properly working drivers, but you also need the Windows SP.
I know from experience that NVidia and Matrox cards work properly in Win2K/SP4, but I haven't tried ATI based cards, so perhaps some older ATI based cards still don't work properly, as the article suggests, though the ATI drivers for older cards might have been fixed since that time.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Tantalus 2005-03-18 09:55
i am of the opinion that the SP's don't fix it but rather they merely updated the bundled native drivers. this would give the appearance that the problem is fixed but once you use a chipset that does not have bundled MS support, will show the same problem unless you can find a proper windows 2000 drive from the vendor.
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ECarlson 2005-03-19 13:48
Interesting idea. To attempt to prove it, one could try running the good drivers on an unpatched Win2K, and it should work fine if the SP only included updated drivers, and not a patch for dual independent monitors problem. But it could instead prove that the drivers have a work-around to bypass a bug that was later fixed by an OS patch.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Tantalus 2005-03-19 14:32
an even easier way would be if the gentlement who posted the original problem to confirm if he's running sp4 and if he could re-apply the SP again. if your theory is correct, then it should fix his problem automatically.
hopefully, he'll check back in let us know...
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