Dual Monitors and DAoC?

[galdora]

Anyone use 2 montors on one PC and run the game twice. How do you get on with it? How do you get each game to run on the right monitor? How to you switch the kb/mouse between them?

Going to try it tonight, just wanted to hear some experiences.

 

[Alrindel]

I have read that DAoC doesn't appreciate at all being run on dual head machines (PCs with two graphics cards and two monitors) for the same reason that it wants to run in full-screen mode and crashes if another application gets the focus. Without having tried it myself, I'm guessing that you would need some sort of third-party "windowing" program that lets you run multiple instances of the DAoC client in windowed mode rather than full screen... and the use of those programs is officially against the rules, and is not recommended.

 

[Gimly]

Totally unrelated but thought i would post anyway how you been not seen you on Alb/Pryd for some time. Did try to contact you when I started on Mid/Excal but you were never online same time as me

You still ok to stay on the mailing list?

 

[Tiwaz]

Good luck Galdora.

I think I can promise you, you won't get it to work

DAoC closes as soon as it 'looses focus' as it's called in Windows terms, so even if you was able to start 2 instances of the game, the one without focus, would close within seconds.

The only way I can see this working is to use a crack as DAoX, and that is not to Mythic/GOA's liking
And it properbly won't work anyway...

So if you really need a buffbot, you need a second computer as well...

Hmm, guess I should have read Alrindel reply before writing one myself. He said it all allready

 

[the_smurflord]

I've got two monitors (on two machines atm), and a GeForce4 Ti4200 capable of supporting two monitors. I'll give it a go tonight and see what happens. I'll post what I find on here tomorrow.

 

[SFXman]

On the contrary to what people say about the focus... well you can run DAoC in windowed mode WITHOUT any third-party programs and you may move the cursor outside the playing area without it crashing... just don't click on anything because then the proram is covered by another.
It could be possible to run two DAoC on the two monitors, both being in windowed mode WITHOUT any third-party program. Since when you click on another the other is still not covered by anything... give it a go mate.
Not sure if it still makes the game go out of focus.

 

[Generic Poster]

I can only see this working with a 'windowing' app, like DAOX. But soo many people use it, I doubt you'll get your account banned any time soon


The only 'legal' way I can think of is, and this only requires:
1x Monitor, keyboard, mouse.
2x PC 'box'

Your monitor/keyboard/mouse plug into a 'switch' box, the 'switch' box can connect to both PCs. With everything set, your playing the game and want to switch between 'PCs', so you double-tap Scroll Lock, and you Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse switch to control the second PC.

I used to use this setup at work, to use three PCs. There's only a 1 second delay when you switch between PCs, which makes it possible to play with 2x chars at once. Even three would be possible, but one would have to act as pure buffbot. Perhaps use a Tank and Nuker for other two.


The 'best' way I would want to run two accounts, is having two TFT monitors, side by side. And being able to swing my cursor to the screen I want to control.


But the simplest way to run two accounts, on one PC, is to use a windowing program. You run both sessions in windowed mode, and switch between sessions with simple mouse-clicks.

 

[old.job]

Is it possible that one day there will be just 1 person left playing DAOC, but playing every character himself.

Like some crazy old nutter with a battlefield in his frontroom, covered in lead soldiers, making boom noises as he fires off a toy cannon and uses his hand to knock down the opposing armys troops.

Right then, how many pc's can I have on this router?

 

[Addlcove]

some years ago a test model of a "2 pc's in one" card was available in Denmark, it allowed you to connect 2 monitors 2 keyboards 2 mouses and so on to one CPU sharing the computer into two, with a cpu over 1,2Ghz I´d imagine you could run 2 daocs simultaniotsly, I have however NO idea if this card is still available haven´t seen one since the review

 

[Tiwaz]

Originally posted by SFXman
On the contrary to what people say about the focus... well you can run DAoC in windowed mode WITHOUT any third-party programs and you may move the cursor outside the playing area without it crashing... just don't click on anything because then the proram is covered by another.

I think you confuse things a little SFXman
Technically (I know, I make windows application for a living) DAoC doesn't lose focus before you click outside the window - moving the mouse outside a windows application doesn't make it lose focus. So the instant you click (select) one DAoC instance, the other loses focus, and consequently dies.

Another isue: You could set the windowed=1 setting in the user.ini file, but that only make DAoC occupy the top left part of the screen. It doesnt make it a true 'window' with titlebar and such. And how would you go about moving it then?

Well, just my thoughts

 

[talen_sun]

I tried this out about 6 months ago and failed miserably.

Card 1 = Voodoo 3
Card 2 = 2D only card
(Because i only have 1 AGP slot)

Regardless of which monitor was plugged into which card, DAoC would ALWAYS default to the 2D, thus I couldn't play.

I tried disabling the Monitor with the 2D card in the properties, and when starting DAoC, all I would get is a blank screen.

I didn't try with 2x 3D Cards, as I said, all I have is 1 AGP slot, and the only PCI 3D cards I know are either broken or to old (maybe 4Mb or less)

If you get it working, let me know how...

 

[kr0n]

Voodoo 3 2/3000 have both AGP and PCI models. Bad thing is that they run DAoC shitty

 

[iolaire]

You can get a GeForce 4 MX 420 in PCI format. I don't rate your chances of running 2 instances on the one box, though, as I think they'd both try to use the same card and you would get 'Renderer creation failed'. I'm not aware of any way to force it to use a particular card (though I suppose there may be some .ini somewhere...)

 

[SFXman]

Originally posted by Tiwaz
Another isue: You could set the windowed=1 setting in the user.ini file, but that only make DAoC occupy the top left part of the screen. It doesnt make it a true 'window' with titlebar and such. And how would you go about moving it then?

Forgot that it can't be moved, doh... screw my post then

 

[Jimli]

Originally posted by talen_sun
I tried this out about 6 months ago and failed miserably.

Card 1 = Voodoo 3
Card 2 = 2D only card
(Because i only have 1 AGP slot)

Regardless of which monitor was plugged into which card, DAoC would ALWAYS default to the 2D, thus I couldn't play.

I tried disabling the Monitor with the 2D card in the properties, and when starting DAoC, all I would get is a blank screen.

I didn't try with 2x 3D Cards, as I said, all I have is 1 AGP slot, and the only PCI 3D cards I know are either broken or to old (maybe 4Mb or less)

If you get it working, let me know how...

In the Bios is an option which VGA card should be primary PCI/AGP or AGP/PCI this is inn the wrong order on your pc.