Suggestion: Adding support for multiple physical monitors

lyubarskiy · Post by **lyubarskiy** » Mon, 11. Sep 17, 22:04

J.I.Gorkij wrote:For me, i would be really happy to see combination of multiple computers with touchscreen support.

I am imagining myself, sitting in cockpit, one hand on joystick, another giving orders to my ships on second monitor

If we could have a system, like Fallout 4 had where you could enter and navigate the PipBoy via an Ipad or Android, I would be all over building a full sized cockpit!

lyubarskiy · Post by **lyubarskiy** » Mon, 11. Sep 17, 22:07

carran wrote:
mr.WHO wrote:It's not worth an effort to implement soemthing that would be used by 0.001% of your customer base. Big corporations won't do it and small companies like Egosft won't do this either. At the end of the day they have to run the business, not a charity.
In all of the large corporates I have worked in over the past 15 years - think blue chip Investment Banks - most back office staff have two monitors and sometimes three. Switching between multiple applications to cross reference information is inefficient when two or more applications can be displayed side by side

For my home PC I have 6 monitors, 5 in common use and a 6th on another desk to display wiring schematics

This is just plain wrong. A lot of gamers have multiple screens, and many have touch screens. If this feature was implemented, the audience for X4 would certainly be using it. We are the Hard Core that like to be immersed. Also, Bethesda did this with Fallout 4. You could navigate your pip boy on your IOS or Android devise over the wifi, somehow.

lostProfitssssArrgh · Post by **lostProfitssssArrgh** » Mon, 11. Sep 17, 23:53

I spent some time searching the web for multi-monitor popularity stats...

Nothing. No useful info whatsoever. I only found what could at best be defined as guesswork, useless surveys with too few participants or surveys too biased towards specific groups.

One thing that can be concluded from that though : the web doesn't seem to care enough about multi-monitor to provide anything relevant.

---

It can be argued that the possible number of configurations (# of monitors, # of gpus in system, monitors with different resolutions...) makes it insanely hard to design a one-size-fits-all solution.

One other thing to consider, but my info might be dated on that aspect: gamer gpus aren't supposed to be good at handling mixed full-screen and windowed 3d content. That remains a major argument for gpu makers to segment the market (perhaps artificially) into leisure/pro hardware and lock better support in the drivers based on whether one paid $1000 more for a pro chip that's essentially the same as the general-public one.

So going back to ES supporting this feature in X4. It would be nice. I'd use it. But is the extra dev work justified? I doubt it.

astreus · Post by **astreus** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 00:15

I would really like that. I use 2 monitors as standard work(not for X..) it's more efficient, rather than be forced to switch between windows layers. Often need more than one info window at same time.
Would even use 3 monitors, if possible.

SamuraiProgrammer · Post by **SamuraiProgrammer** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 05:59

mr.WHO wrote:
J.I.Gorkij wrote:For me, i would be really happy to see combination of multiple computers with touchscreen support.

I am imagining myself, sitting in cockpit, one hand on joystick, another giving orders to my ships on second monitor
It's not worth an effort to implement soemthing that would be used by 0.001% of your customer base. Big corporations won't do it and small companies like Egosft won't do this either. At the end of the day they have to run the business, not a charity.

I am so impressed by your acute knowledge of egosoft's customer demographics.

Can you back up that statistic or is it just handwavium to support your point?

caleb · Post by **caleb** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 06:36

SamuraiProgrammer wrote:
mr.WHO wrote:
J.I.Gorkij wrote:For me, i would be really happy to see combination of multiple computers with touchscreen support.

I am imagining myself, sitting in cockpit, one hand on joystick, another giving orders to my ships on second monitor
It's not worth an effort to implement soemthing that would be used by 0.001% of your customer base. Big corporations won't do it and small companies like Egosft won't do this either. At the end of the day they have to run the business, not a charity.
I am so impressed by your acute knowledge of egosoft's customer demographics.

Can you back up that statistic or is it just handwavium to support your point?

Not even the steam h/w library has that number. It's not info that is taken.

Here are some decent guesstimates:

http://www.pcgamer.com/poll-do-you-use- ... e-monitor/

They guess about 0.5% of users have more than 1 monitor. And it's a high guess. So yeah, not the 0.001% claimed there, but not a high number either.

Poll has 10K answers with a 70% no vs. a 30% yes. Not sure what to make of that, but the people that stumble on that specific article and poll, are the ones searching information about multi monitors. That's how I stumbled into it.

So I could ask the same question as well. If you are saying that they SHOULD do multi-monitor support, I guess you have some nice numbers to show that it's a worthy investment.

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 08:02

lostProfitssssArrgh wrote:One thing that can be concluded from that though : the web doesn't seem to care enough about multi-monitor to provide anything relevant.

This might be simply because it's a non-issue, perhaps on the assumption that it is widespread enough to be accepted as a de facto quasi-standard - similarly to the question "what percentage of people eat?" Well, err... Of course, this is nothing but pure (and somewhat playful) speculation on my part...

carran · Post by **carran** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 09:49

Maybe the question should be framed differently

With the advent of large very high-res screens there is opportunity to run a game in a window with other windows for related information

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Tue, 12. Sep 17, 10:41

carran wrote:With the advent of large very high-res screens there is opportunity to run a game in a window with other windows for related information

I "see" (pardon the pun

) a problem with this: to date, games in windowed mode never look as good as they do in full-screen, because of limitations in control of aspects such as VSync, gamma correction, and full-screen anti-aliasing when running in windowed mode. Also, I find that frame-rate performance in windowed modes is consistently worse than in full-screen mode. So, one gets the worst of both worlds: poorer performance AND poorer visual quality. I don't doubt that it's possible that these limitations will eventually be overcome (I'm not sure, but does FXAA work in windowed modes? Granted, it's not as powerful as FSAA, but it's a good quality vs performance compromise)

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Wed, 13. Sep 17, 11:16

With multiple screens the possible variations are immense, a better approach imho would be to allow external applications access to the game data. That way a modder or ES could potentially build companion apps which size according to the additional screen(s) you have available or even on another device like you have with Fallout4.

The way DCS handles it is by treating all your screens as one large virtual monitor to which you configure where your primary viewport is and where to place exported monitors such as the panels and the multi function cockpit displays. DCS is a pretty hardcore sim experience though not designed really for casual gamers....

skiiwa · Post by **skiiwa** » Wed, 13. Sep 17, 19:56

I wish!

lyubarskiy · Post by **lyubarskiy** » Wed, 13. Sep 17, 20:54

BigBANGtheory wrote:With multiple screens the possible variations are immense, a better approach imho would be to allow external applications access to the game data. That way a modder or ES could potentially build companion apps which size according to the additional screen(s) you have available or even on another device like you have with Fallout4.

The way DCS handles it is by treating all your screens as one large virtual monitor to which you configure where your primary viewport is and where to place exported monitors such as the panels and the multi function cockpit displays. DCS is a pretty hardcore sim experience though not designed really for casual gamers....

I believe X Plane 11 has the option in game to project different things onto different monitors. I.E. map, radar, etc

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Wed, 13. Sep 17, 22:22

lyubarskiy wrote: I believe X Plane 11 has the option in game to project different things onto different monitors. I.E. map, radar, etc

I didn't know that, good to know TY

RiccDeckard · Post by **RiccDeckard** » Thu, 14. Sep 17, 09:36

I think there are only two feasible options:

1) Stretch the view on both (or all three) screens (Problem: gap in the middle)
2) Present the map/menu on the second screen permanently (like the expanding sidescreen in the Skunk

)

For me personally 2) wold give the most benefit, but I also think that this is a niche thing, where Dev Time might be wasted - because most dual screeners tend to watch YT or Netflix on the second screen while gaming ...

So using up dev time for a feature that maybe 2% would use is not good invested time I think (although I would be one of those 2%)

Br,
Ricc

SamuraiProgrammer · Post by **SamuraiProgrammer** » Fri, 15. Sep 17, 02:04

BigBANGtheory wrote:With multiple screens the possible variations are immense, a better approach imho would be to allow external applications access to the game data. That way a modder or ES could potentially build companion apps which size according to the additional screen(s) you have available or even on another device like you have with Fallout4.

The way DCS handles it is by treating all your screens as one large virtual monitor to which you configure where your primary viewport is and where to place exported monitors such as the panels and the multi function cockpit displays. DCS is a pretty hardcore sim experience though not designed really for casual gamers....

THIS.Would.Be.SO.AWESOME!

patient zero · Post by **patient zero** » Mon, 25. Sep 17, 02:29

I have several assorted monitors in the closet. I'd be happy to hook up a few extra displays if my software supported them properly. It's especially annoying when my side monitors go black because a program opens in full-screen mode on the primary display. I blame Microsoft. They should have developed full multi-monitor support long ago.

Morkonan wrote:I sense people on the edge of their seat, already planning home "cockpit" designs in expectation of an answer...

I've already started remodeling my old cockpit. Just bought a 3D monitor so I can play in stereoscopic mode. Lots of bugs to work out before X4 is released. Apparently, 3D doesn't work in windowed mode, only full screen. It would be fun if I could run the primary display in 3D with the map on a side flat panel monitor.

@egosoft: If X4 is confirmed to support 3D stereoscopic surround video, I might consider [cough] prepaying [/cough].

PabloRSA · Post by **PabloRSA** » Mon, 25. Sep 17, 16:21

Sorry peeps, didnt read the thread but adding my view.

Make X4 compatible with Ultra wide screens, even the videos.

elexis · Post by **elexis** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 06:20

There is no reason to not support ultrawide screens

Though I feel that ultrawide versions of videos would be pushing it.

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 07:44

elexis wrote:There is no reason to not support ultrawide screens Though I feel that ultrawide versions of videos would be pushing it.

I agree on both counts. Rendering to any resolution: no reason not to, and it's likely "supported" by default, as for years now games have been rendering to whatever resolutions are offered by the graphics driver.

However, marginalizing the vast majority of the customer base by tailoring the aspect ratio (or any element) specifically to early adopters (always the minority) would not make sales/marketing sense - it would be a *terrible* idea, a bad mistake.

HOWEVER: There IS one semi-viable way to accommodate both standard and wider formats in video: scenes are shot/rendered with all the action taking place "centre-stage" (mid-screen), thus allowing standard-format screens to display full-height (ie. without letterboxing) by cropping off the left and right sides without loss of any significant content. However, this is not *truly* USING the fullness of the ultra-wide resolution, as anything at the horizontal extremes is nothing more than filler, then. Still, I suppose it could be an adequate compromise - even filler video looks better than black side-bars.

lampshade · Post by **lampshade** » Fri, 29. Sep 17, 00:12

I would love the ability to use two monitors. Even if I can only have a map open on the second screen would be immersive and useful

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Suggestion: Adding support for multiple physical monitors