PC hardware's "screen rotation" to Portait mode feature, with TPA

A couple of days ago I accidentally came upon "screen rotation" on my work laptop that has Intel Graphics. At first I thought there was a problem with the laptop that suddenly had it's picture sideways, but then some web searching for "screen rotation" found it was a feature with Intel Graphics. Then I wondered about my personal desktop that has an AMD Radeon card. Sure enough web searching for "screen rotation" shows it's possible with the AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers, and some folks were able to use it even without Catalyst on AMD graphics cards. I also read that many folks are doing it with Nvidia cards as well.

Here's a link describing it with Intel graphics, and with AMD graphics: http://superuser.com/questions/38351...ddenly-rotated

Here's an article about "Screen rotation" in general under Windows 7: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...a-ce44e7127aeb

So, I am wondering if even if TPA doesn't directly have its own portrait mode at first on the PC, how TPA will look when using the graphics card's (or graphics chipset's) "screen rotation" feature to go into portrait mode. Will know tomorrow, Nov. 1st!

It looks ok. It is playable but not really setup to play that way yet. The screen isn't being used to its fullest. Give it a try. It works for now until they release a cabinet version or add it to the PC.

DaPinballWizard said:

It looks ok. It is playable but not really setup to play that way yet. The screen isn't being used to its fullest. Give it a try. It works for now until they release a cabinet version or add it to the PC.

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Thanks, I will give it a try. But it won't be today, the Nov. 1st I had mentioned, after all. But that's okay. Farsight is doing their very best to release to us an amazing product. And this last glitch involves currency in different countries and how it's handled by Valve/Steam.

I am sooo looking forward to this PC Release. The last time I used a controller with a variation of Pinball Arcade was on Farsight's Pinball Hall of Fame on my old regular Wii. Great game for it's time, but with the fairly low res original Wii, the game was very pixellated compared to the version I look forward to on the PC. The Kindle Fire version of TPA is nice on the Kindle Fire HD (especially when attached via the micro-hdmi cable to a High Def TV), but I prefer having a controller or even a keyboard method. (There was some talk on our Kindle subforum though by a Developer of having blue-tooth keyboard support if he can get it to work properly. I'd look forward to that too for my Kindle TPA tables.)

seattlemark said:

The Kindle Fire HD version is nice, but I prefer having a controller or even a keyboard method. )There was some talk on the Kindle forum though by a Developer of having blue-tooth keyboard support if he can get it to work properly.)

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Yes there was, I slept 4 hours the night he mentioned it to go get a nice Moga Pro the next day when Gamestop opened
I hope it's still somewhere in the works but I don't really think hounding them will get much done faster so I've been patient.

But Yes oh Yes PLEASE someday basic L1 and R1 support with push-hold-button-for-launch plunger would be a fantastic start..I promise not to complain ever I have a standard BT keyboard too even L-shift R-shift Enter would be yummy nudge you can do whatever with, I know it matters more to others than me

I think there's some pretty major work behind the scenes though to pull it off multi-touch being part of it

My 23 inch monitor happens to already be propped up on a 3-ring binder with paper in it, to raise it to the exact height as the monitor next to it. And just above and behind the monitor happens to be the edge of a shelf. So my plan is to prop this very light LED IPS monitor on its side and tilt it backwards to the shelf. Then (other than maybe with wide TPA pinball tables) to try to use TPA in portrait mode on it (using the "screen rotation" feature at first till it's built into TPA).

Coincidentally a week ago I had an uncommon monitor malfunction, and the store of a well known chain very nicely gave me full credit for my 2 month old monitor (as it was still under manufacturer warranty and the store is able to send it back to this particular manufacturer). I bought the exact same monitor again, and they matched their original sale price. But I also did something I don't usually do. For just $29, I also bought an extended warranty for 3 years that includes breakage/damage coverage. The breakage add-on was just $5 (of that $29), as the salesman said, "Not likely that anyone is going to damage a monitor, so the damage add-on of $5 for 3 years is very inexpensive." He did not know that I was going to sometimes use the monitor tilted on its side on a binder, so it could be a pinball table.

I also look forward to trying the PC version of TPA hooked up to my 47 inch LED TV, but I can't put the TV on its side for portrait mode. Although this LG TV has a 2D-3D conversion feature (using passive 3D glasses), so it will be interesting to see how the tables look that way in regular landscape mode with simulated 3D on the TV.

seattlemark said:

Although this LG TV has a 2D-3D conversion feature (using passive 3D glasses), so it will be interesting to see how the tables look that way in regular landscape mode with simulated 3D on the TV.

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It looks ok, but the 3D is a little off (as with any conversion), but surprisingly good, if you like a pop-out effect! It's kind of like having the table assets pop-up from the flat surface of the playfield, which is a very nice effect (even better than using official Nvidia 3D on the PC Version (beta)).

The biggest problem with the passive 3D method for games, is that you lose 50% of the horizontal resolution (since the LG TV uses an alternating lines polarization). This results in a very fuzzy look for the playfield graphics, making it kind of pointless, since you lose so much to gain the 3D effect. An active shutter-glasses setup would remedy the problem, of course!

It's a bit stretched at the moment but not too bad. They mainly need to fix the menus for portrait mode.

Pictures?

I just picked up one of these for my non-pivoting 27" monitor.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...me/products/DisplayMountingSolutions/MA110MB/

I really like the monitor I have now, but it does not have a 90° pivot available with the default stand. The new stand should arrive Thursday, and it was a much cheaper solution (~$50 at Amazon) than buying a new monitor. I carefully measured everything to make sure my monitor would be able to pivot. At worst, I might have to first tilt it back slightly before rotating it 90°, then I should be able to adjust the tilt for the best viewing angle.

View 3 in portrait mode is just too nice to pass up. Gave it a test run while playing with my head tilted.