2 Screen vs 3 Screen Setup Real DMD

[hawkeyez88]

Just curious if anyone is having the issue I'm having. When I use the 3 screen setup and start the game in cabinet mode, the playfield is blank and I have to alt + tab my way into the logo showing on the playfield. If I start PBA with 2 screen setup it loads correctly however, I don't want the virtual DMD showing on the back glass as I have a working Real DMD. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[gust334]

I would use the configuration utility to setup 2-screen "windowed" mode, but program the coordinates for the DMD to be "offscreen".

 

[vfpcoder]

The requirement to press alt-tab in order to see the playfield at startup in three monitor mode is a bug that was introduced during the last two beta builds and was carried forward to the build released on 07/01. Hopefully FarSight will get this fixed at some point this month.

In two-screen mode the DMD always appears in the backglass. The DMD coordinates in the cabinet TAB of the configuration utility are ignored.

 

[hawkeyez88]

Thanks vfpcoder! Yeah hopefully they address some of this soon. I'll keep looking for updates!

 

[gust334]

In two-screen mode the DMD always appears in the backglass. The DMD coordinates in the cabinet TAB of the configuration utility are ignored.

Ah yes, my mistake, I tried a table that did not have a DMD. I tried 2-screen again with another table, and the DMD coordinates are ignored as you said.

My current setup is windowed and I do not have to alt-tab to see the playfield. Cabinet v1.70.27.

Is the alt-tab requirement for 3-screen only necessary in full-screen?

 

[vfpcoder]

Ah yes, my mistake, I tried a table that did not have a DMD. I tried 2-screen again with another table, and the DMD coordinates are ignored as you said.

My current setup is windowed and I do not have to alt-tab to see the playfield. Cabinet v1.70.27.

Is the alt-tab requirement for 3-screen only necessary in full-screen?

As far as I can tell if you are in 3 monitor mode you need to alt-tab at launch in order to see the playfield irrespective of whether or not DX11 has been set up to run windowed or full screen.

I mostly run in 2 monitor mode since my cab just has two monitors. The exception is when I want to play “Creature from the Black Lagoon”. Since the DMD provided on the backglass is currently too dim to see in two monitor mode, I use 3 monitor mode for that table and utilize the top monitor as a DMD. (The VPCabs Vertigo was actually designed to dedicate the top monitor to a DMD.) When I launched in that mode I noticed that I had to use alt-tab to see the playfield.

 

[gust334]

As far as I can tell if you are in 3 monitor mode you need to alt-tab at launch in order to see the playfield irrespective of whether or not DX11 has been set up to run windowed or full screen.

I have made each of my three monitors the playfield. In each configuration, all three (playfield, backglass, DMD) fully appear at launch with no alt-tab required.

Since we see a different symptom from the same software, that indicates that there is some other additional factor that makes you require alt-tab where I don't need it.

I do not dispute that you and others need to use alt-tab to initially see the playfield in 3-screen mode. But what I can tell you is that it doesn't happen on all systems equally.

 

[hawkeyez88]

I have made each of my three monitors the playfield. In each configuration, all three (playfield, backglass, DMD) fully appear at launch with no alt-tab required.

Since we see a different symptom from the same software, that indicates that there is some other additional factor that makes you require alt-tab where I don't need it.

I do not dispute that you and others need to use alt-tab to initially see the playfield in 3-screen mode. But what I can tell you is that it doesn't happen on all systems equally.

Hey Gust334 - are you running a beta version? I can't recall if you've stated that before. I'm not, maybe that's the difference?

 

[gust334]

No, I only used the beta version for brief testing. For all the experiments above, it was release Cabinet v1.70.27 on Steam.

 

[gust334]

In the course of testing cabinet beta v1.70.28d today, I was able to reproduce the reported issue in this thread. And I confirmed an identical behavior with cabinet release v1.70.27.

In my case, if I use the configuration utility to set DX11 Fullscreen mode, then I get a black screen instead of the initial playfield/menu screen. The DMD and backglass, which are on different physical monitors, appear normally. The instant I use Alt-Tab to switch to any task, the playfield/menu appears normally. It doesn't matter if I switch to a TPA task or a third-party program (Notepad, Windows Task Manager, etc.)

But, when I use the configuration utility to set DX11 Windowed mode, then all three screens appear normally and on top of other windows at TPA cabinet launch. I do not need to Alt-Tab anywhere.

When I run cabinet mode in DX11 Windowed, the windows appear borderless. I can butt them together or even adjust them to overlap. So I don't see any particular advantage to running fullscreen vs. windowed, at least on my system.

FYI, Windows 10 Home 64-bit, fully patched and current, with three physical 1920x1080p screens.

 

[gust334]

Two people on the Steam discussions confirm changing from DX11 Fullscreen to DX11 Windowed mode resolved their black-screen-on-startup issue with cabinet.

 

[KBJAXMAN]

I have a working Real DMD.

Please give me some insight on how you got this to work. I have 2 monitors and a real DMD, but don't know how to configure the DMD to work with this software.

Thanks!