Nvidia TwinView and fullscreen

[spacemonkey1036]

I've got the latest nvidia driver installed and I just started using a second monitor. Both monitors are the same size, and run at the same resolution, my metamodes in xorg.conf are: "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024X768,1024x768; 800x600,800x600; 1280x1024; 1024x768; 800x600"

This works great until I want to use a fullscreen application, such as a game or Qemu. I want it to run fullscreen in one screen, but leave the other screen as it is. This works when I do fullscreen in xine, the movie plays on one monitor, and the other monitor stays on. But in games, and Qemu, the other monitor is turned off. I tried removing the single screen metamodes, but that just makes the fullscreen app show up in the middle of the two monitors, half on each monitor.

Hopefully there is a way to do this. Thanks for the help.

Also, I'd like to avoid having multiple x servers, one for each monitor, because if I understand it correctly, doesn't that make it so you can't drag things from one monitor to the other?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

What's your Window manager?

Usually, you have to have a Xinerama-aware WM. KDE and Gnome do this, but I'm afraid that a lot of the *boxes (Flux, Black, etc) might not. I haven't used them in a while, though, but that's what I remember. Try running your application in Gnome or KDE, and see what happens.

[JamminJoeyB]

Alex is right. You probably need to have xinerama running. There is a great dual monitor tutorial in the how I did it forum.

Now I don't play games with xinerama running. I usually start another instance of X for that. Makes it nice to use ctrl+alt+f7/8 to switch between them. That way you can still do other things while you are waiting for the next round start.

To start x with xinerama the command is 'startx -- +xinerama' w/o quotes.

To start another x session the command is 'startx -- :1' w/o quotes.

Check the dual monitor thread in the how I did it section for more information and links to resources.

Alex I know that xinerama will run fine on kde, gnome, enlightement and xfce and fluxbox.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

You can enable it in your X configuration file, too. Just add this to the "ServerLayout" section:


Option "Xinerama" "on"

[spacemonkey1036]

I'm using Gnome, whichever version comes with Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary. I assumed Xinerama was working, because when I maximize a window, it only takes up one monitor, which is what I want, but the problem comes when I try to run a game, or other full screen app. Say I'm playing Wolfenstein ET, and my normal, desktop resolution is 1280x1024 on each screen. I launch ET, which is set to run at 1024x768, fullscreen mode, and the right monitor shuts off, and the left monitor switches to 1024x768 and runs the game. What I would like to have happen is a game like ET, or tuxracer, or any other fullscreen game like that, take up a monitor, but leave the other monitor running, without changing the resolution on the other monitor that the game isn't running on.

Will changing any of the Xinerama stuff effect this? Like I said, I assumed xinerama was doing fine, because when I maximize a window, it only takes up one screen. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the function of xinerama.


Thanks for the suggestions.

[retsaw]

You are using the Twinview option of the Nvidia driver which does it's own version of Xinerama, you could set it up as two seperate screens in your xorg.conf and then use X to do Xinerama, but this probably won't be much better as although the other screen stays on when I go into fullscreen in qemu I can't actually use it until I come out of fullscreen. If this is still useful to you, it tells you how to set up seperate screens in appendix P of the Nvidia readme, and then you can find a guide on setting up Xinerama (there is a little more than specifying the Xinerama option in your xorg.conf, but not much).

[47stoney47]

For Never Winter Nights, I had to set up additional res's in my xorg.conf. Try adding things like 1024x768,null; 800x600,null. Those could be off a bit, but I'll check for sure tonight when I get back home.

[bwkaz]

AFAIK, "full-screen" means "the running program is visible on the X screen that it inhabits, but nothing else is visible".

You have one large X screen covering both monitors (TwinView). Since the program requested a full-screen mode, it got exclusive access to drawing on the display, but since it didn't set a resolution that would work across both monitors, the second monitor is black.

If you want to see a full-screen program and other programs at the same time, you need to run two different X screens (but you're right, you can't drag programs between monitors then -- each X screen is independent, that's why the full-screen program doesn't blank the second monitor).

[JamminJoeyB]

That is the number one reason why I suggested using a second x session to run the game. It's also handy to use so that you can switch back to the other x session to do other things while you are dead. Well at least that is what I do when I die in Americas Army.

And it really doesn't take a load of resources to run 2 x sessions as long as you aren't running a second instance of kde or gnome.