Dual Monitor and WoW

[Jamoe]

Came across this and thought of everyone here

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-interface-customization&t=355343&p=1&tmp=1

Edit by Bob: link is dead, so take a look at [post=177900]Gorion's post[/post] a bit further down in the thread!

[Bastet]

lol nice one :smile:

[Carr0t]

Nice. I already use dual screen, in the way he specified initially. Not a narrow enough gap between them to make a spread across both look nice, and i'm just not keen on the setup he listed for #3.

WoW on left hand monitor. MSN, AIM etc on monitor #2 :biggrin: or sometimes a fullscreen video of some description. I was playing WoW last night while watching V for Vendetta :biggrin:

See, men can multitask too!

[Spi]

Main screen = Wow
Second screen = TS/MSN/DKP site

[Bob]

Unstickied, since the link in the original post seems to be dead.

[Jamoe]

Compost heep looks inviting to this thread

[Gorion]

i happen to have saved that ^_^



Hey.
So, you have decided to use that second monitor you have sitting on your table (in closet, whatever) to play wow? Then this topic is for you.


Content:

1) One screen game setup. Game on one screen and other screen is used for IE/ventrilo/other win applications.
2) Two screen setup with rendering on both screens. 3d picture on both screens, best for 2 LCD screens sitting right next to each other and small frame.
3) Two screen setup with rendering on one of them. 3d picture on one of the screen with other dedicated for UIs (chat frame, unit frames, etc).
4) How to set up video card drivers.
5) FAQ



Before you attempt any of these make sure that: both your monitors are hooked up to your PC and working and you have latest drivers for your video card, those can be downloaded from manufacturers web sites (2 major v-card manufacturers: //www.ati.com , //www.nvidia.com ).
Steps necessary for setting up video card drivers are explained in part 4.



1)

This is the simplest case.
With this setup you will be able to browse web and/or checking AIM/TS/etc without closing the game.
Example screenshot: .

Steps to set up:
- Set your vide drivers to extend desktop (see part 4).
- Start WoW.
- Go to Main menu/ Video options.
- Check windowed mode and maximize checkmarks.
- Click Ok.
Done.



2)

This option is quite more complicated then a first one, but still quite doable.
This option will allow you t have game on both screens. Note: if you choose this option you will have your game screen split between two monitors, meaning your character, which is in the middle of the screen, will be split over two monitors as well. This option is better suit for 2 LCD right next to each other and with small frame.
Example screenshot: .

Steps to set up:
- Set up stretch monitor in your video card settings (part 4).
- Start WoW.
- Go to Main menu/ Video options.
- Set the correct resolution (eg 2048x768 for 2x1024x768). http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/3.jpg >
- Click Ok.
Done.



3)

Now, this is the hardest option and will require some more in-depth knowledge.
This setup will allow you to have rendered 3d picture on one screen and various mods/UIs on the other. This option has 2 sub-options a) You want game screen on left monitor, b) You want UI screen on left monitor. Even though these two options look very similar they are not and option b) is much-much harder to set up and will most likely give you problems with various UIs, so think twice before choosing to go that path. The reason for this being that you will have to reset UIParent to be anchored to the point different from bottom-left corner of the screen.
Also for this setup you will need the addon called viewport from CT_mod package ( //www.ctmod.net ).
Issues with this setup: your login screen, map, and load screen will be split up over the middle of the screen, some of the messages will also appear in the middle of the screen (ie will be cut over 2 monitors).
Example screenshot: http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/1435/ui9ju.jpg

Steps to set up first option (part a):
- Set up stretch monitor in your video card settings (part 4).
- Start WoW.
- Go to Main menu/ Video options.
- Set the correct resolution (eg 2048x768 for 2x1024x768). http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/3.jpg >
- Click Ok.
- Open ViewPort window.
- Set the rendered are to your liking, usually just restrict it to one monitor by halving the horizontal size. This will shrink the rendered area. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/4.jpg >
- Make the following macro:
/script UIParent:ClearAllPoints();UIParent:SetPoint("TOPLEFT",0,0);UIParent:SetPoint("BOTTOMRIGHT",-1070,0);
This macro will shrink the UI frame. You can still drag chat frames and others outside the restricted area, that is done only for orientation, since a lot of mods tie coordinates to center of the screen or it's right-hand side. Now, the number -1070 is not necessarily right, this number will most likely be unique for every one, since it depends on number of things, like UI scale, resolution etc. Play around with it until you find an optimal one. -1070 worked for me with UI scale of ~0.9 and resolution 1280x1024x2.
- Some of the frame may disappear off the screen during all of these manipulations, to reset their location you need to delete the following file, while WoW is not running: WoW/***/Acounts///layout-cache.txt
- The macro you created will need to be executed every time you log into game. If you know enough about writing addons you can make it into one.
Done.


Steps to setup second option (part b):
Ok, this is the most complicated case and you really should not attempt this without at least some knowledge of WoW insides and addon coding. For this reason I will write it out in more technical terms ... it is really not that easy (well at least for now).
As per Slouken some of these issues (at least tooltip part) should be fixed come 1.10.2, see post on page 2. Also there is a change in API scheduled for 1.11 that should fix all of the issues with this setup if addon authors use it.
First of all you will need to repeate all the steps for part a) except when writing a macro to reposition UIParent you need to change rightmost location instead of leftmost.
Now the fun part begins.
If any mod that you are using uses it's own methods for placing frames on the screen you are going for quite a ride.
At this point WoW UI engine will return position of the frame relative to the screen, not the UIParent, but placing works with respect to UIParent and thus placing frame on this location with this setup will place the frame off the screen and every time addon tries to update the position of the frame it will push it further and further. I had this problem with ItemRack for example. What you will need to do is either rewrite these addons to account for this shift or stop using them until (and if) Blizz's code changes.
Also, another problem I found was tooltips that are anchored to the cursor. They appear one screen to the right for exact same reason. This I still have not found a fix for.
Well, good luck if you are going this way and post here if you find any nifty tricks on handling all these issues.
Done, well almost


Alternative for second setup (part b):
This setup will take care of all the problems in setup above, however will require much more work. Its a tedious and long process. Also this setup will be much more customizable then a setup above.
- Set up stretch monitor in your video card settings (part 4).
- Start WoW.
- Go to Main menu/ Video options.
- Set the correct resolution (eg 2048x768 for 2x1024x768). http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/3.jpg >
- Click Ok.
- Open ViewPort window.
- Set the rendered are to your liking, usually just restrict it to one monitor by halving the horizontal size. This will shrink the rendered area. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/4.jpg >
- Now you will need addon to move several frames around. I am aware of 2 that should work: MoveAnything and DiscordFrameMover I was using he later and was able to move almost all the frames I wanted.
- Move all the frames that you want to their new position and you should be good.
(Using DFM I was able to move all the frames to one window except for the world map, no matter how I tried to move world frame it just wouldnt go where I wanted it to).


4)

ATi:
The following steps are for Catalyst 6.4 for win XP, can be downloaded from //www.ati.com


Setting up extended desktop:
- Open ATI Control Panel.
- Make sure it is in Advanced mode.
- Go to Display Management. You should see two monitor pictures on the right-hand side. If you do not make sure both monitors are connected to the video card and reboot. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/1.jpg >
- Right-click on second monitor (not the one that is on right now) and select option Extend main from the pop-up menu. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/2.jpg >
- If you need to change position of the pictures (ie left to become right and vice versa) right click on the second monitor and select Swap display mapping option from the popup menu.
Done.
How to know that it worked: you should have picture on both screens. On your main one you should see all that you had before (icons, bottom bar, windows, etc) and on the second one you should see only the background, but you should be able to drag windows/icons/etc on it by moving the mouse over right (or left) edge of the main screen.


Setting up Stretch monitor:
- Open ATI Control Panel.
- Make sure it is in Advanced mode.
- Go to Display Management. You should see two monitor pictures on the right-hand side. If you do not make sure both monitors are connected to the video card and reboot. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/1.jpg >
- Right-click on second monitor (not the one that is on right now) and select option Stretch main horizontally from the pop-up menu. http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/2.jpg >
- If you need to change position of the pictures (ie left to become right and vice versa) right click on the second monitor and select Swap display mapping option from the popup menu.
How to know that it worked: you should have picture on both screens. On your main one you should see all that you had before (icons, bottom bar, windows, etc) and on the second one you should see the background and the extension of the bottom bar http://www.geocities.com/mods_rte/img/5.jpg >. Also all windows should act as if two monitors were just one big monitor (ie appearing in the middle of the two screens, partially appearing on both screens, etc).


nVidia:

Unfortunately I do not have dissent nVidia video card, so if someone can provide instructions similar to the ones for ATi I would really appreciate it.

Q u o t e:
Did this with my nvidia setup. Same procedure as what you say with exception that you have to click advanced settings from the display and than choose your GeForce card from the tab. Than nView display mode and set it to Horizontal Span.

by Hiznor.

Q u o t e:

Im using a 6600 GT in 2056x1024 with the 84.56 drivers from this site: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10 and it detects it correctly for me. Hope the drivers help!

by Elorissa

5)

FAQ:

Q u o t e:
Why am I not seeing resolutions like 2048x768 as an option?


Make sure you have set up your video card to the Stretch mode. (see part 4)

Q u o t e:
Anyone want to explain the easy way to make this macro an addon?


Go to /WoW/Interface/AddOns/ folder and create a new folder there, call it say MyMod.
Inside this folder create two files called MyMod.toc and MyMod.xml (important: names should be the same as the folder name).

inside MyMod.toc place this:
## Interface: 11000

## Author: YourName

## Title: MyMod

MyMod.xml


inside MyMod.xml:
http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/">

   

      

         

            --your macro here--

         

      

   




Macro should be without '/script', so for the macro in part 3a you will have:
http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ui/">

   

      

         

              UIParent:ClearAllPoints();UIParent:SetPoint("TOPLEFT",0,0);UIParent:SetPoint("BOTTOMRIGHT",-1070,0);

         

      

   



this will run the macro everytime you log in.

[Bob]

Nice one Gorion - stickied again :thumb:

[Knabbel]

I found out that the primary monitor get more render capicity then the second one. Meaning, I got shity frame rate on second monitor while primary monitor was okay.
 
But problem solved now...... running at 1680 x 1050.