View Full Version : Does xbmc support dual display systems?
My friend has a laptop in his living room, besides it's own 15" screen it is also connected to his big screen plasma. He now uses the laptop as a pvr to record tv shows and play them up on the big screen but would now like to put xbmc on the laptop and enjoy all it has to offer.
He seems to be really confused about how to run two separate resolutions from just about anything including xbmc, he wants one resolution, say 1024x768 for his laptop screen and 1920x1080 for his big screen and to have those resolutions locked for each display.
I think he is running something like a ati 2400 but not sure. He is fairly up on all things computers but just cant seem to get over this hurdle, lol.
thanks
TC
Hiya!
I don't think that XBMC has a built in support for multiple displays.
I have a machine with TV on the alternative output, running on a lower resolution/refresh rate. I'm using Realtime Soft's UltraMon 3 to send XBMC automatically to the second display.
Basically you just get UltraMon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/), install it and open the properties for the XBMC shortcut. It should now have two new UltraMon tabs, in which you can easily define which display to start the application in.
Of course, if you'd like to have XBMC on both displays but w. different resolutions, then that might be a bit more difficult to achieve. For me at least, the above UltraMon workaround works well enough.
Also, some of the XBMC versions (Atlantis 8.10?) also worked if I started XBMC in windowed mode and simply drag+dropped the window to secondary display and alt+enter:ed it to fullscreen.
It seems, from the original post, that the drivers of the video card aren't letting the screens be different resolutions.
This is a feature of the video card/driver. This might prove difficult depending on the card and the driver package that's used. I've had known ATI to have a seperate driver package that isn't even listed on ATI.com when it comes to laptop chipsets. Often times one must go to the manufactuer of the laptop and download the driver package from there.
If the second output is able to run at 1920x1080 then I would say it's a pretty resent card and this feature should be supported. However it might not be utilized from the "Display Properties" window, but from the ATI Catalyst interface.
Poking around in the Catalyst interface is best. Hope this helps.
Haba, sorry for the offtopic but... are able to run Jester builds, latest ones 174**, on the secondary display using ultramon?
I'm using an older build because newer builds gives me an error when ultramon tries to display it on the 2ndary screen:(.
Haba, sorry for the offtopic but... are able to run Jester builds, latest ones 174**, on the secondary display using ultramon?
I'm using an older build because newer builds gives me an error when ultramon tries to display it on the 2ndary screen:(.
I'm running 17458-jester-ext. Something was changed in between the builds though, as for example: drag'n'drop windowed to alternative screen + alt+enter doesn't work anymore.
AMD Athlon/Radeon 9800 Pro setup here.
To be honest I am not really sure what he is trying to do, he makes it all seem like it is way more complicated than it is but i am sure there is an easy fix. Maybe I will pop over to his place sometime soon and try to help him it with everything.
TC