Hmm, pondering how to set up screens for my four shaman..

[Kaynin]

I have two options, basicly.

Either a

SET UP 1:
_______________
|..........m........|
|______________|
|__1_|_2__|__3_|

set up on one screen.

Or two screens with

SET UP 2:
------------------------ ________
-----------------------|.....1.....|
_______________ |________|
|.......main.......||.....2.....|
|....................||________|
|______________||.....3.....|
-----------------------|________|


Set up 1 is easier to keep track of all chars, but switching is a pain.
Set up 2 is easier to switch, but a pain to keep track off.

Basicly, what would be the deciding factor would be, which would be best suited to PiP with, both set ups (1680x1050 + 1050x1680) I can't seem to have the PiP function without upsetting the addons I use and the dimensions. Basicly when I swap in either situation, suddenly all my (addon) frames are through each other, like xperl, all shifting along the horizontal UI span.

Can I prevent that from happening? And what do people here who have experience with both set ups feel about either set up?

edit: yikes, I fail at ascii art.

[Teq]

Enviroment overview awareness > switching alts. Use the landscape layout.

[Kaynin]

Hmm, problem with one screen set up is when I switch, my UI is too damn tiny to be useful. Making clicking and targeting a real pain. If I could get the PiP to work it might be worth it but wow loads the above screen in wide screen and the below three in 4:3. Even tho the resolutions are in order.

1680x700 loads as widescreen.
560x350 loads as normal.
Same for the other set up though, 1050x560 loads as normal too.

=(

Maybe I should get 4 monitors, but that would be a shame since I use a rather good asus en8800 ultra. -_- And a second pc is a bit overkill to overcome this one problem for me...

But I agree the first set up feels much more convenient, it has a much nicer playstyle and doesn't hurt my neck. Just that at the rare times a rogue pops on my main and kills it. Or my main dies in any situation. I mess up so much on switching because I can't click reliably at all. xD

[keyclone]

some people put a 2x2 setup on a 2nd monitor with their main on the primary display... and odds are, your graphics card support dual monitors.

my suggestion, find an old monitor and go for it. try to keep your aspect ratios the same

to figure your aspect ratio:

get res of main monitor... keep it sort of low.. helps gpu/bus rates... so 1600x1200

aspect ratio: 1600/1200 == 1.3333

on the other monitor, if you do a 2x2 (the default size of a region is 1/4 screen res... making a 2x2 easy).. then each region would be 800x600, aspect ratio 1.333 as well.

BTW.. PiP will still work in this configuration...

whatever you come up with.. please post a screenshot (or pic of your rig) to the screenshots section (hardware specs as well please.. helps when others try to figure out what they want to do)

[Gallo]

Rob, would having different aspect ratios on 2 monitors cause PiP swapping to be slow? Because, I have a 22" Wide as my main, and a 19" regular with 2x2 for my alts. I've had slowness with switching focuses in Keyclone (takes 5-10secs).

[Kaynin]

some people put a 2x2 setup on a 2nd monitor with their main on the primary display... and odds are, your graphics card support dual monitors.

my suggestion, find an old monitor and go for it. try to keep your aspect ratios the same

to figure your aspect ratio:

get res of main monitor... keep it sort of low.. helps gpu/bus rates... so 1600x1200

aspect ratio: 1600/1200 == 1.3333

on the other monitor, if you do a 2x2 (the default size of a region is 1/4 screen res... making a 2x2 easy).. then each region would be 800x600, aspect ratio 1.333 as well.

BTW.. PiP will still work in this configuration...

whatever you come up with.. please post a screenshot (or pic of your rig) to the screenshots section (hardware specs as well please.. helps when others try to figure out what they want to do)

I have two monitors, so that's no problem, like I use in a 1x3 set up. But I'll try a 2x2 set up at home. :o The annoying thing is, my lcd's arent made to be put on their sides, so I improvise already when I go 1x3. xD

2x2 would however make it really easy to swap and follow without the need to use PiP I imagine. Thanks for the idea! I'll give it a go tonight.

840x525 will be the resolution though, my monitors don't seem to support higher then 1680x1050. Will post photo's when I ding 60 and got my set up the way I want them. xD I'm trying too many different things out at the moment to post stuff about that yet. :)

Except one of my lcd's is 20" and the other 21". >.< Might look odd.

[Ozbert]

With your setup 1 idea, I'd size my windows as follows:

Main across top of screen: 1680x765
Three clones below that: 560x255 each.

The aspect ratio of all those windows is exactly the same, plus it leaves 30 pixels empty at the bottom of your screen, which happens to be the height of the Windows XP task bar.

If all four clients are configured for 1680x765 in their config.wtf files, then when Maximizer resizes them, the graphics will remain undistorted.

[Kaynin]

With your setup 1 idea, I'd size my windows as follows:

Main across top of screen: 1680x765
Three clones below that: 560x255 each.

The aspect ratio of all those windows is exactly the same, plus it leaves 30 pixels empty at the bottom of your screen, which happens to be the height of the Windows XP task bar.

If all four clients are configured for 1680x765 in their config.wtf files, then when Maximizer resizes them, the graphics will remain undistorted.

I'll give that a go as well. :D I can run 4 clients at high settings with my PC easily, just couldn't get the ui's to not get distorted.

Thanks for the ideas, if you have them keep them coming. <3

[keyclone]

any slowness from a PiP swap is due to the wow graphical engine changing its directX buffers and internal rendering doodads (very technical :D )

there could also be an impact due to the sizes of the buffers within graphics memory.

v1.8g will make the large area swap out first.. hopefully clearing up some memory for the smaller area scaling up. but to be honest, with a 512M card rendering a 1600x1200x3 screen ... that's only about 5M of memory per screen.. unless its the various bitmaps used to wrap the surfaces.. which might be rendered once then shipped to the card (making more sense as i type it...). that rendering could take time and is prolly done cpu side then ship to grfx memory (then again, my directX knowledge is a bit rusty)

if anyone has any insight.. please enlighten

[Kaynin]

On, PiP works on the fly for me really, 768Mb videocard by the way, just my UI resizing was a problem. :p

But I love PiP!

Just couldn't get a set up to support the same ratio's, hmm. In 2 hours I'll be home, I'll post results then. xP

[Ozbert]

whatever you come up with.. please post a screenshot (or pic of your rig) to the screenshots section (hardware specs as well please.. helps when others try to figure out what they want to do)

Perhaps we should have a new section in the wiki specifically for layout configuration examples, using the various different methods?

[keyclone]

hmmm... "setup of the week" ?

[Kaynin]

Well, it's easy to make any sort of set up, but as soon as functionality comes to play it's suddenly a whole different ballgame.. :p

It's a lot about preference ofcourse, sure a rig with multiple screens looks awesome, but in terms of neck cramps, not that convenient for example. Oo

I'm going for PvP, I'm currently leveling so was not that worried about things, but now that I get more and more interesting world PvP, I just notice that, with the two options I've used so far, it just won't cut it. *shrug*

Oh well, 100th post, back later. xP

[Kaynin]

With your setup 1 idea, I'd size my windows as follows:

Main across top of screen: 1680x765
Three clones below that: 560x255 each.

The aspect ratio of all those windows is exactly the same, plus it leaves 30 pixels empty at the bottom of your screen, which happens to be the height of the Windows XP task bar.

If all four clients are configured for 1680x765 in their config.wtf files, then when Maximizer resizes them, the graphics will remain undistorted.

How do I keep my clients at 1680x765? Keyclone seems to change it. Still get distortions. :(

[keyclone]

keyclone's maximizer is setting the dimensions as per the layout... it's wow that changes it to a more normal combination.

ie: you choose 1680x765 .. aspect ratio of 2.19 ... and the clones are placed @ 560x255... but when wow starts, it will immediately change the 560x255 to 800x600.

look for v1.8g this weekend

[Kaynin]

Alright, will do. :D

[Ozbert]

keyclone's maximizer is setting the dimensions as per the layout... it's wow that changes it to a more normal combination.

ie: you choose 1680x765 .. aspect ratio of 2.19 ... and the clones are placed @ 560x255... but when wow starts, it will immediately change the 560x255 to 800x600.


Isn't it the case that WoW reverts to 800x600 only if the horizontal resolution setting in config.wtf is smaller than 800, or the vertical setting is less than 600?

For example, config.wtf contains:

1600x600 - this is fine
800x1200 - this is fine

1600x599 - reverts to 800x600 (599 too small)
799x1200 - reverts to 800x600 (799 too small)

If all four clients have 1680x765 in their config.wtf files, then it shouldn't revert afaik.

EDIT: Ah, I just remembered, keyclone modifies the config.wtf files and sets the resolutions to the size of the corresponding regions. Perhaps this behaviour could be optionally disabled?

[Djarid]

Yes, I think we need to promote this to a feature request... specifying resolution for the instance separately from the region it will run in... it will allow people who want to squash different aspect ratios into their small windows to have an undistorted main.

[keyclone]

i have considered that... and only recently found another hook within wow to enable it.
i've already put it on the list... not currently on schedule for v1.8g ... but we'll see