Support for multiple monitors

This was sort of touched on in the 3D glasses thread. I completely agree! That was one feature I absolutely loved in Supreme Commander. I usually had it set up so that one monitor was zoomed all the way out so I could monitor the big picture, and I used the other screen to actually do stuff. But, on occasions when I had multiple important tasks to do at once I'd use both screens actively - for example it allowed me to directly control two simultaneous battles on opposite ends of the map, or repair my defenses while launching an assault. Obviously these aren't particularly relevant examples for a TBS game, but there are still plenty of good uses for it (like your example with the Civilization Manager).

Multiple monitor support could save a lot of scrolling and back-and-forth between UI screens. Hopefully that will be minimized anyways via an excellent UI, but if it's not too big an effort those of us with multiple monitors would definitely appreciate the feature regardless!

It was also touched heavily here in this post. (pretty much the main topic)  https://forums.elementalgame.com/329677

There I talked about several UI options, not just multiple monitors, but it has some ideas of how different UI features could work on both single and multiple monitors.     The post itself is quite old though, so this new thread is needed.   I'm also shocked you arn't in that thread.   You are in most discussions I find.

It talks about UI tabs and such as well, so you could switch between tabs, or put different tabs on different screens.  And if we end up having other plains/underground/underwater/above the clouds, then there should be an option to show a semi-transparent pointer or little dot indicator or something on the other screen so that you can see exactly where something that will effect both maps will be affecting both maps.

@pigeon    Scrolling between 2 screens with the mouse is already a lot faster than going and pressing a button to switch between two places on 1 screen.    Just to point out.   So if you have either 1 screen in your cities and the other on the overland map, then its easier to do just move your mouse over to the other UI screen rather than click the button to open up your city menu.  Another example is if you have 2 places of interest, like 1 place where you are watching for enemy movement and another place that is "the heartland" where you are managing your different production.    OR, if you really don't want to switch screens often, you could just have your chat window and diplomacy stuff on the 2nd screen.   Then you will only go over there to chat, and maybe not even that if you have a good "zoom to chat box" hotkey (like press 'T' or 'shift + C' and it automatically puts the typing cursor into the chat box without moving the mouse.)

:p

For example, if someone else had made this thread, I probably wouldn't be commenting in it. Except possibly a big "yes please".

So I apologize for starting a somewhat duplicate thread on an even more specific issue than any of the other.

no, don't worry about it.   I don't really feel like multi-moniters is supposed to be in the 3D glasses thread.   In fact, I thought you were posting this thread in part to get the discussion out of the 3D glasses and into its own thread since it appeared it needed it.   And apparently the UI options wasn't very clearly marked (and it was like 3 pages deep in the forum)

(this was technically posted after luckmann's post)

Another thing that really wouldn't require switching UI, is the cinimatic idea mentioned in the above old-thread.   I have found many times where 1 person is playing a game and another person is watching.  Whether it be my roommate who wandered in to talk as he plays Pokemon on his DS, or several people watching another person who fired up bos-box and MoM to show them how great the game is, or just two people playing Hotseat.   

For people who have a 2nd screen but might not want to use it, they could just put the 'cinimatic view' of the game (as seen in Sins of a Solar Empire and Empire at War).  So they can play the game on their one screen, and the other person will have a clean sexy angled view on the other screen.    Or, if possible you could turn the screens around and put 1 hotseat player on 1 screen, and the other hotseat player on the other screen.  So that way you can position the screens so that each player cannot see the other moniter, then play that way.

man I can come up with useful ways to utilize multi-monitors in a Turn-based game all day.

A bit of off-topic, but I wonder if it's possible to run multiple keyboards at the same time, somehow assigned to different monitors. Maybe simply having multiple instances of the game, running some kind of virtual network, and use some kind of program to assign different controls to different instances of the game..

Sorry if I'm rambling, I'm just thinking out loud.

But yes! Multiple monitors!

Yes, you would.   But in times past the way we tried to do it was only 1 person would be in the room at a time.   Being able to both sit down and just pass the mouse back and forth wouldn't be too bad.   Especially since it is likely to be the same table.   But I mean its something, I can make adjustments for a good hotseat game.

I'm not aware of there being a way to have multiple keyboard save having multiple instances an operating system running.   AT which point you might as well be just running multiple copies of the game.  What you could do though is plug in a very complex controller, use the analog stick as the mouse, and shortcut many buttons to the controller buttons.  Then one guy just uses the controller.  They wouldn't be able to chat, but if you're playing a hotseat game it hardly matters since you can just TALK to the other player.   (I wouldn't trust online-hotseat players not to screenlook.  For online games either they are on the same team or its a free for all, and they have a disadvantage to each other)

Multiple monitor support would be nice for all the folks spoiled with fat hardware budgets & space to use 'em, but my main interest in this area is better support for the possible size range of single displays. I want any non-fullscreen windows and dialog boxes to be *sizable*.

I understand that a game needs a base resolution and color depth where everything 'works.' But if/when I finally manage to afford a sufficiently strong rig, I want to be able to resize something like a rally point list so it shows all 10 of my locations, and not just the four it shows by default.

It's about conservation of mousework. If I have sufficient screen space, one drag-and-drop of a dialog box corner should be able to help me avoid an endless series of scroll-bar clicks in a long game on a large map.

Multiple monitor support is not as important as the ability to divide our screen space between tasks. Having more screen space is only useful if you have something to put there. And for those of us with limited screen space we need some ability to divide it as we see fit.

Having several monitors myself I agree - support is wanted.

Think of having different planes. It would be a fine way to have an overview over more than one world... Agreed multple monitors! The only game within my history, which able to use multiple monitors was Stars! (Which was a really great game, and I miss a lot of its game mechanisms)

Stars!

[moment of silence]

I think you misunderstood what I meant (probably my fault). Yes I definitely agree. Also, there is no 'd' in pigeon . Sorry, pet peeve...

Supreme Commander. It made very good use of multiple monitors, if you have a powerful enough rig, anyways.

And I agree that multiple monitor support should be a secondary feature. The most important thing is to make the UI is good as possible on a single screen. But multiple monitor support would still be very much appreciated by anyone with 2 screens. This is definitely one 'extra' that I'd like to see.

Sorry Pigeonx2, don't know how that got in there.   I fixed it.

I kinda imagine that it wouldn't be hard to make upgradable support for multiple monitors for Elemental.   Like Supreme commander has 2 moniter support.   Where if they system was good, you could continue to divide up the UI so that like, say if you had a single big widescreen monitor you could still benifit as if you had 2 monitors, but if you had 2 big widescreen monitors you could continue to split so it acted like you had 3 or 4. (put 2 or more plains of existance on different maps + chat window + city view window)  Then if you somehow actually did have 3 or 4 for some reason, you would still be able to use all your screens.  (again, or you could just take advantage of the fact you have 2 widescreens by having 4 or more divisions spread amoung your bountiful screenspace)

obviously half of these you'd want in like "cloth map mode" or something unless you have a really powerful graphics card, but that isn't the point.  (though, if you actually have 3 or more monitors, I suspect it could be because you're runnin' something SLI.  At which point you may actually be able to use your SLI powers)

Let's say I do get those 4 monitors. What I'd like to do is to run the game in one, playing just as you.. you know.. play. On the second, I'd have the "Civilization Manager" on the second, just to be able to continously cross-reference what I'm seeing, with the actual stats. "Is this city producing something at the moment", without having to click the city.

On the upper left (third screen, above the 'main' screen) I'd have the cloth map. A bit zoomed out piece of my empire, where I could quickly see all general troop movements, trade routes and location of enemy borders & troops. On the last screen (upper right, fourth screen, above the Civilization Manager screen) I'd have information that I'd find important at any specific time - most likely Domestic Stats, Foreign Stats, & "Planet/Ship"-list. Or simply another Civilization Manager screen, tabbed into another section.

Man, that'd be sweet.

Jeeze Luckmann. That'd make me feel like I'm engaged in espionage. I think I'll settle for just my two screens...

For that extra special secret agent feel you really need the following:

why does that have the start menu all the way accross.   I can't seem to do that on mine (XP or Win 7).   Also, those must be either really light or really strong because if the end screens are THAT FAR away from any kind of support, they'd be near breaking or something.   Certainly it couldn't be very stable.

Also, based on the size of those icons, that must be running on a really low resolution or have super-large icons turned on.   Mine wouldn't look anything like that at all.

(I'm just nit picking, its all for fun.)

If it doent take up too much development time I am all for multiple monitor support. If it does have such support I will need to find a bigger desk to hold multiple 22+ inch monitors.

OK. I want to know too. Is that pic concept art or somehow "real?"

I ask in part because when I was a late teenager in the early 1980s, I worked in a mainframe datacenter where we ended up with some wall-o-monitors stuff that amounted to a pretty big budget item. If something like that pic is actually on the market, who knows how many taxpayer and/or investor dollars are being wasted on making senior execs feel really cool?

I actually wouldn't like that setup. I'd much rather the setup Luckmann described - a 2x2 block of screens. Requires much less head-swiveling and you get a better viewing angle. Plus, I think a 2x2 setup would feel more secret agent than 4x1, can't really explain why though.

I'll speak for spartan:   No, that pic is not real.   Look at it for a few and you'll see why.   Its physically wrong on a few levels.  Mostly likely a work from photoshop.  did I mention the shadows?

Mounted moniters are certainly posible, my school actually does that.  It doesn't cost as much as you think (well, the cost of several flatscreen plasma screens.  I guess that is a bit.  I've seen mounted LCD screens that don't cost that much though)

@pigeonx2  :   I'd imagine you are right, that a 5 across row might require a lot of head swiving, though personally I've done it with 4 19-inch screens before and it wasn't that bad.   I think it would actually be best on a two on top, 3 on bottom trapazoid setup.   or the 2x2 with 1 extra 'chat window" (I often put all my chat windows in my other screen when using single screen software)

My dad uses four occasionally, his typical setup is three though, one large flatpanel on each side of his high def notebook, 5760x1080 is a nice amount of real estate for debugging.

I'm not real interested in having the actual game span multiple screens, but having it not fuckup when you try to put it onto a secondary would be very nice.

Games that don't have the mouse locked when in full screen are seriously hosed too.  It's fucking awesome when you crash the thing every time you try to scroll right! 

Those two not existing would be a very nice start.

And yes, for reference, that is real. It's a guy that plays (played?) 36 instances of WoW. At the same time. It's called multiboxing.

Edit: Here's a 50-multiboxing setup. That's right. 50(!) simultaneous instances of.. whatever, really. Don't ask me how some of these people can afford it. I don't think I know -anyone- in person who could afford even the electric bill, let alone the monitors, computers and all the associated hardware (hell, I'd go bankrupt just buying those mouses!).