A question for the technically inclined

[Hans Olo]

Here's something I've been wondering about for a while. Is there a way to use multiple monitors with Oolite? For instance you could have a main monitor and a second monitor dedicated to a specific screen. That way you could keep an eye on the state of your equipment in a fight on screen 5, or always know what systems are nearby on screen 6. Is there some way to do this or should I take it to the suggestion box?

[DaddyHoggy]

No.

The closest you can get is to use a Matrox TH2G or Eyefinity capable card to render a single image across multiple screens, but you cannot run multiple views. I asked Ahruman Jens about this several years ago when we built a four-screen/4-PC flight simulator as well as running Oolite through an Nvidia Quadroplex box (3x2 screens) at work. (there are screenshots on the forum somewhere...)

It would be lovely, to have multiple screens render multiple views, but Oolite just isn't coded that way.

[DaddyHoggy]

http://www.bb.aegidian.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7154

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=113948

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=90233

Hope this helps?

[Hans Olo]

Some sweet pics on those threads!

I heard something about Oolite having some kind of test tcp/ip support. Could one use that to send data to a webpage or something, and then display it in a browser window in the other monitor?

[Diziet Sma]

The closest you can get is to use a Matrox TH2G or Eyefinity capable card to render a single image across multiple screens

Expensive overkill.. Neither of those gadgets is necessary to achieve that result.

I have a plain old NVIDIA GeForce6200 card, with SVGA and DVI ouputs. I have a DVI-SVGA adapter on the DVI output, and run one monitor off each connector. That gives me a 2560x1024 desktop spanned across the two monitors, which Oolite takes full advantage of. I'd imagine any dual-output card is capable of the same feat.

See this post for more details.

As stated above, no, unfortunately I can't have different information displayed on each monitor, but Oolite in 2560x1024 is spectacularly awesome!

Here's a couple of recent screenshots. Click on them to download the full-size versions.

[cim]

I heard something about Oolite having some kind of test tcp/ip support. Could one use that to send data to a webpage or something, and then display it in a browser window in the other monitor?

The debug console protocol (not available in deployment builds) opens a TCP/IP connection through which Javascript commands can be issued and the results returned. You could replace the console application with one which just regularly issued status reading commands and displayed the results, yes.

[DaddyHoggy]

The closest you can get is to use a Matrox TH2G or Eyefinity capable card to render a single image across multiple screens

Expensive overkill.. Neither of those gadgets is necessary to achieve that result.

I have a plain old NVIDIA GeForce6200 card, with SVGA and DVI ouputs. I have a DVI-SVGA adapter on the DVI output, and run one monitor off each connector. That gives me a 2560x1024 desktop spanned across the two monitors, which Oolite takes full advantage of. I'd imagine any dual-output card is capable of the same feat.

See this post for more details.

As stated above, no, unfortunately I can't have different information displayed on each monitor, but Oolite in 2560x1024 is spectacularly awesome!

<snip>

It's only "overkill" if, like me, you prefer your crosshair not to be split either side of two monitors worth of bezel - to run 3-screens (in Oolite) and therefore have crosshair and combat take place in an unadulterated screen a three screen solution is required (the only via options to the domestic market are the TH2G or an AMD card running eyefinity).

Yes, to answer your question, any dual screen card running in "extended" desktop mode will run Oolite across two screens if that's your desire and you're happy with the split screen issues (which, DZ, you clearly are) [True on Windows and Linux boxes - I don't know about Mac OS]

[Hans Olo]

Well, I am going to poke around with OSX and will report back if I have good news!