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Dual monitor issues with BigBox


cammelspit

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Basically, mixing a 4K screen and a 1080P screen doesn't work properly. On a stream, @Jason Carr mentioned I should take it to the forums and report it, so I have. What happens is BB actually displays BOTH monitors content on one monitor. If you switch both to be 1080P in Windows, reboot while it is set to 1080P it will work. Then you can actually return one of the monitors to 4K and it will actually work properly. If you have either monitor set to 4K before you reboot then BB will not show anything spanned across monitors.

Thing is if you trick it in this way it DOES work properly! This tells me there has got to be something that can be done to make this work reliably. I don't really care to swap back and forth to 1080P and reboot every time I want to turn on my second screen with BB.

Thanks for you time!

Below is a video showing exactly what is happening. The video includes both monitors. The right hand screen is a 1080P 55inch TV so that is as high as it goes. The leftmost screen is a Vizio e65-01 which is a 65inch 4K TV. They are side by side in my setup.

 

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The funny thing is here, we have lots of people using two different monitors with different resolutions who do not have this issue, so there has to be something else strange going on. For example, lots of people use their second monitor as a Marquee, and the marquee screens almost always have different resolutions. So there must be something deeper causing the issue. Strange.

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I would be forced to agree with you. Though, my Windows is a new install a little more than a month old due to some driver mishaps. I wonder if most people who use displays with differing resolutions are primarily using 1080P for their main display and this only happens in 4K? I even tried matching the scaling on both displays, 100%, and still wouldn't work. It's not like I need the marquee display that bad but I just wanted to mess around with it and then I found this problem. If there is anything I can test for you, just let me know.

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  • 5 months later...

While it is doubtful that we are the only two people in the Boxverse having this kind of issue, from what Jason was saying, it seems like it is not especially common. I doubt most people using this feature would be using two TV and not regular monitors, maybe something to that? Well, since this is not just an isolated issue now, lets post our specs, maybe there are some things that are common to our setups that might be introducing it, drivers perhaps?

i5 6600K @4.5Ghz | R9380 @ 1080/1550 | Windows10 Pro | 16GB DDR4 @ 3000

My big 4K TV is a 65inch Vizio E65-E1 the 2017 model with HDR.

My second TV is a 55inch insignia TV I got for cheap at Best Buy several years ago, not sure about the model number.

Both are HDMI but since I do not have DP on my 65inch and my GPU does not have a late enough version of HDMI to get 4K60 output, I use a DP 1.2a to HDMI 2.0 adapter I bought off amazon. I wouldn't think this would have anything specific to do with this issue but maybe.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This is happening to me as well. Ryzen 2200G an a Gigabyte AB350N. First monitor is a TV, LG UH15A, and my second monitor is a tablet remote displayed over spacedesk. Trying to put the marquee on the 2nd screen puts it behind the main display.

On my Asus laptop it worked just fine as marquee monitor, regardless of it i was using the laptop screen or my TV via HDMI.

It's not the end of the world. The tablets main Purpose is to display the WiiU Gamepad visuals, it was just nice to have it do marquee stuff for systems other than WiiU.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm having the same problem as well with my new pc, at first everything seemed fine, until I took a close look using the image viewer within big box, it wasn't 4K it was displaying but more like 1080p, I compared the high res images I was viewing with the originals. When I switch different dpi settings on the shortcut to bigbox I can get the primary monitor to display 4k but then the marquee screen will not work, going through marquee screen settings within bigbox does not show anything happening on the marquee monitor. When switched to one of the system dpi settings the monitor does work but primary is lower res again. Before this I also noted the monitor numbers where switched in bigbox, had primary on 2 and marquee on 1, I fixed this by turning the marquee screen off in nvidia settings and bigbox saw it as number 1 again, after that the marquee screen can be set on number 2 again.

The marquee screen is 2560x1080 connected to dvi to hdmi cable. The 4k tv is connected to hdmi, both are connected to a nvidia gtx 1050 @Jason Carr Do you have any knowledge what could cause this problem? It's not something of utmost urgency but would like to see images in 4k glory in the future in bigbox working together with a marquee screen.

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It seems to me that you must be exceeding the horizontal pixel space of your video card. If you are pushing 4k on one monitor...and I doubt you are ( 4096*2160 red 4k )....that may be the issue. Since im sure it's UHD ( 3840*2160 )....once you add a little hd Pixel space to that, especially one that is true HD ( 1920*1080 ), you are adding an un-uniform space to the overall. The aspect ratio is screwed up this way. I created a lil drawing on my cell really quick as an example of what I mean....it shows the 4- he quads for uhd...and then the 1080 that is an issue. 

Uhd is four quad's of 1920x1080 pixel spacings...each combined to make a 16:9 aspect ratio. Once you add an additional 2560*1080 to the upper right hand corner ( or to any side if the uhd pixel space )...it creates an aspect ratio that doesn't exist. There's no EDID for that....so I can see it having issues.

The only way I could see that working is if you started out with an overall 7680 x 4320 pixel space. Then you wouldn't be placing the 2560*1080p of the second monitor you want to use in negitive space. 

This is just my observation from what I do at work all day. Perhaps the program can manipulate this to work...but from a video stand point...it shouldn't unless you have the pixels space in the first place to make it happen. 

*on a side note...

This should never be an issue with two 1080p monitors because the combination of these two side by side is just 3840*1080....a simple 3.5 aspect ratio that most every Single mid level video card has an EDID for. It's not an uncommon aspect ratio...and you're not adding additional pixels to negitive space.

***One last thing of note...

Dvi has a Max resolution of 2560*1080 only on dual link cable. Make sure you have it if you must run at that res. However... adding 2560 more horizontal pixels to your 3840 from the uhd monitor still puts you at 6400 pixels wide. Still not within a common aspect ratio that consumer monitors are likely to understand, weird resolution for your video card to push because it's not common...and there's still the issue I've mentioned already.451160919_Capture_2018-07-08-20-32-23.thumb.png.369766364b4f58734f93c824d7a0e1db.png* this is crude...but I think you can get the picture*

 

Edited by thegreatiandi
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5 hours ago, thegreatiandi said:

It seems to me that you must be exceeding the horizontal pixel space of your video card. If you are pushing 4k on one monitor...and I doubt you are ( 4096*2160 red 4k )....that may be the issue. Since im sure it's UHD ( 3840*2160 )....once you add a little hd Pixel space to that, especially one that is true HD ( 1920*1080 ), you are adding an un-uniform space to the overall. The aspect ratio is screwed up this way. I created a lil drawing on my cell really quick as an example of what I mean....it shows the 4- he quads for uhd...and then the 1080 that is an issue. 

Uhd is four quad's of 1920x1080 pixel spacings...each combined to make a 16:9 aspect ratio. Once you add an additional 2560*1080 to the upper right hand corner ( or to any side if the uhd pixel space )...it creates an aspect ratio that doesn't exist. There's no EDID for that....so I can see it having issues.

The only way I could see that working is if you started out with an overall 7680 x 4320 pixel space. Then you wouldn't be placing the 2560*1080p of the second monitor you want to use in negitive space. 

This is just my observation from what I do at work all day. Perhaps the program can manipulate this to work...but from a video stand point...it shouldn't unless you have the pixels space in the first place to make it happen. 

*on a side note...

This should never be an issue with two 1080p monitors because the combination of these two side by side is just 3840*1080....a simple 3.5 aspect ratio that most every Single mid level video card has an EDID for. It's not an uncommon aspect ratio...and you're not adding additional pixels to negitive space.

***One last thing of note...

Dvi has a Max resolution of 2560*1080 only on dual link cable. Make sure you have it if you must run at that res. However... adding 2560 more horizontal pixels to your 3840 from the uhd monitor still puts you at 6400 pixels wide. Still not within a common aspect ratio that consumer monitors are likely to understand, weird resolution for your video card to push because it's not common...and there's still the issue I've mentioned already.451160919_Capture_2018-07-08-20-32-23.thumb.png.369766364b4f58734f93c824d7a0e1db.png* this is crude...but I think you can get the picture*

 

Thanks for thinking along much appreciated! I tested your theory of total aspect ratio by switching the 2560x1080 monitor to 1920x1080, it behaves in the same way: no activity in Bigbox on the monitor. I do think that it's all valid edid hand shaked as windows itself does work on the 4k and 2560 monitor, if it works in windows it should in Bigbox right? The DVI-HDMI cable is a DVI-D Dual Link, the gpu connector is the same. Specs for gtx 1050 gpu on: "Max Resolution: 7680x4320@60Hz (Digital)".

Situation: 4K monitor is set to 200% dpi scaling, 2560 set to 100%, switching these does not change things.

Combination working (not preferred): Bigbox shortcut Compatibility/DPI set to System or System (extended) gives bigbox 4k screen lower res (seems to be 1080 res) and marquees work on 2560 monitor.

Combination not working: Bigbox shortcut Compatibility/DPI set to Application or turned off Dpi settings, it does give 4k resolution in bigbox but the marquee screen only shows the windows desktop, marquee window while set to screen 2 in settings is displayed beneath bigbox window on same primary monitor (4k) able to see while using alt-tab.

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1 hour ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

Thanks for thinking along much appreciated! I tested your theory of total aspect ratio by switching the 2560x1080 monitor to 1920x1080, it behaves in the same way: no activity in Bigbox on the monitor. I do think that it's all valid edid hand shaked as windows itself does work on the 4k and 2560 monitor, if it works in windows it should in Bigbox right? The DVI-HDMI cable is a DVI-D Dual Link, the gpu connector is the same. Specs for gtx 1050 gpu on: "Max Resolution: 7680x4320@60Hz (Digital)".

Situation: 4K monitor is set to 200% dpi scaling, 2560 set to 100%, switching these does not change things.

Combination working (not preferred): Bigbox shortcut Compatibility/DPI set to System or System (extended) gives bigbox 4k screen lower res (seems to be 1080 res) and marquees work on 2560 monitor.

Combination not working: Bigbox shortcut Compatibility/DPI set to Application or turned off Dpi settings, it does give 4k resolution in bigbox but the marquee screen only shows the windows desktop, marquee window while set to screen 2 in settings is displayed beneath bigbox window on same primary monitor (4k) able to see while using alt-tab.

Most interesting ??. What is the native resolution of the second monitor? 

Also...in the monitor set-up configuration, how is it created? Do you have it set to side by side uhd ( extended desktop style ), or do you have it set in matrix mode ( we call it tile matrix )? 

I'm hoping to help here, man.....because I may want to do the same thing once my can is complete.......and to help for the sake of helping ?. It just seems like the card isn't sure what to place where...so when it works, it's because it's giving it's best guess of what you want based on the monitors limits/abilities ?...know what I mean?

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Thanks man :) The native res of the marquee monitor is 2560x1080, it's an ultra wide screen from LG. I have set the monitors on extended (My windows is in dutch but I'm sure its the same, only have clone options as another choice) the monitor screen is placed above the 49 inch UHD (4k) TV in physical form and in the screen settings, have tried putting the monitor layout side by side in settings, does not make a difference.

Something else I noticed is when trying to switch the screens with button combo windows+shift+direction within bigbox it does switch the primary screen to the marquee monitor (aspect ratio is kept so I see part of the desktop wallpaper on the right side) and depending on dpi settings (system & system extended or application & turned off dpi) I can then get the marquee window to the 4k screen in the 'working combination (not preferred)' but with the 'not working combination' I can't switch the primary on the second monitor back to the main (4k) screen, it gets stuck on the marquee screen, I then have to change the screen order in bigbox options to get primary back to the 4k screen. It's as if the marquee window screen doesn't want to stick/open to the marquee monitor and gets stuck on the primary screen behind the primary big box window, as if somewhere within bigbox, directx?, net framework or driver does not compute. I'm out of ideas by now, don't feel like rolling back nvidia driver to a year ago, i'm a bit afraid of other problems on the emulation end or other system errors and not sure if it would work or not thus not willing to take the risk of messing around on this fresh system.

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