Game on both monitors in dual monitor rig

[Rocq333]

Sorry if this has been covered. I couldn't find anything from a search.

Last week I ran CoH Homecoming without a problem on a dual monitor setup. Game played on primary monitor as expected. This week, starting the game puts the game screen on both monitors, but keeps switching back and forth between them when anything is clicked on. Did I miss a setting or did something change I didn't realize changed?

 

Win 10 x64

nVidia GTX 1080Ti

driver version: 430.86

Tequila 1.0.0.20

Asus monitors

 

TIA

[goblinite]

Make sure both DP/HDMI cables are plugged in tight and check the monitor orientation and main display settings.

To do that right click on an open area on your desktop and select display settings.

Use identify and the diagram to make sure 1/2 are in the correct spots.  You can drag and drop them if they are not.  The monitor you want CoH to stay on needs to have the Make This my Main Display box checked.

 

If it still occurs, pull that big nasty GTX out of there and let the onboard DP handle it for a bit and see if it recurs.  If it does, reinstall the drivers.

[Rocq333]

Thanks for the reply goblinite.

 

The monitor setup is correct for primary/main monitor & secondary monitor. Two different resolutions and secondary is in portrait mode. Mobo does not have native graphics (oops). I can correct the problem by telling nVidia to only use the primary monitor, I'm just old and forgetful and was hoping for a more elegant solution.

 

The part that confuses me is that it worked perfectly a week ago, but went weird in the past few days. I'm beginning to wonder if it has anything to do with creating a second account to play on completely different hardware, then trying to use both accounts on my main boxen. I'm not familiar with the CoH/Tequila programs... are there config files on the local client side that I can look at?

[goblinite]

The config files are local.

Are you trying to dual box it with 2 instances of the game running at the same time?

 

If so I would try sandboxing the second copy into a VM.

 

Might want to also see if NVidia did a recent driver update that coincides with the issue.  If so, do a driver rollback.

 

You can also record a macro that will execute the program and lock in the primary monitor.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4052290/accessories-how-do-i-create-macros

 

[scarlet_skye88]

I have just started having this issue also. I raised a ticket and tried the fix they gave me, however it has not fixed the issue.

 

I did have a driver update yesterday and that is when my issues started. ~How would one do a driver rollback/ get rid of the most recent update to my driver? Worked it out and now happily back in game! Thank you so much for the help and advice <3

[goblinite]

For future refernece, what fixed it?

[Zibby]

I had the same problem the day after applying an NVidia driver update.  Rolling back the video driver update fixed it immediately.

 

If anyone has a better solution, please post it!

[Zep]

You could play in windowed mode and stretch it across both monitors.

 

I used the NV Surround a bit on 3 monitors and it can at times be touchy.

[HairyLou]

I started playing yesterday on my dual monitor setup. Worked fine. Today, the second monitor completely loses (flickers on/off sort of) it when I start up the game. Running windowed mode at the moment, but that's not really ideal. Have not updated my drivers or anything like that. Worth noting is tat it also slows down the game itself a lot.

[goblinite]

As an aside, Windowed mode is the way to go.

 

When CoH was shut down 1080p and better resolutions were not really a thing yet, especially for games.  Windows 10 didn't exist as well.  Microsoft does a lot of background work to make sure popular games work properly on PC platforms as does NVidia.

 

What they are doing now doesn't take CoH into consideration in the same way they don't take Oregon Trail into consideration.  The game is/was dead and they moved on.

 

Playing in windowed mode bypasses some of the graphics related issues at the cost of higher overhead.  I would say that there are some configurations where windowed mode will be the only way you can play.  I know on my setup if I want resolution greater than 1224x768 I have to play in windowed mode.

[bzcharkl]

I started playing yesterday on my dual monitor setup. Worked fine. Today, the second monitor completely loses (flickers on/off sort of) it when I start up the game. Running windowed mode at the moment, but that's not really ideal. Have not updated my drivers or anything like that. Worth noting is tat it also slows down the game itself a lot.

 

Been having the same problem myself. Playing for over a week full-screen on dual monitors with no issues, as recently as yesterday. I'm not aware of any patches to the game, the most recent auto-update by Windows was over 2 days ago, and I certainly didn't change any settings or update any drivers manually, but suddenly the game can't handle full-screen on my primary monitor at more than 5-10 FPS.

 

I've noticed that during loading times the second monitor seems fine, but as soon as any sort of user input is available (even something as minor as the login text screen) it flicks off and game performance tanks.

[Zep]

Sounds like a sync issue. Make sure both monitors support the resolution and refresh rate COH is driving in game.

[bzcharkl]

I'm not sure precisely why or how, but it seems to be fixed now. I don't even know if it was anything I did, but just in case it was and some others are having the same problems, I set the game to Windowed mode, then restarted, then used Alt+Enter to go to full screen.

[goblinite]

I'm not sure precisely why or how, but it seems to be fixed now. I don't even know if it was anything I did, but just in case it was and some others are having the same problems, I set the game to Windowed mode, then restarted, then used Alt+Enter to go to full screen.

 

Wouldn't happen to be a Dell would it?  I see crap like that with onboard DP2 on Dell PCs at work regularly.

The onboard Display ports on most Dell systems are not 2 display ports but a single display port that has been split.  Normally a display port can run 4 monitors by way of daisy chaining or using a multiplexer/splitter.  Dell already splits it so you can either run 4 off a single port or 2 off of each or some combination as long as the total does not exceed 4.

 

There is a frequent issue with Dell's application of this in that sometimes the monitors "forget" who is one and two.  It seems to most frequently occur when only one monitor is turned on at the time the PC comes out of sleep or is powered on, the system calls this monitor 1 and sets it as primary regardless of previous settings.

 

The downside is this is "Just as Planned" for Dell so they have no intention of fixing this bug.  Their solution is to just leave everything on at all times.  They will also tell you not to uninstall all the spyware/bloatware that comes prepackaged with a Dell that really just slows down the system and provides no additional functionality and I'm turning this into a Dell rant so I will shut up now.

[bzcharkl]

Nope, not a Dell, wouldn't do that to myself.

[Rocq333]

Well at least it's good to know that I wasn't hallucinating...

 

Just as an aside for my original post, I've rolled back drivers without any result. I'm not trying to stretch across 2 screens. My secondary monitor is in portrait mode. It is more convenient for reading/researching while I'm playing. Just to make things more interesting, it also runs at a different resolution than the primary. The behavior I'm seeing would make sense since the refresh rates & resolution don't match. The real question is why did it start doing it at all. The world may never know.

 

I'll try windowed mode and matching up resolution and sync and see what happens. If anything useful comes out, I'll post back.

 

As a possibly related question, is anyone running a custom nVidia program settings profile for CoH? Have you found any optimal settings that work for you?

[TieMe]

Having the same issue myself.

 

Noticed that if I turn off the monitor connected via DPort, restart, login and then turn on the other monitor it fixes the issue for me...  Its annoying

[Agony]

I started playing yesterday on my dual monitor setup. Worked fine. Today' date=' the second monitor completely loses (flickers on/off sort of) it when I start up the game. Running windowed mode at the moment, but that's not really ideal. Have not updated my drivers or anything like that. Worth noting is tat it also slows down the game itself a lot.[/quote']

 

Exactly this issue, just started today.  Have reset my computer a couple of times.  Been playing since the open announcement and this is the first time this has happened.

[Hyperstrike]

Okay I'm playing on an RTX 2060.

My monitor setup is 3x27" 4K monitors in Portrait mode.

I use the NVSurround feature in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

 

Please note this feature isn't perfect.

Windows still "snap to monitor".  As does the Taskbar (with no way to fix the Taskbar).

You'll want to tell the game to ignore screen scaling.

Otherwise you'll be re-arranging window positions every time you play.

 

 

Also, if you have screen-flicker on one of your monitors take a look at one solution here.

Another possibility is that you simply have a defective cable.

 

 

Note: Ignore the cable mess.  It's long since cleaned up.

 

 

 

 

[WanderingAries]

Windows still "snap to monitor".  As does the Taskbar (with no way to fix the Taskbar).

 

Unless needed for something else, you know you can turn off snap right? Unless you're talking about an NVidia feature, then IDK how that works.

[Agony]

The above flicker issue link fixed my problem.

[Hyperstrike]

The above flicker issue link fixed my problem.

 

Stupid question.  Were you using NVSurround?  Or just running the monitors individually?