Multiple Screen Setup in portrait mode with Brown Screen

[Nick7515]

I have a problem that after searching and searching on this forum, I am unable to solve.

System Details:
i9 Processor
32G Memory
Nvidia 3080ti GPU
Nvidia GT730 GPU
4 Viewsonic 27" Touch Screen Monitors
1 ASUS ROG SWIFT 43" 4K Gaming Monitor
Two of the Touch Screen monitors are in Portrait layout.

Problem:

When I started to think about this setup I did some testing.  I had the new computer built with everything installed as listed above.  I had not purchased the touch screens or the gaming monitor yet.  I tested PSX on my old monitor and just hooked up a normal 27" monitor.  I set the layout to portrait and ran one instance of PSX.  the layout worked great.  It filled the screen in portrait mode.  I moved to order the 4 touch screens.  After, I plugged all 4 into the 4 HDMI ports on the Nvidia GT730.  All 4 monitors displayed PSX, and 2 of those 4 where in Portrait and 2 were in landscape.  I was running four PSX instances linked via the server/client mode.  All systems go.  Next step, I added the 5th screen... the 43" gaming monitor and plugged it into the Nvidia 3080ti.  The plan was to have the 730 run the 4 touch screen monitors and the 3080ti run only the 43" 4k gaming monitor to display the visuals.  The visuals would be supplied by MSFS2020 and linked with WidePSX. 

After I plugged in the gaming monitor, all things changed.  When I started Aerowinx, the way it would display on the portrait screens changed.  To describe what it did is easiest by saying, it appeared that PSX no longer knew it had the whole screen anymore and basically changed to a landscape layout, leaving a BROWN SCREEN in  the bottom half of the screen.  It was like although Windows agreed that the screen is in Portrait mode, PSX didnt know it. 

I have searched this forum over and over and cant find a solution to this?  I have also tried everything I know as far as messing with settings in the Nvidia Controller.  Both video cards are updated and have the current drivers.  Both show up in the controller and in the controller, all the monitors show up respectively controlled by their GPU's.  All 4 touch are controlled by the GT730 and the one 4K gaming monitor is being controlled by the 3080ti.

Has anyone out there had this BROWN SCREEN problem?  How have you solved it if you have?  Perhaps its a compatibility problem?  Before I added the 43' monitor, PSX functioned fine. 

Any support would be great. 

[Hardy Heinlin]

I assume you're running 4 instances of PSX within the same Aerowinx folder, and these 4 instances are driving 5 monitors.

I would suggest this:

Start a 5th PSX instance (within the same Aerowinx folder) so that every monitor is driven by a single PSX instance.


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Do I understand it correctly that you have four (touch screen) monitors with each its own PSX instance, and one "game" monitor (large & fast) with MSFS but no PSX at all on it?

If something changes when you plug in the game monitor, then I guess Windows is set up to merge all monitors into one large virtual setup. This means that all screen coordinates may change and PSX's absolute references are no longer valid. If PSX is stretched off one monitor and spans multiple monitors, the brown effect appears. There's a setting in PSX to allow stretching over multiple monitors, but probably you don't WANT to stretch, so you may need to figure out exactly what goes wrong with the absolute coordinates when you plug in the game monitor.

It literally may be one pixel line width that sits on an adjacent monitor which throws off the whole drawing and causes the brown area. It is a known effect. It can be remedied but first you need to understand what is going on.

Hoppie

[Nick7515]

Hardy,

Yes, I am running 4 instances of PSX (server/client setup) but I have 5 total monitors connected using two GPU's.  I never planned to use another instance of PSX on the 5th 4K gaming monitor...  that monitor was going to only display the visuals from MSFS2020 via WidePSX. 

Jeroen,

Yes, you have correctly understood my setup.  I have 4 instances of PSX running, one on each touch screen monitor.  two of the touch screen monitors are in portrait mode.  At this time, I have not moved on with my project to download MSFS2020, or messed with WidePSX as of yet.... but I have tested it before.  I haven't been able to get PSX working properly so...  my computer only has PSX loaded on it. 

Today I was going back in history over the past 2 months.  I wasn't sure if I had all 5 monitors connected when PSX did function as desired.  Trying to figure out where the problem is.  I know initially, when I plugged in the big 4K gaming monitor, PSX started to malfunction.  But I remember tinkering some with different settings and as it turns out, it did function with all the monitors connected. I had this BROWN SCREEN issue once before, and solved it.  I went through so many solutions, I cant remember what fixed it though.  I feel like its a Windows problem.  I will say this...  I remember selecting "allow screen stretching" box on both the Portrait layouts and it worked.  It stretched the PSX image to fill just its monitor, confining PSX to it and not stretching to all the others.  It seems now, windows is actually doing that, across all the screens, to include the big 4K gaming monitor. 

Let me tell you guys...  when I had PSX working on all 4 touch screen monitors it was a dream come true for me.  I have a lot of money invested in this project and I am so utterly disappointed that it is failing. I will continue to tinker with it.  Maybe something breaks.  I do think it has something to do with screen layout in windows.  I don't believe its PSX causing this.

As always, any suggestions is appreciated.   

[asboyd]

One of your problems could be that Nvidia has different drivers for the 700 series and the 3 series. I know this because my scenery machine has a 3060 and the others (psx cockpit screens) use 710's....

If you are using the 7xx driver to drive the 3080 then that could be part of the issue.

AlexB

[Nick7515]

Alex,

Thanks for responding.  I have, as you know both the Nvidia 3080ti and the Nvidia GT730 in my computer.  I also have downloaded, installed and updated both drivers for both GPU's.  The seem to be working together well.  I only have one active Nvidia Controller that controls bother GPU's.  While looking in the controller software, it clearly displays how the 730 is controlling the 4 touch screens and the 3080ti is controlling the one 4K gaming monitor. 

I believe the problem is in windows sizing parameters.  When one instance of PSX is executed on one touchscreen, specifically the one in Portrait mode, and I maximize the window, it stretches it to all screens, if the "allow stretching accross all monitors" is selected.  If I deselect that option, it maximizes PSX and confines it to that one monitor, however it displays the image only using the upper half of the screen and the lower half is BROWN SCREEN.  Its almost like wither PSX does not know the screen is in Portrait Mode or windows wont display it that way. 

The only way I can get PSX to fill the whole Portrait screen layout is to use two instances of PSX on that one screen and only manually stretch that windows of each to fill the screen.  So one instance is a window in the top half and one instance is in the bottom half.  This is not as it has worked when I started this project and tested it. 

The hard part is, I know it works... somehow.  I just dont know how to replicate it.  Something either I changed in option settings, or a glitch in Windows or PSX.  Its just hard to figure it out. 

Nick.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Which method do you apply to expand the PSX frame to fill the monitor? Do you click Microsoft's "maximize" button or do you drag the PSX border with the mouse? When you want to store frame size data in your PSX layout, you need to use the mouse method. The PSX layout data doesn't include "maximize" commands. When you click "maximize" (or "full screen") you make the layout system of PSX partially unusable.


|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Windows "Maximize" is a special mode that does not tell the program to resize but to Maximize. It is like Hardy says, not equivalent to manually resizing even while it superficially looks like it is. A Maximized window will be of a different size if you bring it up on another monitor.

So a Maximized window will tell PSX the size of the previously set manual rectangle while Windows gives it more space, which PSX does not know about and which gets filled with the basic background Boeing brown.

Windows "Full Screen" is yet another special mode that isn't equivalent to anything really.

/-/

[Nick7515]

Hardy,

I have tried both methods to fill the screen.  If I load one instance of PSX on the screen with portrait layout, and I manually drag the border of the PSX window up, left, right, and then down....  As I pull the window down through the midpoint of the screen, the BROWN SCREEN begins to appear.  Same thing happens instantly when I click on the windows maximize box in the top right border box. 

Again, doing that has worked in the past.  It's been suggested it wouldn't or shouldn't, but it did work.  But it doesn't now.  I don't believe this maximizing has anything to do with it. I am suspecting the two video cards and drivers though.  When I get a chance, I am going to plug all the monitors into the 3080ti....and use just one driver.  See if that helps any.  Only problem is, I will be short one monitor input..... unless the HDMI plug on the mother board can run that last PSX monitor..... or, although It says the 3080ti can only support 4 monitors.....it has 3 DISPLAY PORTS, and 2 HDMI's.  Maybe since I am not using more then 1080p for PSX, perhaps the 3080ti will run all 5.  We will see.

Nick

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I searched but could not find if PSX reports the size of the display it thinks it sits on. This may hold a clue. PSX won't paint beyond what it (Java) thinks is paintable.

[Hardy Heinlin]

I searched but could not find if PSX reports the size of the display it thinks it sits on.

PSX reports the size on Instructor > Layout > Setting, at the bottom left. It also shows the insets for any OS menu bars.


|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Duh. Got it.

On my system it reports 3286 x 1223. I have two displays, side by side.
External = 1920 x 1080
Laptop = 1366 x 768

So the horizontal 1920 + 1366 = 3286 makes complete sense.
The vertical first made me scratch my head but then I realized that my laptop display is on the table and my monitor on a stand, so I configured them vertically so that the laptop is a bit below the bottom of the external monitor. So PSX reports the embracing rectangle around both.

And no matter what I try, it works fine anyway. No brown areas at all. I can move around and stretch over both and do everything I want.

[Nick7515]

Well, here is the update to this problem I continue to have.

I decided to consider Alex Boyd's comment about a conflict with both the 3080ti and the 730GT nvidia drivers and swap out the 730GT for a completely different GPU.  I went with the Radeon RX550 which has 4gb memory (twice as much as the 730GT)  and 4 HDMI video (same as the 730GT).  I still have the same problem.  Something I did notice yesterday though....  I have two computers in my office, one is the new high powered computer which I am using for PSX and MSFS2020, and my general office computer.  Both have Windows 10 and both have the same updated version of PSX on them. The office computer is older and only has one screen, a 24" monitor.  Now you all know that the gaming computer has the 3080ti and now, the RX550, along with WIndows 10 and an i9 CPU. I have seen that in "Display Settings" in Windows, you can change the resolution from 100% to 175%.  It is set on 125% on both the office and gaming computer. Now although the monitor on the office computer is a 24" capable of 1920 X 1200, and the gaming touch monitors are 27" capable of 1920 X 1080, they are not displaying PSX the same, as in correctly.     

So, I did a little "lets see what happens when" test yesterday.  I opened PSX on my office computer.  I changed the layout to portrait and PSX fills the screen when I maximize it or simply stretch the window to fill the screen.  NO BROWN SCREEN.  But when I still do the same thing on the gaming computer, I get the brown screen on the bottom half on the Portrait layout.  As a matter of fact, if I go to 100% on both computers, the office computer still displays PSX appropriately....  and conversely, if I do the same thing on the gaming computer, I just get more BROWN SCREEN and it does it on both the Landscape display and the Portrait display.  on the Landscape display it appears both on the right side and bottom. 

What I did notice is this:
When I look at the layout screen, in the bottom left is says "Physical Screen Size Available", on the office computer, it says, 1920 X 1200, as it should since that is the resolution capability of the monitor.  However, when I look at the layout screen on the gaming computer, it says its 1707 X 960 and the resolution capability on that monitor is
1920 X 1080.

I am not sure why on one computer, I get the resolution the monitor can display, yet on the other, I am not. 

This is what has me so frustrated.  I have seen PSX screen size function properly before on the gaming computer.  It worked correctly once, then it didnt.  I cant figure out what is causing this.  I have tried everything I conceivably know to do from messing with windows display settings, to before, the Nvidia settings in the control panel with the 730GT, and now with the Radeon 550 and its control panel.  Nothing I do is correcting this.  Only thing I can think of is to reload the Windows 10 operating system, or move on to Windows 11.  I relocated the screen positions in relation to each other in Display settings / Windows as well.  Heck, I even removed Java, and reloaded it.  Nothing. 

There are multiple people who have this same issue.  Some are able to correct it and some aren't.  I have tried all the solutions they offer in the posts.  Nothing. 

Ultimately, what is causing PSX to read my screen as 1707 X 960 when it should be 1920 X 1080?  I know the Windows task bar might take some screen space away, but something is either telling PSX it only has [this much screen to display] or, I don't know...

Hardy, do you have any ideas at this point as to the cause?  I know its not PSX causing this.  It seems to be in Windows or maybe Java.  Cant tell.  Every problem has a solution....  often times, a simple one.  I know it will display properly because I have seen it. I am not sure if the dual video GPU's is the problem frankly?  I wonder if I should just move to a two computer setup?  Remember, I have 4 Viewsonic Touch Screen monitors and 1 4K 43" gaming monitor.  5 screens in total.  BTW, for those people wondering....  yes, I have tried plugging in the monitors into just one GPU, the 3080ti and it still caused the Brown Screen.  I couldn't plug them all in...  only 3 of the 4 viesonics, but enough to see it occur using just a single GPU. 

Stil looking for a solution.  :}
   

[Hardy Heinlin]

However, when I look at the layout screen on the gaming computer, it says its 1707 X 960

Under "Physical screen size available" there's another indication called "Desktop screen insets". What values are displayed there?

Are you still testing it with and without "Allow stretching ..."?

Can you move a smaller PSX frame to the bottom and is that smaller frame at the bottom also brown?

My calculator tells me that there is a x/y-proportional scaling factor involved when I compare 1707x960 to 1920x1080.

It's factor 0.8890625. Is there anything in your Windows system that applies this "software" based scaling factor to your hardware screen?

[Nick7515]

Merry Christmas Hardy..

So, this is what I see.
 
Office computer: 
Physical Screen Size Available:
{ in Landscape Mode } 1920 X 1200
Desktop Screen Size Insets:
L:9 - R:9 - Upr:38 - Lwr:9

Gaming computer:
Physical Screen Size Available:
{ in Landscape Mode } 1707 X 960
Desktop Screen Size Inserts:
L:8 - R:8 - Upr:31 - Lwr:8

Yes, I am still testing without using "Allow stretching"...  if I do that it stretches the window across all my 5 screens.  If I move the PSX instance window down to the bottom of the screen no brown screen.... but if I place that window in the top half of the screen and pull the window down from the bottom, it will pull down to a point about half way down the screen then the remainder will be brown screen.  In other words, I have tested two instances of PSX on that one portrait screen.  One at the top, I stretch out the top, bottom, left and right to the edges, and the bottom of course down to just before it would go to the brown screen.  Then, I load a second instance of PSX and move it down to the bottom of the screen, and then size it Left and Right, Down and then up to just nearly overlap the upper instance of PSX at approx. mid screen.  That works, but complicates things a bit and is not how it has worked before. 

As far as the proportional scaling factor, I dont know?  Not sure how to determine that.  Where would I look to find that information?

Nick.

[Nick7515]

Hardy,

btw.. the numbers are the same on the Portrait screen as the Landscape screen.

Gaming computer:
Physical Screen Size Available:
{ in Landscape and Portrait Mode } 1707 X 960
Desktop Screen Size Inserts:
L:8 - R:8 - Upr:31 - Lwr:8

[Hardy Heinlin]

Why don't you use "Allow stretching ..." and simply stretch your frames with the mouse to the desired size instead of clicking the maximize button? You should never use the maximize button when you manage your layouts with layout files. The files do not store maximize commands.

Where this scaling factor is hidden? I don't know, unfortunately. Maybe someone else has an idea?

[Nick7515]

Hardy,

Ok... another update.  On my gaming computer, the 43" screen is my main screen as defined in Windows 10.  I had a suspicion that opening PSX on that 43" 4k monitor with a different resolution might be causing issues.  I was correct. I deleted PSX from the gaming computer.  Then I changed the main screen to be one of the 27" touch screens.  I then reloaded PSX onto that computer.  When I launched PSX on the 27" touch screen {Now the Main} screen, its desktop screen insets match the office computer...

Physical Screen Size Available:
{ in Landscape  or Portrait Mode } 1920 X 1200
Desktop Screen Size Insets:
L:9 - R:9 - Upr:38 - Lwr:9

although I figured that one out...  the Brown Screen problem still remains. 

I have a feeling its got something to do with Windows Mutli Screen programing.  It could be a glitch or just the way it is.  It seems...although I have told windows that, that particular monitor is in Portrait mode, the virtual space is not recognizing that it is.  To better explain this... I have two 27" screens in front of me.  The left screen is in Landscape and the right one just physically right of that screen is in Portrait.  The two screens are in like a reverse "L" shape. aligned at the tops...when next to each other.  When I went to make the left Landscaped screen the "Main" screen as far as Windows is concerned, I noticed a boundary show up momentarily that extended over into the portrait screen, as it was reconfiguring for that landscape screen to be the "Main" screen...  then it finished adjusting and that boundary disappeared.  I believe that boundary is still there and is what is causing the Brown Screen to appear in the portrait screen when I stretch the bottom of PSX window or even maximize it.  Its not that the screens are positioned both physically and in the Display setting next to each other.  I have tried moving them apart in the virtual Display Position setting in Windows.  It still does the same thing, even though they arent "virtually" adjacent to each other.

Seems to be a Windows 10 issue where multi screen setup is concerned.  At least on my computer anyway. 

[Nick7515]

Hardy,

You are a genius man! 

All along you have been telling me the answer but I wasn't fully understanding.  You have always said, don't use the maximize button. So, I just clicked on "Allow Stretching...  and then manually dragged the window down to the bottom of the screen. 

Holy crap, it worked!  NO BROWN SCREEN!

I think this might be a form of operator error or expectational bias, an aviation term we as pilots are all too familiar with.  I guess I had done the maximizing window thing before and it worked...  and so I always thought it should work..even though you said I shouldn't use it.  Now I know I can get the result I want and its a great Christmas Gift. 

Thanks bud for your help with this.

Nick.   

[Hardy Heinlin]

Glad it works :-)


Cheerio!

|-|ardy