Running on Plasma TV

[Boondy]

I run Media Centre on my PC, and output to a 42â? Panasonic Plasma via DVI-HDMI. Media centre works fine but GameEx doesnâ??t seem to like it.

I changed the display option to, â??run on second monitorâ? but when I do this I get the following run error:

02:52:06.5 7/02/2006: Error in the application.

02:52:06.5 7/02/2006: at Microsoft.DirectX.DirectDraw.Surface.DrawInternal(tagRECT* destRectangle, Surface sourceSurface, tagRECT* srcRectangle, DrawFlags flags, DrawEffects& bltEffects)

02:52:06.5 7/02/2006: at Microsoft.DirectX.DirectDraw.Surface.Draw(Rectangle destRectangle, Surface sourceSurface, Rectangle srcRectangle, DrawFlags flags)

02:52:06.5 7/02/2006: at GameEx.GameEx.mainform.DisplayFrame()

If I donâ??t select run on second monitor, it starts up fine, but obviously doesnâ??t show up on the Plasma.

I have scoured through the forum, and tried changing the advised settings, turning off advanced mode, changing to 16bit etc but nothing works, same error. The resolution on my plasma is already set to 800x600, but I have also tried both settings (donâ??t change and change my resolution) neither work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Vynce]

You can try setting your plasma as the primary display in the Windows Display settings. Then set GameEx to open on the first display.

If you want to automate this process get UltraMon. Then set GameEx to run path\to\ultramon.exe /p 2 on GameEx start (switch second display to be primary), and path\to\ultramon.exe /p 1 on GameEx exit (switch back to primary display). This works very well for me.

[Tom Speirs]

You can try setting your plasma as the primary display in the Windows Display settings. Then set GameEx to open on the first display.

If you want to automate this process get UltraMon. Then set GameEx to run path\to\ultramon.exe /p 2 on GameEx start (switch second display to be primary), and path\to\ultramon.exe /p 1 on GameEx exit (switch back to primary display). This works very well for me.

Let us know if this works for you Boondy, otherwise Ill get you a debug version of GameEx, although I am thinking it may be some kind of hardware/driver issue hopefully the above will work with.

Thanks for the info Vynce, can you confirm you originally had the same issue until you did this?

[Boondy]

Thanks Vynce!

Yes, this worked perfectly. GameEx now runs on the plasma and exits back to dual monitor mode, seting everything back to the way it was.

The only problem i have now, which im not sure is related, is that when i open Mortal Kombat 3, the video isnt right. I'm not sure what the exact description of this problem is, but basically there are horixontal lines running through the screen, it looks as if there are two copies of the image on the screen and one is slightly lowe than the other, creating a vertical blur of the image.

It only seems to be effecting mortal kombat 3 and MK3 Ultimate, i've tested about 5 other games and they all work fine (however they are all older games).

I'll have a play around with the display settings in the configurator, but if anyone knows a quick fix it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again

Boondy

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks Vynce!

Yes, this worked perfectly. GameEx now runs on the plasma and exits back to dual monitor mode, seting everything back to the way it was.

The only problem i have now, which im not sure is related, is that when i open Mortal Kombat 3, the video isnt right. I'm not sure what the exact description of this problem is, but basically there are horixontal lines running through the screen, it looks as if there are two copies of the image on the screen and one is slightly lowe than the other, creating a vertical blur of the image.

It only seems to be effecting mortal kombat 3 and MK3 Ultimate, i've tested about 5 other games and they all work fine (however they are all older games).

I'll have a play around with the display settings in the configurator, but if anyone knows a quick fix it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again

Boondy

Maybe MK3 is changing the resolution of your Plasma, you should make sure mame is running at the same and a fixed resolution to your plasma.

Add -noswitchres to the MAME CMD line options under advanced mame setup in the config app.

[Boondy]

-noswitchres fixed the problem.

Thanks very much.

[Vynce]

I did not have those DirectX errors trying to run GameEx on a secondary display (at least not a few versions ago - I haven't tried that setting in the last couple of weeks).

Initially I was going to use the "run on second monitor" setting in GameEx, but many emulators do not support multiple displays and simply open on the primary display. So eventhough GameEx opened on the secondary display properly, games usually still showed up on the primary display. I solved the problem by switching the primary display at GameEx start and exit (as described above) - then everything that GameEx executes shows up on the correct display.

[Boondy]

Vynce,

Well it works a treat, fixed the problem straight away.

Do i need to purchase Ultramon just to use the comand utility? Or is registration only for the fron end software?

[Vynce]

Yes, I think you need to purchase the whole utility to use just that feature. $40 is kinda expensive though.

I just found another program called VidRes that can also switch the primary monitor. Unfortunately it is also not freeware, but registration is only ~$5 - close enough, right . I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it looks like a good alternative.

[Vynce]

I just quickly tested VidRes. Here are the command lines:

On GameEx start:

path\to\vidres.exe /m1 /p /q

Switch monitor 1 (2nd display) to primary and keep quiet.

On GameEx exit:

path\to\vidres.exe /m0 /p /q

Switch monitor 0 (1st display) to primary and keep quiet.

Registering will get rid of the nag box that pops up when VidRes is run.

It has a number of other useful-looking features.