Multiple monitors with Wildfire?

Not Matrox. Matrox does good 2d CAD, but not 3D.

Get an nVidia Quadro, ATI FireGL series, or 3dlabs Wildcat. nVidia GeForce3/4 is a decent budget card.

Dave

Hello!

From my point of view, using mutliple monitor is only useful if you want to have some other programs running in parallel, such as Excel if you have some design studies, parts dimensions, etc made with it.

I tried to use the dual screen mode with ProE Wildfire, displaying parts or assemblies on both screens. As David said, I noticed some disfunctions. The secondary display couldn't deal correctly with the image, meaning that ProE Wildfire is still not completely able to work in a dual screen mode, using the OpenGL.

Greg.

Having just set up dual monitors, I can say that it is helpful to have a second space for other applications. I keep pro running on my main, and use AutoCAD, Excel, and other applications on the secondary. It is kind of a nice perk, and it doesn't change pro at all. In converting 2D AutoCAD to pro, it is nice not to have to maximize and minimize various applications.

Dual monitors can work very well for running other applications at the same time you have ProE running. We also have a training system setup to run CadTrain tutorials on one monitor and ProE on the other monitor.

There can be a problem with the video not running in OpenGL mode when you have dual monitors. The graphics mode may change to win32_gdi when you activate the second monitor. This happens even if you have graphics set to OpenGL in config.pro. You can verify if this is happening in the Help, Tech Support Info screen. I know this is happening with the nVidia QuadroFX 1000 card and the nVidia Quadro 550 XGL card, but I am not sure about other cards. PTC told me yesterday that this will be fixed in Wildfire, but probably not in 2001.

There is also a problem with Wildfire crashing when you go to the Color & Appearance menu. This was okay in build 2490, but is a problem with later builds. This will also be fixed in a later build.

Maurice Feryn

This has worked beautifully on Silicon Graphics for about 15 years.

Yes you're right.

I heard that before, the display was actually considered as one big screen of twice the size of a normal one. Apparently they changed the displaying strategy and now consider the two screens separately.

I also had the problem with the OpenGL mode not working in dual screen mode on Windows XP. It has been improved a bit now with recently Wildfire versions.

Greg.

How you use your extra screen is up to you. You can run it in a duo configuration with different Xservers controlling each screen. This way two users could use one machine, each with their own screen. Or you could have one Xserver manage both screens and have a different desktop on each screen (mouse jumps from one to the other when you run it off screen). Lastly, you could use a Xinerama configuration and run one large desktop over both screens. You can also control how the screens are 'stacked', either side by side or top to bottom.

OpenGL is fully accellerated with any configuration.

Chris