ATC and Dual Monitors

[ozzy72]

I asked this question in the hard ware forum, but haven't had any responces.

I'm running dual monitors, I normaly place the radio stack, gps and the atc window on the second window, all was great and working fine untill about a week ago, when the atc window stopped showing the text for atc.

Works fine on the main monitor, but when I undock it and move it over to the second monitor, Bam no text. I've tried and searched for the cause with no luck.

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Steve

[Billerator]

Wow, that is strange. I suppose the most obvious thing is the drivers, have you tried re-installing them?

[ozzy72]

No I haven't, but that is a something I might try. If it is the drivers, I would think that the other windows wouldn't work or mal function. But I will try it. Thanks.

Steve

[ozzy72]

Just reloaded the ATI drivers and that didn't correct the problem.

BTW I'm using the Radeon 9600 card.

Steve

[ozzy72]

Steve have you added any other programs lately that might unwittingly have caused interference?

Ozzy

[stevewilson]

Hi Ozzy;

I don't think so.  It was working fine one afternoon, and when I went back to FS9 later that evenning it started leaving out the text. I hadn't added, installed or removed any items.

Its very odd. A friend of mine has just put in a new card that allows him to run dual monitors, and his working just fine.

Steve

[garymbuska]

Steve This might be a problem with FS?
Did you remove the drivers first? or did you just reinstall?
In order to prevent unistalling & reinstalling fs
you might want to consider the following:
1)remove the video card drivers
2)Uninstall the video card
3)restart your system letting it reinstall both the card and the drivers.

If this does not help You may not have no choice but to unistall & reinstall fs

[stevewilson]

Gary

I just went through uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers and card.  No luck here.

I'll keep looking. I'm just not ready to reinstall FS9 yet. Reinstalling FS9 not that big a deal its all the add-on scenery and AFCAD2 files that is a pain in the ***.

Thanks for trying.

Steve

[garymbuska]

Steve
If you have to reinstall make your life a lot easier by moviing your scenery cfg file and your addon scenery folder to a differtent folder. I also move the effects folder the sound folder and the texture folder.
after the reinstall just drag them back and over write it sure beats adding all the scenery and any flatten  & exclude switches you might have back manually

[stevewilson]

Gary

Thats what I was about to do when I got finnished with the honeydos.

While busy with the honeydos, I rememberd that I hadn't reinstalled the updated drivers to the card.

Just finnished doing that and all seems to be fine now. The ATC text is showing up again.

How ever since I am always making changes to the folders you mentioned I think I'll start backing them up on a regular bases any how. You can't be to safe.

Thanks to everyone for there help.

Steve

[garymbuska]

Steve
Glad to see you solved the problem without having to uninstall & reinstall FS. But I am glad to see that we think alike I now back up my Fs folders on a regular basis. It can be a real pain in the *** to go reinstall all of your addon scenery. I did it twice before I said enough is enough.
So tell me whats its like to use two monitors in FS.
It seems that it would be a little strange. My video card supports two monitors but I do not have the room for them. What sizes do you use.

[stevewilson]

Gary

Using dual monitors is great. I can put not only ATC, but the radio stack and GPS over on the 2nd screen, that way I can see all of the panel, or use the "W" key to have just the main gauges at the bottom of the main screen and enjoy the scenery.

The main monitor is a 21'' flat screen, the 2nd is a 19'' standard screen.

If you decide to go with two screen make sure you set the displays up as 1 and 2 and extend your screen onto the 2nd. DON'T use the clone mode. Then you just uncheck the Full Screen in the view menu. Then open the radio stack window, undock it, grab it with the mouse and drag it over to the 2nd screen.

The tutoreal I read says that there is no way to save the windows on the 2nd screen. However I have found that if you set it up and then save the flight, the windows will reappear in the 2nd screen.

As for being strange, not at all. I have mine set right next to each other with the 2nd to the right side, it's just like being in the pilot seat.

If you have a 2nd monitor laying around, try it and I'll bet you will find the space to keep it set up.

Let me know what you find.

Steve

[garymbuska]

Steve
I have the monitor but I do not have the space to put it.
Both monitors are 17" and that just takes up to much space on the computer desk that I have. It is one of those wire framed ones with the slide out tray for the keyboard. If I were to get rid of my printer I might be able to put it there but it would be to awkard because of the space between the two monitors.
If I ever get a different desk maybe I will try that. It would take some getting used to though.
See you in the posts

[stevewilson]

Gary

Not sure what you mean by "wire frame", but if it will take the waight, you might try building a three sided box to sit over your main monitor and place the other one or your printer on top. Just make sure you brace the back corners of the box for support.

As for the problem mentioned above, Weeell it came back five fold, now FS9 won't even load.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled both FS9 and the radeon 9600xt drivers several times.

This started happening after I change the memory usage to "System Cache" from Program cache. I changed the cache back, but that did no good.

I'm thinking about pulling the card out and reverting back to may old card and starting all over again.

What do you think, any ideas?

Steve

[garymbuska]

Steve
Something you might want to consider is to use system restore and go back a few days. But beware any thing that you might have put on your drive between then & now will be lost.
I for one never mess with the cache. Its like playing with fire if you are not carefull you will get burned.
Sorry your having such problems. I have certainly have had my share using windows ME. Part of me wants to go to XP but I have doubts on how well my system will preform with it. It might slow it down I run a PENT III at just under 1 ghz with 640 megs ram 60 gig hard drive.
Max ram is 768 meg.
The desk is made from tublar metal with wire grid like backing not exactly the sturdiest thing ever made. But right now that is the best i can do.
I hope you do not have to do a complete system restore.