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Windows Multi-Monitors Are Awesome - Feature Request

XanthorXIII

Member
Multi-Monitors are so awesome. I have three, one in a Portrait Setup and two in Landscape. Makes for some pretty cool things I can do. One of those I really wish I could do is tell GameMaker which Monitor I want the game to output. This is so I can test games I create in Multiple Monitors to see how my display scaling is being handled. Not the best but it seems to work ok. What I do need to know is if there is already a way I can do this. If not, I would like a feature in GameMaker that can detect my monitors and I can set the target Monitor for the game to display on in the target. If I have to make it rain Donuts over there to get this, so be it.
 
K

Kenjiro

Guest
Hibba dibba da dibba do.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Just tell windows which is your primary monitor (via the display properties) and it'll switch.
 
Just tell windows which is your primary monitor (via the display properties) and it'll switch.
That doesn't help if you want the game to launch in a secondary monitor, which seems to be what he's asking for, hahah. I mean, you could keep changing your primary monitor around, but that isn't ideal.

@XanthorXIII: Can you move your open game to other monitors while it's open, or is that impossible, too?
 

XanthorXIII

Member
That doesn't help if you want the game to launch in a secondary monitor, which seems to be what he's asking for, hahah. I mean, you could keep changing your primary monitor around, but that isn't ideal.

@XanthorXIII: Can you move your open game to other monitors while it's open, or is that impossible, too?
No it only goes to my Primary Window. I can do what Mike is suggesting through hotkeys via Display Fusion which is probably something I should be running, but there should be something in GM that I can tell it which Monitor to send the Game to.
 
If you hold control, shift, and the windows key, you should be able to move your open window to other monitors with the arrow keys. That doesn't work with your game?
 
R

Rukiri

Guest
I went ultra wide but...will be waiting for 4K ultrawides not just 3440x1440 with hdr and 200hz.
Currently have a X34 which I just bought a month ago, love it!
 

XanthorXIII

Member
I guess I should be more clear. The game starts in Window mode which is fine. I was just hoping there is a way to start it in the monitor of my choosing. I'm testing Window/display sizing upon game start up. I may just need to rethink how I'm doing this.
 
I raised this a while ago, and it looks like it is still active in the Mantis tracker, assigned to Mike, with the following details. (The first part is what I logged, and it looks like the preference bit is from YYG):
Drag GMS2 onto any monitor that is not the primary (in a multiple monitor setup), and then run any project with F5 or F6. When the project runs, it will always appear on the primary monitor regardless of which monitor the IDE is on.

[We should have a Preference which allows the user to set which monitor to start the game on, picking from detected monitors.]
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Sorry, I simply don't see the need to change this. Games always run on the primary monitor. if you want to switch which monitor your running on, change that monitor. You can move the task bar to any monitor, and run the IDE from any monitor. There isn't any good reason I can see for this as windows already provides you with a way to do it.

It's not even like you have to reset or anything, it just swaps. For testing on different resolutions and cards, this a simple thing to do.

Not allowing this does not block development, windows has good tools for doing this anyway. This is not going to change.
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
Actually I can see this being very useful. As i dont want to change my primary monitor just when i run GM.
It would indeed be nice to have the game launch in a specific monitor.

What would be nice too (but much less important given the amount of work required) would be to be able to launch the game on another PC on the network.
It could perhaps run a server to listen to incoming GM games and run them. This could be very useful when debugging on different hardware. (though again, not super urgent. would much rather see GML updates first)
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
As I've said, Windows has a much better UI for this than we could have - without adding a significant work load, something I simply don't think is needed for the odd times you need to test. Changing primary monitors is trivial these days, and for testing totally acceptable. I'm not saying it's not useful, I'm saying you don't need the option/selection inside the IDE because windows already has it.

....would be to be able to launch the game on another PC on the network.
This is something that will actually come as it's part of work we need to do anyway. With the OSX version we need to be able to build for windows, on a windows machine as you need to build for Macs on an actual Mac, and as you can't just SSH into them we need to write stuff to allow this. So once we can do this from Macs, you should also be able to do it from another windows box (eventually).
 

XanthorXIII

Member
Sorry, I simply don't see the need to change this. Games always run on the primary monitor. if you want to switch which monitor your running on, change that monitor. You can move the task bar to any monitor, and run the IDE from any monitor. There isn't any good reason I can see for this as windows already provides you with a way to do it.

It's not even like you have to reset or anything, it just swaps. For testing on different resolutions and cards, this a simple thing to do.

Not allowing this does not block development, windows has good tools for doing this anyway. This is not going to change.
What about a function that we can call to change the monitor the game runs on. That would also give us the ability to let the folks that play our games the choice of which monitor it runs on. Sure not many would need it but if someone had a monitor they wanted it to startup on all the time instead of the primary, that would be very handy. For example folks that do Lets Play or Twitch for that matter
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Again.... such a rare requirement, I simply don't want to waste the bandwidth on it when there is so many other things we could/should be doing instead.
And again... for those that need it - for twitch whatever, the windows desktop management is more than enough for this task anyway.

The only requirement I've found where this isn't the case, is laptop users that have 2 graphics cards, and even then there are usually bios requirements for this.

So sorry, just not worth the effort at the moment.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Again.... such a rare requirement, I simply don't want to waste the bandwidth on it when there is so many other things we could/should be doing instead.
It's a shame that things that have no possibility of getting implemented are are put into Mantis and "assigned", it's a bit misleading and seems like it's used to just placate people. *cough* Spine *cough*
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
If Support or QA aren't sure they'll file the issue, and it'll then get assigned. After that once someone reviews it, it'll get responded to. It's not up to Support or QA to decide on features, for feature suggestions they'll throw away the "nuts" ones - I want to run GameMaker on my ZX Spectrum, and file the rest.
 
Sorry, I simply don't see the need to change this. Games always run on the primary monitor. if you want to switch which monitor your running on, change that monitor. You can move the task bar to any monitor, and run the IDE from any monitor. There isn't any good reason I can see for this as windows already provides you with a way to do it.

It's not even like you have to reset or anything, it just swaps. For testing on different resolutions and cards, this a simple thing to do.

Not allowing this does not block development, windows has good tools for doing this anyway. This is not going to change.
That's a shame Mike. I understand where you're coming from, but I won't be swapping which monitor is my primary just to allow GMS2 to start the IDE on the monitor I want, or to run the game on the one I want. Shame, but I'll just make do with dragging it onto my second or third monitor each time I want to use it.

What would be awesome however (I am fully prepared for you to say "no"), would be if the IDE (not the game you are running) would remember which monitor it was last executed on, and therefore when you next start the IDE it will be on that monitor. This is how the majority of Windows applications work, once you have started the program you drag it to another monitor and when finished you shut it down, and the next time you start that same program it appears on the monitor it was last used on.
 

rIKmAN

Member
for feature suggestions they'll throw away the "nuts" ones - I want to run GameMaker on my ZX Spectrum, and file the rest.
With the progress I see you making on Twitter with the SpectrumNext it surely can't be far away! ;)
 

JeffJ

Member
Actually, GTA 5 has an option in the settings to let you decide on which monitor the game should run, and I absolutely love that feature. I have a total of 5 displays hooked up to my computer - one of them is a TV. Sometimes I want to play on my primary monitor, sometimes I want to play on 3 of them in a surround view setup, but sometimes I just want to throw the game up on my TV for some couch gaming. That is only specific to that single play session, so it would be too much of a hassle to change my primary display, because that would change everything else as well - this is why the game gives me the option just for the game.

Whenever I play a game now, be it indie or AAA, I sorely miss that feature in the settings menu! GTA 5 is so far the only game I've seen provide that option, but I would love to include the same option in my games.

So I'm not even seeing this as something that should be a GGS option, I'm seeing this as something we should be able to do programmatically.
 
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