Running Processing in Windows 'Mosaic' mode

stewar

Hi - I'm trying to get Processing to run full screen on a display that's two panels configured in 'mosaic' mode, which seems to be a bit different from the regular multi-display desktop in ways I can't quite fathom.

At the moment I only get half the sketch showing on the first panel, no matter if i run size(1920,2160) or fullScreen() or even fullScreen(SPAN) - but interestingly if i VNC to the machine i see the full sketch.

I don't know if this 'mosaic' mode is a Windows thing or unique to the NVidia M6000 card in the system, but being a Mac guy mostly it's all a bit of a puzzle.. if anyone can enlighten me I'm happy to provide more info if needed.

cheers ..S.

jeremydouglass

"Mosaic mode" as in this...?

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3568/~/how-to-setup-mosaic-using-nvidia-control-panel

Check out the FAQ at the bottom, too. I have no special insights, but this looks like GPU-specific dark magic for desktop rendering specifically -- I wonder if that has anything to do with VNC showing the full thing, but the application window not rendering natively.

stewar

thanks for the reply & link, seems indeed it is some "GPU-specific dark magic" and I'm probably not going to waste any more time on it for now. Pity, I've got 28 of these dual-display systems arranged in a big wall to play with but it's all set up for Unity, and looks like Processing's going to be the poor cousin left out in the shed in this instance. :(

jeremydouglass

@stewar if you are working with a large tile display have you tried the Most Pixels Ever library? It might not overcome the core issue with each two-screen tile, but it might be worth a few minutes to try since this is what it is designed for.

Libraries: Most Pixels Ever.

jeremydouglass

It is also possible that, as far as Processing is concerned, these are dual-head displays, not two-screen-wide tiles. That measn you have 28 tiles 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, rather than 14 tiles 1, 2, etc.

In that case, you would run one sketch fullScreen(1) and one sketch fullScreen(2); to address each screen of a given tile... or a 28-node Most Pixels Ever setup, with two sketches (fullScreen(1) and fullScreen(2)) running per dual-head computer. See fullScreen() documentation for more detail. This is all guesswork, of course. I'm not sure why the SPAN parameter isn't working for your setup.

stewar

Thanks Jeremy - no I had not heard of the MPE library, I'll definitely look into it - and read up on fullScreen too.

stewar

ah MPE isn't compatible with P3? Given there's a bunch of other things in my code that P3 broke maybe it's time i went back to P2. just so i can make something work. :/

jeremydouglass

Sorry -- I didn't realize that it wasn't 3.x compatible, as I haven't used it in a long time. I just glanced at the MPE github page and saw changes four months back that said "Updated for Processing 3" and assumed it was working.

stewar

I suppose I could try and help make it compatible but I'm not sure I've got the smarts to contribute anything useful :)

jeremydouglass

No, I'd say contact Dan Shiffman. He's one of the Lead Developers of Processing. If he can't get his library working with Processing 3 right now then you probably should just use Processing 2.x with MPE or don't use MPE.

stewar

Maybe it's just that the version on git hasn't made it to the repo or wherever the 'add libraries' panel in Processing gets its info from.. that's where i'm seeing it say incompatible. I'll try grabbing the source and if that doesn't work I'll definitely contact Mr Shiffman, as it seems like such a useful library..

stewar

update: I'm not sure what's changed unfortunately but fortunately fullScreen(1) now makes the sketch run on both displays, yay. Now to get MPE up and running and see if we can't help fix it for P3 too.

jeremydouglass

Wonderful! Good luck with the tile display, and keep us in the loop.