How to make 2nd screen with lower rez for Games ?

[amigasociety]

Starting to tinker with playing games on my AmigaOne X1000.

Can I make a 2nd screen that has a different lower rez like 800x600 or something that allows games to be bigger and easier to see.

Example...

Just downloaded and played Primate Plunge on my 27" display that is running Workbench at 1920 x 1080. Therefore the playing window is rather small.

I have toyed with making a separate screen for my MUIOWB app but did that from within the app itself.

I have no idea on how to make a screen special to play games in with lower rez.

TJ

[tonyw]

Yes, it's easy, but it might not help you with games. Most games don't offer you the chance to choose a named screen, they just open what they want.

Here's how to create a named screen:

1. Open the system disk, "Prefs", then double-click on "Screens" (not ScreenMode, just Screens). Up will come a window labelled "Screens Preferences".
2. Click on the "Add" button (LH side, under the window that says "Default". A new entry will appear in the list, called "New screen". You can also leave the "active" line on "Default" and click the "Clone" button.
3. Click in the Name box and edit the name to whatever you want.
4. If you clicked "Clone", you are done, else you now have to set the properties for the screen.

Setting properties:
5. Click "Display" Tab. You can enter a screen title if you like, but it's not necessary.
6. Select the Screen mode (800x600 or whatever). Apply "As Default". That's the important one.
7. Under the other two Tabs ("GUI" and "Palette"), be sure to select "Settings" to "Like Workbench". You may want to change those later, but start that way.

"Save" and it's done. Now any application can request to open on the screen you just named. As I said, most games won't ask for a named screen, they'll ask for a screen of 800x600 or 640x512 or whatever. However, you can edit the preferences or tooltypes of some programs to select a named screen and now you can make them open on your own screen.

****** BIG NOTE *******
The screen settings are stored as a meaningless number (the "ScreenID"). This number is unique to the graphics card, monitor and screen mode that you are using. If you change your graphics card or monitor, then ALL defined screen modes will be lost and many programs won't seem to work any more. In that case, you will have to go through and do this:
1. Open the Prefs/Screens editor again.
2. For each entry in the Screens list (LH window), click on the entry.
3. Now, under the DisplayTab, look at the Screen Mode. It's probably wrong since the old ScreenIDs have all changed and it has been replaced by a default.
4. Reselect the correct screen mode, repeat for each line in the Defined Screens List.
5. Save.

Hope this helps.

[amigasociety]

Thanks TonyW.

Curious, if an application just opens in workbench, is there a way to drag or move a running application to this new window manually after the fact?

Kind of like a live workspace where you can drag items between workspaces?

tj

[tonyw]

I guess you mean "Can I drag a window from one screen to another?"

Well, it depends on the application that opened the window. Some (not all) support the newer "Jump-to-Screen" feature that allow you to move the window to another screen, but I would guess that most don't. In any case, you can't drag a window from one screen to another - you can't move the mouse that way (at present, anyway).

The problem is that internally, the application probably has lots of places where the screen is referenced, sometimes not explicitly. The only safe way to move from one screen to another is to iconify (minimise) the window, then reopen it on the new screen. Which is what happens when you change GUI settings on the Workbench - it iconifies every open window, changes the screen settings (which usually produces a new screen address), then reopens every window again (which produces new window addresses). Not every application can support that and you sometimes get the "Please close all open windows (except drawers)" message.

[OldFart]

@TonyW

Which is what happens when you change GUI settings on the Workbench - it iconifies every open window, changes the screen settings (which usually produces a new screen address), then reopens every window again (which produces new window addresses). Not every application can support that and you sometimes get the "Please close all open windows (except drawers)" message.

This very process has intrigued me of late. Could you elaborate on the process involved? Which signal to listen to (IDCMP_NEWPREFS ?)? How to handle that signal/message (I presume it to be an IntuiMessage), then Iconify (or plain close the window) and reopen it again, etc., etc. I want to make this the standard behaviour of all of my apps. I have dabbleda bit with it but did not quite get it to work as I envisioned. Documentation about the subject is scarce if even existant. Every app should react to prefs changes without pestering the user.

OldFart

[ChrisH]

@OldFart
AFAIK, when Workbench's screen wants to close, it just tells all running Commodities to iconify (aka hide). So if your program can be iconified by the Commodity Exchange program, then it should just work.