Running WinUAE on a dual-head system

15 July 2003, 23:36

Has anyone done this (successfully :-)? I've just tried, and while UAE starts up just fine, as soon as it opens the Workbench screen, the emulation slows to a crawl. Disabling the second monitor in Windows solves the problem.

I'm running UAE 8.22r6 under Win2K on a Matrox G450. I'm not after being able to run the Workbench across both monitors, but it would be nice not to have to disable the second one just to read my email :-)

Any comments or suggestions will be gratefully received!

Thanks

jmmijo · 16 July 2003, 00:51

So what's the rest of your system config ?!?

I'm thinking that dual-head displaying is really taxing on the system as well as the gpu on the graphics card. Since I've never tried out dual monitors yet, I can't really comment on it either except that I bet it has a lot to do with system performance and configuration

16 July 2003, 01:11

Everything else runs normally, it's just UAE that seems to have the problem.

For the record, this is my system: XP1900+, 1GB RAM, Matrox G450. Both displays are running at 1600x1200x32bit, although again, this setting makes no difference to the problem. It is specifically the fact that the second display is active that triggers it.

Please do not leave signatures in your posts. Configure UserCP instead.

jmmijo · 16 July 2003, 01:19

So you're saying that even if you use an 800 x 600 or even lower display resolution this slowdown will still occur when activating the second display ?!?

Amiga1992 · 16 July 2003, 02:57

I think I had the same problem..

jhave you tried using dual head mode with TWO videocards?

jmmijo · 16 July 2003, 05:58

Good point Akira, I forgot about that one

Amiga1992 · 16 July 2003, 08:34

My dual-head setup consists of a TNT2 based card as Primary display, and an S3 Virge VX as secondary display. This slows down some things since the Virge VX is a bloody snail, but most proggies do work well on the TNT even if the S3 is activated.

However I think I do remember having winUAE slow down to hell. Would be nice to hear from people who have two DECENT videocards and a dual-head setup.

16 July 2003, 09:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Akira
I think I had the same problem..

jhave you tried using dual head mode with TWO videocards?

No, cos even if I had a second card, it would be PCI, which isn't exactly speedy in itself :-)

There is no slowdown moving windows between the two displays on this card, which is a problem I've had with dual-card setups in the past.

I'm going to be reinstalling Windows at the weekend, maybe that will help :-)

Sigfrodi · 16 July 2003, 16:21

Actually, my Duron@1200 runs on dual head with an MSI GeForce 4 TI 4200 64Mo and I don't have any slowdown under WinUAE.

Before that, I had a dual-head system composed of an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 16Mo AGP and a PCI S3 Virge 3D 4Mo... I had serious slowdown in WinUAE for some minutes and after it was OK. New ATI drivers solved the problem.

Are you sure you have the latest Win2k drivers for your Matrox?

16 July 2003, 16:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Sigfrodi
Actually, my Duron@1200 runs on dual head with an MSI GeForce 4 TI 4200 64Mo and I don't have any slowdown under WinUAE.

Before that, I had a dual-head system composed of an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 16Mo AGP and a PCI S3 Virge 3D 4Mo... I had serious slowdown in WinUAE for some minutes and after it was OK. New ATI drivers solved the problem.

Are you sure you have the latest Win2k drivers for your Matrox?

Yeah, I downloaded them from the Matrox site when I installed the card last week.

I'll do some more poking around this evening and see if I can narrow this down any further :-)

19 July 2003, 11:07

I also run a dual head config with an ATI R9500 driving the primary and an ATI R7500 PCI driving the secondary monitor. There is no slowdown whatsoever. Earlier I used the R9500 alone to give dual displays, and WinUAE was fine as well.

However, I'm running Windows XP that has better dual head support that Win2k. The latter forces an extended display, with the resolution & color depth of the two screens linked, the taskbar spanning both monitors etc. Since you run two monitors off the same video card, I guess it might be Win2k's method of handling dual head displays that causes the slowdown.

19 July 2003, 11:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Alan_HU
However, I'm running Windows XP that has better dual head support that Win2k. The latter forces an extended display, with the resolution & color depth of the two screens linked, the taskbar spanning both monitors etc. Since you run two monitors off the same video card, I guess it might be Win2k's method of handling dual head displays that causes the slowdown.

And, I vaguely remember that when I had a Matrox G450, its Win2k drivers enabled pseudo-independent displays, that is, the resolution, refresh rate, color depth of the two monitors were independent despite Win2k limitations, but this feature caused a major slowdown in various applications. (Actually, this is why I sold that Matrox card pretty quickly.) You might want to look into trying Windows XP with your config.

19 July 2003, 11:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Alan_HU

However, I'm running Windows XP that has better dual head support that Win2k. The latter forces an extended display, with the resolution & color depth of the two screens linked, the taskbar spanning both monitors etc. Since you run two monitors off the same video card, I guess it might be Win2k's method of handling dual head displays that causes the slowdown.

Uh...no it doesn't! I have independent control over the resolution and colour depth of each display, and the taskbar only spans the first monitor. It is *possible* to configure it the way you've described, but not mandatory :-)

I'm about halfway through reinstalling my Windows system (and what a pain *that* was!), and I hope to get UAE set up again later today, at which point we'll see if anything's changed...

19 July 2003, 11:15

OK, I hope you get it fixed eventually

If not, please read my second post, too. If you need more help after the reinstall, please let us know

19 July 2003, 15:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Alan_HU
OK, I hope you get it fixed eventually If not, please read my second post, too. If you need more help after the reinstall, please let us know

:-) I think we were posting at the same time there!

Anyway, I've just reinstalled UAE, and it now works correctly :-) I guess there was something very fishy going on with my previous Windows setup...

Many thanks to everyone who made suggestions!

15 July 2003, 23:36	#1
anathema Posts: n/a	Running WinUAE on a dual-head system Has anyone done this (successfully :-)? I've just tried, and while UAE starts up just fine, as soon as it opens the Workbench screen, the emulation slows to a crawl. Disabling the second monitor in Windows solves the problem. I'm running UAE 8.22r6 under Win2K on a Matrox G450. I'm not after being able to run the Workbench across both monitors, but it would be nice not to have to disable the second one just to read my email :-) Any comments or suggestions will be gratefully received! Thanks

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16 July 2003, 00:51	#2
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 62 Posts: 2,395	So what's the rest of your system config ?!? I'm thinking that dual-head displaying is really taxing on the system as well as the gpu on the graphics card. Since I've never tried out dual monitors yet, I can't really comment on it either except that I bet it has a lot to do with system performance and configuration

16 July 2003, 01:11	#3
anathema Posts: n/a	Everything else runs normally, it's just UAE that seems to have the problem. For the record, this is my system: XP1900+, 1GB RAM, Matrox G450. Both displays are running at 1600x1200x32bit, although again, this setting makes no difference to the problem. It is specifically the fact that the second display is active that triggers it. Please do not leave signatures in your posts. Configure UserCP instead.

16 July 2003, 01:19	#4
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 62 Posts: 2,395	So you're saying that even if you use an 800 x 600 or even lower display resolution this slowdown will still occur when activating the second display ?!?

16 July 2003, 02:57	#5
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	I think I had the same problem.. jhave you tried using dual head mode with TWO videocards?

16 July 2003, 05:58	#6
jmmijo Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: PDX Age: 62 Posts: 2,395	Good point Akira, I forgot about that one

16 July 2003, 08:34	#7
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	My dual-head setup consists of a TNT2 based card as Primary display, and an S3 Virge VX as secondary display. This slows down some things since the Virge VX is a bloody snail, but most proggies do work well on the TNT even if the S3 is activated. However I think I do remember having winUAE slow down to hell. Would be nice to hear from people who have two DECENT videocards and a dual-head setup.

16 July 2003, 16:21	#9
Sigfrodi Registered User Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Lorgues (France) Age: 47 Posts: 31	Actually, my Duron@1200 runs on dual head with an MSI GeForce 4 TI 4200 64Mo and I don't have any slowdown under WinUAE. Before that, I had a dual-head system composed of an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 16Mo AGP and a PCI S3 Virge 3D 4Mo... I had serious slowdown in WinUAE for some minutes and after it was OK. New ATI drivers solved the problem. Are you sure you have the latest Win2k drivers for your Matrox?

19 July 2003, 11:07	#11
Alan_HU Posts: n/a	I also run a dual head config with an ATI R9500 driving the primary and an ATI R7500 PCI driving the secondary monitor. There is no slowdown whatsoever. Earlier I used the R9500 alone to give dual displays, and WinUAE was fine as well. However, I'm running Windows XP that has better dual head support that Win2k. The latter forces an extended display, with the resolution & color depth of the two screens linked, the taskbar spanning both monitors etc. Since you run two monitors off the same video card, I guess it might be Win2k's method of handling dual head displays that causes the slowdown.

19 July 2003, 11:15	#14
Alan_HU Posts: n/a	OK, I hope you get it fixed eventually If not, please read my second post, too. If you need more help after the reinstall, please let us know

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