Watch SageTV while Gaming?

[blammo585]

I'm wondering if it would be possible to display SageTV (Client) on my 32" HDTV while playing a game on my main monitor? Has anyone did this? I have tried before but the video always goes out on the secondary. I just didn't think it was possible, but I read a post on Hardforum yesterday where someone was saying that this worked for a friend of his, but after he changed the motherboard it would no longer work (actually he was just saying watching a movie, but with Sage it should be the same principle). I tried all kinds of things yesterday, but never could get it to work. I have an 8800GTS 512 in my PC with a 17" monitor as the primary and a 32" LCD as the secondary. I have Sage set to run on the secondary monitor. I have to use VMR9 as the renderer because if I try to use Overlay, Sage's display is just black. I know that I will need to run Sage in Overlay for it to have a chance at working, but I tried putting it on Overlay, and even with a black screen once the game starts, I can tell that the secondary screen is not correct. I actually tried all kinds of programs: PowerDVD, WMP, Media Player Classic. I played around with all kinds of renderers. I'd like to be able to have a ball game or something on, while I play a game so I can keep up with the score. Any thoughts?

[sainswor99]

I used to do this with Placeshifter and World of Warcraft (before I realized I only needed ONE addictive habit; TV won out). Both of the apps had to be run in windowed mode, but it worked fine.

I'm not as familiar with SageTV Client, so I don't know for sure that it can be done, but if you can get them into windows mode it might work.

[SHS]

This not possable to do with one video card as far I know of in fullscreen as sainswor99 point out windows mode work diff then full screen mode.
It should be possable to do with two video card and maybe even SLI card with SLI disable and Full screen mode.

[blammo585]

This was debated yesterday on Hardforum when we were having this discussion. Some people said you needed 2 video cards, others said you just needed to run dual displays. I would think the stress would be too much to try to play a game and video at the same time. The only thing I'm wondering is if you install a 2nd video card, what options would be available to you to specify how the cards run. Like, how would Sage know to use Video Card B and the game to run the default Video Card A? I really want to get this to work on my dad's PC as my son plays games on it a lot and my dad watches TV while he does it (not from the PC). I want him to be able to play a movie while my son games, but Windowed mode is not an option. It would be too difficult for him to know how to change things to windowed mode and would be pointless to change the game to run by default in windowed mode for something he might do only 5% of the time any way. I want to give him the ability to do it even if he doesn't do it that often.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by blammo585

This was debated yesterday on Hardforum when we were having this discussion. Some people said you needed 2 video cards, others said you just needed to run dual displays. I would think the stress would be too much to try to play a game and video at the same time. The only thing I'm wondering is if you install a 2nd video card, what options would be available to you to specify how the cards run. Like, how would Sage know to use Video Card B and the game to run the default Video Card A? I really want to get this to work on my dad's PC as my son plays games on it a lot and my dad watches TV while he does it (not from the PC). I want him to be able to play a movie while my son games, but Windowed mode is not an option. It would be too difficult for him to know how to change things to windowed mode and would be pointless to change the game to run by default in windowed mode for something he might do only 5% of the time any way. I want to give him the ability to do it even if he doesn't do it that often.

Probably your best option would be to buy an extender, and run Sage as a service. It's probably the simplest solution, and less likely to require trouubleshooting.