Overlay in .14

[frdfsnlght]

Thought I'd chime in with some observations (this is long winded).

I have a nVidia 5400FX card hooked up to a TV via the s-video out, and a projector via the VGA out. Besides Sage, I also run TheaterTek for DVD playback. TheaterTek forces the use of the overlay for PQ reasons, though the included Sonic decoders supprt VMR (I know because I use them in Sage w/VMR9).

Here's my problem: I'd like to use overlay with Sage, but I can't. I don't use the projector for day-to-day tv watching, just the tv. When I watch a movie (or special TV stuff), I use the PJ, of course. The nVidia driver supports cloning the overlay to the secondary display (as mentioned in a previous post). The cloned overlay always displays fullscreen, even if the primary overlay is in a window. This wouldn't normally be a huge problem since I use fullscreen on both displays all the time (the PC is dedicated for this purpose and I never see the Windows desktop). The problem comes about when Sage exits from watching a program (in fullscreen overlay on the primary display, the TV) and displays it's GUI; it (or perhaps the nVidia driver) leaves the last video frame displayed on the fullscreen overlay clone (on the secondary display, the PJ) so the Sage GUI doesn't display there. So, I can switch primary/secondary displays, but now the problem swaps screens.

What's interesting to me, is that the only way to get the frozen cloned fullscreen overlay to work again is to watch another program, or exit Sage (not sleep, a full Alt-F4 exit). Exiting Sage closes the cloned overlay. What's also interesting is that I see slightly different behaviour in TheaterTek if I stop a playing DVD, but TheaterTek is able to close the cloned overlay (without the need to exit the app). I'm not sure what they did, but it would be nice if Sage could also close the cloned overlay, somehow.

Assuming this was resolved, the only thing left holding me back from using overlay is that the nVidia drivers don't give me enough control to adjust the primary and cloned overlay size/position to be able to get both to look good on both displays at the same time. I can adjust it to look good on one display, but then I'll have balck bars or way too much overscan on the other display.

Well, it's late and I blew my wad on number of words for the night. I'll shut up now.

-Tab

[LostInSpace]

I use overlay on my TV set as secondary monitor with an ATI radeon 7000 and it works fine.