Software Oribiter & Vista my desktop icons get resized F1 mode using scroll wheel to zoom in

[gedaliah_atl]

Oribiter & Vista my desktop icons get resized F1 mode using scroll wheel to zoom in

[FONT=&quot]I am using a Dell XPS 1530 laptop using Vista Home Premium 64-bit and a [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ 22" monitor as my primary monitor with the laptop's display as secondary. I've had the problem with Orbiter 2006 using the Mercury 5.0 add-on in full screen mode with the Earth 1962 and Earth L10 additions --- during decent < 10,000 after the main parachute has deployed, if I hit PF1 and use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in on the capsule, Orbiter doesn't crash but somehow I end up seeing my desktop and the scroll wheel is increasing/decreasing my desktop icons. I am able to get back to Orbiter and finish the simulation to splashdown. When I hit F8 sometimes my cockpit display is a little messed up but hitting the up/down arrows fixes it, and I can continue to splashdown.

So after I'm done with my Orbiter session I have to resize my desktop icons to medium and rearrange them back into the order I had them. Is there anything I can do in either Vista or Orbiter to not have this happen? Right now the problem has been nothing more than cosmetic, but I'm slightly nervous that one time it might cause additional problems. Thanks in advance for your responses![/FONT]

 

[Hielor]

[FONT=&quot]I am using a Dell XPS 1530 laptop using Vista Home Premium 64-bit and a [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ 22" monitor as my primary monitor with the laptop's display as secondary. I've had the problem with Orbiter 2006 using the Mercury 5.0 add-on in full screen mode with the Earth 1962 and Earth L10 additions --- during decent < 10,000 after the main parachute has deployed, if I hit PF1 and use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in on the capsule, Orbiter doesn't crash but somehow I end up seeing my desktop and the scroll wheel is increasing/decreasing my desktop icons. I am able to get back to Orbiter and finish the simulation to splashdown. When I hit F8 sometimes my cockpit display is a little messed up but hitting the up/down arrows fixes it, and I can continue to splashdown.

So after I'm done with my Orbiter session I have to resize my desktop icons to medium and rearrange them back into the order I had them. Is there anything I can do in either Vista or Orbiter to not have this happen? Right now the problem has been nothing more than cosmetic, but I'm slightly nervous that one time it might cause additional problems. Thanks in advance for your responses![/FONT]

Orbiter has issues running in full screen on multi-monitor systems--in order for it to work best, it needs to be on the primary monitor. Otherwise, you end up with the mouse jumping over to the center of the primary monitor whenever you try to to change the view.

For a laptop, the only fix would be to disable the internal screen when you're flying--I don't think that just changing Windows to see the external monitor as the "primary" monitor will work, but you can try it. Try various combinations of where the primary monitor (according to windows) is vs. where Orbiter is to see if you can get something that works. I *think* it actually goes by the physical output on your video card, so that may not fix anything, but worth a try.

 

[gedaliah_atl]

Thanks. I was running it with the Samsung as the primary monitor, and the laptop display was the secondary monitor. So next time I'll try disabling the laptop's monitor altogether and try that. I was also thinking since I was running it in full screen mode whether to try as a "Window" instead. I have my XPS configured with the 256 meg video card. Project Mercury is the only place I've seen this problem, and only after the main parachute has deployed. Have not seen this problem with Gemini or Delta Glider. But I'm taking a liking to Mercury 5.0 right now since I think the Redstone is a neat way to demo Orbiter to others from launch to splash down.

Thanks again for your quick reply!

Don

 

[Hielor]

Thanks. I was running it with the Samsung as the primary monitor, and the laptop display was the secondary monitor. So next time I'll try disabling the laptop's monitor altogether and try that. I was also thinking since I was running it in full screen mode whether to try as a "Window" instead. I have my XPS configured with the 256 meg video card. Project Mercury is the only place I've seen this problem, and only after the main parachute has deployed. Have not seen this problem with Gemini or Delta Glider. But I'm taking a liking to Mercury 5.0 right now since I think the Redstone is a neat way to demo Orbiter to others from launch to splash down.

Thanks again for your quick reply!

Don

Yeah, also try windowed mode, although with multiple monitors you can sometimes end up with wackiness in windowed mode (ie, it appears blank on one monitor until the window is dragged to the other monitor, and the monitor is not always the one you'd expect). Make sure you have "Always Enumerate Devices" checked on the launchpad video tab, and try selecting the different video adapters (the entries may not even differ) to get it to work. If the monitor you want isn't the first in the list, it may sometimes reset which means you'll need to check that setting every time you start Orbiter.

For me, I was having a lot of issues getting Orbiter to correctly display to my widescreen monitor (on a dual-monitor desktop), and the only solution was to swap which monitor was plugged into which output on the video card--swapping them in Windows didn't work.

 

[gedaliah_atl]

Actually I'm now wondering if it also has something to do with functionally in Vista that didn't exist in XP ... "Make Your Desktop Icons Smaller or Larger with the Mouse Wheel" as detailed in this url:

http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/make-desktop-icons-smaller-larger-with-mouse/4209/

and that somehow in the decent on the Mercury 5.0 when I'm zooming in on the capsule (F1) using the mouse wheel somehow that mode is activated on my desktop and I'm messing up my desktop icons. Right now I'm not currently running Orbiter 2006 on this machine since it's my primary machine for my personal IT development and I don't want to mess that up. I think for the time being I either want to figure out in the registry how to disable the resizing of icons with the mouse wheel, or I'm thinking of running Orbiter 2006 inside a VM of Windows XP, with setting VMware workstation to enable DirectX. Actually since I think I understand that Vista and Orbiter 2006 doesn't work as well as XP, since in Vista Orbiter's DirectX (DirectX 7?) doesn't run naively and goes through emulation anyway, Orbiter might not run that much slower inside an XP VM on top of Vista. Any thoughts on anything I just wrote? Thanks!

 

[Hielor]

Actually I'm now wondering if it also has something to do with functionally in Vista that didn't exist in XP ... "Make Your Desktop Icons Smaller or Larger with the Mouse Wheel" as detailed in this url:

http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/make-desktop-icons-smaller-larger-with-mouse/4209/

and that somehow in the decent on the Mercury 5.0 when I'm zooming in on the capsule (F1) using the mouse wheel somehow that mode is activated on my desktop and I'm messing up my desktop icons. Right now I'm not currently running Orbiter 2006 on this machine since it's my primary machine for my personal IT development and I don't want to mess that up. I think for the time being I either want to figure out in the registry how to disable the resizing of icons with the mouse wheel...

I've used Orbiter on Vista and Win7 for awhile now and never had this problem. What did you try as far as switching monitors? It's also possible that Project Mercury is doing something odd.

or I'm thinking of running Orbiter 2006 inside a VM of Windows XP, with setting VMware workstation to enable DirectX. Actually since I think I understand that Vista and Orbiter 2006 doesn't work as well as XP, since in Vista Orbiter's DirectX (DirectX 7?) doesn't run naively and goes through emulation anyway, Orbiter might not run that much slower inside an XP VM on top of Vista. Any thoughts on anything I just wrote? Thanks!

The bolded part is very false. For the truth, please see http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7356 .

Orbiter will run much, much worse without hardware graphics acceleration.

 

[gedaliah_atl]

Still using my 22" external monitor, the only difference now is I disable the secondary display on the 15.4" laptop display, and I run Orbiter in a window instead of full screen mode. I think it is a problem unique to the Mercury 5.0 add-on ... I ran Gemini extensively and did not see this issue. I have not seen a repeat of the problem, but then again I have been too timid to try Mercury 5.0 again.

And I was not suggesting going without hardware graphics acceleration, only asking about the performance in Vista vs. XP.

How do I measure FPS?

 

[tblaxland]

How do I measure FPS?

Press the 'F' key in the sim and you will get an FPS display in the top right hand corner. Alternatively, you can activate the "Framerate" module on the Modules tab, then in the sim press ctrl-F4 and then choose "Performance Meter".

 

[Hielor]

And I was not suggesting going without hardware graphics acceleration, only asking about the performance in Vista vs. XP.

Running in a VM would be running without hardware graphics acceleration.

The link I gave details the performance differences (and the reasons for them) in Vista vs. XP.

 

[gedaliah_atl]

Running in a VM would be running without hardware graphics acceleration.

The link I gave details the performance differences (and the reasons for them) in Vista vs. XP.

Yeah your right now that I think of it, I've got a lot hitting my personal bandwidth right now. What I was in reference to is VMWare does allow you to enable DirectX, of course that's not directly on the hardware .... although if one had a need to test something w/ DirectX inside a VM it's better than not have acceleration at all.

 

[gedaliah_atl]

I think I just figured it out ... and it wasn't Orbiter it was me.

In Orbiter I had the habit when zooming in or out to depress the mouse wheel first (which is unnecessary). I think that's what threw my desktop into the mode of the icons resizing, unrelated to Orbiter. I just did a Mercury 5.0 Redstone mission, full screen, with both monitors up ..... zoomed in and out inside the application without it affecting the desktop. Now I'm back to happy flying!