8

Video Driver and Display Problems 993
The software solution to multi-monitor
configuration is often found in older graphic
cards that fit into your PCI slots. E ach board
has a single port to accept a monitor and the
video drivers give you the option to configure
a single display in “Wide” mode to encompass
multiple displays. Also, because you have four
PCI slots in your system, you could theoretically
drive four monitors. However, in order for
these cards to operate at the best resolutions,
each card needs to have the same amount of
video RAM (vR AM) installed. So, if your had
two cards and one had 32 MB of vRAM and the
otheronlyhad8MB,youcanonlyconfigureto
the highest resolution supported by the 8 MB
card.
Display configuration is normally done through
thevideodriverssoyouhavetheoptionto
configure wider screen areas. For example,
instead of configuring each display individually
to 1280x1024, as described above, you would
treat both monitors as a single display and
configure the screen area to 2560x1024 pixels.
Spanning Across M onitors
Whenever, you start 3ds Max, the user interface
spans across both monitors. You find yourself
constantly resizing the program to fit on one
screen so you can see the programs located on the
other screen.
This is usually a problem on systems that let you
configure both monitors as one, in “W ide” mode.
The utility software that loads with t he graphic
card manufacturer’s drivers probably has a feature
that forces programs to open across the entire
expanseofthedisplay.Youcanturnoffthisfeature
and programs will open in the last position and
size you gave them.
Viewpor t Transparency
After starting 3ds Max, the user interface appears
but you can see the s ystem desktop through each
of the viewports. This problem normally occurs
if you have the display configuration set to either
OpenGL or Direct3D and your graphics card does
not completely support OpenGL or Direct3D.
If configured for Direct3D, you m ig ht also see this
problem coupled with the “Direct3D initialization
failed” message.
To remedy this problem, follow the steps outlined
in
Basic troubleshooting start point (page 3 –x ii)
and configure for Software. If 3ds Max opens
correctly in this mode, check the video card
manufacturers for updated drivers for t he display
mode you’d prefer to use.