Possible bug in SL viewer with DUAL monitors.

I have the latest SL viewer, and updated GPU drivers.

However, normally this was no problem, but recently I added a second monitor to my setup, and that was actually just for a test.

after this went well and functioned I started SL, and it started crashing every 15 to 20 minutes. No simple crash, just "poof" viewer gone and closed.

this went on the entire weekend, and suddenly I got the amazing idea to remove the dual monitor view.

SL remained stable after that for hours and hours.

Anyone have a dual monitor set-up? same problems?

I run a Geforce 8800GTS 640, XP pro sp 2, AMD X2 3800+ and 2 GB dual channel DDR1 RAM at T1 timing (200 Mhz) <--- yeah this is odd, I know, but I have no performance issues.

So a dual monitor setup causes SL to crash violently.

Any pro-tips on this?

I seem to recall that SL has had problems in the past, if the main window for SL was not on the monitor that was considered the "primary" monitor in a dual setup. You want it on the same screen that has your menu bar and/or task bar.

I had a problem briefly with the release candidate prior to the current one. It would crash to desktop much like you described every 30 minutes or so. The current RC has not given me any problems at all. 8600 with one 24" wide screen and one 19" standard LCD on a Vista machine. One would think my setup would be less stable than yours.

Oh yes, that, SL indeed forced the viewer on the extended monitor, which is 15 Inch, and the main monitor is 22 inch.

I wondered why it did this, and couldn't find out why.

I think the viewer doesn't really like this setup. It works, but suddenly poofs away, even while idling on a bench.

This must be a program core issue. Maybe LL should take a look at it.

I've been running SL on dual monitors since I joined over two years ago. I've never had a problem running it on either monitor. nVidia 8600GTS 256mb (need... more... graphic memory), ATI x1600 before that. Most likely problem is overheating. Running dual monitors taxes your GPU more than running one, and nVidia cards seem to have borderline cooling to begin with. Overheating the GPU will almost certainly cause the kind of crash you're seeing, was happening with my wife's PC - I added an extra cooling fan in the case, drawing air right across the GPU, and it went away.

Years ago, I bought a third-party cooler for my old video card when the built-in fan failed - used dual heat-pipes to vent the heat to a wrap-around heatsink with two fans. Don't know if they're still around, or worth it (and they take up a LOT of space). At the very least, make sure you have good airflow through the case and near the video card.

Edited to add - I've run two instances (with the -multiple option), one on each monitor, with no problems.

Does your nVidia software allow you to determine which monitor an application will work on?

I'm guessing the problem may have something to do with the fact that your two monitors are different resolutions. I've been using a dual monitor setup for 4 years now, with no related SL troubles. But I've always used a matched pair of identical monitors. With two different sizes, I can see potential for lots of problems as you move windows from one to the other, especially with graphics-intensive apps like SL.

I routinely move the viewer window from screen to screen, and I often run -multiple with one viewer on each screen. Neither one of these things causes any problems. The only minor headache is when any single viewer window spans more than one screen. That results in a drop in FPS. But as long as each window is entirely on a single screen, there are no problems at all.

It's also possible that your "updated drivers" may be part of your problem. SL doesn't yet play nice with recent nVidia drivers. For best results, use driver version 175.19. Anything newer will cause problems, including the kind of instant crashes you mentioned.

A few responses. Different monitor sizes don't have anything to do with it, my wife has one widescreen and one standard, swaps between them all the time.

If you want to run SL on dual monitors with nVidia, there's a setting you have to change in the nVidia control panel that tells it to accelerate both monitors.

Regarding nVidia driver versions, you can use the latest version IF (and only if!) you're running the current RC (or public nightly). It fixes the palletized textures bug. I'm using it now with 178, and it's running fine. It's still RC, so there are /some/ problems, but it's worth it to me, and I'm sure to anyone with a 2xx series card that requires the newer drivers.

Hope that helps!

I run dual monitors with a ati HD 26xx XT using a 22" wide-screen and regular 17" at different resolutions, with SL on the primary monitor (22" with-out ever a problem and before that on two 17" monitors, and before that on a laptop 17" and a standard 17", never a problem since 2006 and all the others were nvidia cards.