Call for tester for 1.4.0 features and fixes (3 Viewers)

[elliottmc]

This is intended behaviour like any other full screen app. When you switch focus from fullscreen it gets minimized like any other app.

This sounds a bit worrying as I run MP on my TV (2nd screen) and use my main monitor for other stuff. Does this mean that when I operate another program on my monitor, thus taking focus away from MP, that MP on my TV will minimise?

Try it! You are one of the very few who has this usage scenario.

 

[doveman]

Try it! You are one of the very few who has this usage scenario.

OK I will when I get a chance (trying to focus on my brother's RPi box at the moment). I'd imagine there's quite a few people who can't dedicate a PC to their TV's though and use (or would like to use) a single PC connected to both their TVs and a monitor for their desktop. It certainly works well enough with 1.3RC (with the modified dshowhelper and tsreader), I just have to give MP focus when playing video/TV to avoid it going a bit jerky.

 

[doveman]

Curiosity got the better of me

It wasn't very successful as it got stuck on Loading Windows plugins. I see from the log it reckons there's a mismatch between TV Server and the plugin which doesn't make much sense as it was working fine before but now it thinks TVServer is version 1.2.300.0 and the plugin is 1.3.0.0.

I've attached the logs.

 

[Lightning303]

Curiosity got the better of me

It wasn't very successful as it got stuck on Loading Windows plugins. I see from the log it reckons there's a mismatch between TV Server and the plugin which doesn't make much sense as it was working fine before but now it thinks TVServer is version 1.2.300.0 and the plugin is 1.3.0.0.

I've attached the logs.

It seems that browsetheweb and powersheduler++ are making problems with these test builds. You have to disable them.

 

[Scythe42]

This is intended behaviour like any other full screen app. When you switch focus from fullscreen it gets minimized like any other app.

This sounds a bit worrying as I run MP on my TV (2nd screen) and use my main monitor for other stuff. Does this mean that when I operate another program on my monitor, thus taking focus away from MP, that MP on my TV will minimise?

And that just works at the moment because of the Half-Full-Screen issue. It's a bug not a feature. That you "exploit" this bug is a different thing. You probably see the "framerate reduction" when MP is not active, right? Yep, it saves resources as it should not be visible in the first place when being in fullscreen mode.

MP is jumping into windowed mode when it shouldn't - that you don't see any borders is of no consequences. This introduces micro stutters and other issues user are complaining always on the forum. The bug just goes that deep into essential core D3D stuff. For XP there were are ton of workarounds in the code causing even more bugs.

Display Sized Window != Fullscreen.

And you want a display sized window on the desktop without borders. That is something MP does not support. But such stuff will be part of this branch later on.

 

[doveman]

It seems that browsetheweb and powersheduler++ are making problems with these test builds. You have to disable them.

Ah thanks, that's got it working.

 

[doveman]

And that just works at the moment because of the Half-Full-Screen issue. It's a bug not a feature. That you "exploit" this bug is a different thing. You probably see the "framerate reduction" when MP is not active, right? Yep, it saves resources as it should not be visible in the first place when being in fullscreen mode.

I don't really know what the Half-Full-Screen issue is as I don't think I've ever encountered it. When I take focus away from MP by clicking on something on my other monitor, I don't notice anything except if I'm playing video/TV when it goes rather jerky, even though the jitter stays much the same with the occasional spike which I don't get when MP has focus (jitter used to increase a lot when MP lost focus before I used the modified dshowhelper).

MP is jumping into windowed mode when it shouldn't - that you don't see any borders is of no consequences. This introduces micro stutters and other issues user are complaining always on the forum. The bug just goes that deep into essential core D3D stuff. For XP there were are ton of workarounds in the code causing even more bugs.

Display Sized Window != Fullscreen.

And you want a display sized window on the desktop without borders. That is something MP does not support. But such stuff will be part of this branch later on.

I don't think I do want that. I want MP Fullscreen on my TV (as I have now). You seem to be saying that when I click on something on my other monitor, so that MP no longer has focus, it's jumping into windowed mode although it doesn't change appearance. I'm a bit confused though as you said the "framerate reduction" (which I assume is the cause of the jerky video/TV) "should not be visible in the first place when being in fullscreen mode" but now you seem to be saying that it's not actually in fullscreen mode but is jumping to windowed mode.

Of course, ideally MP would play video/TV normally when I'm using something on my other monitor, so that others can watch it, so if that's something you're working on that's great news.

 

[Scythe42]

I guess both PowerScheduler and BrowseTheWeb expect to be run on the GUI thread?

Yeah, something like this.

Need to check what the plugins are actually doing. They probably spawn other threads and that's why the initial loading/starting thread never ends. The startup procedure should be independent of what threads they might spawn if they are intended to be run as long as MP runs.

You only wait for threads to end if they are intended as worker threads and you need the results before you can continue. When using background threads, you have to terminate them yourself. So looks like background threads are handled like worker threads in these plugins. But that's just my current working assumption. Need to check the code to verify this. Could be something entirely different. Will find out.

All in all should be an easy adjustment for the plugin author once I identified the root cause and how to do it properly.

 

[Scythe42]

I don't think I do want that. I want MP Fullscreen on my TV (as I have now). You seem to be saying that when I click on something on my other monitor, so that MP no longer has focus, it's jumping into windowed mode although it doesn't change appearance.

You cannot see the difference between D3D Fullscreen Mode and D3D Window Mode. The rest is just decoration of the Windows Form itself. And as MP is a C# Windows Form Appliction it is always a window. How the window looks like is a different thing.

 

[mbuzina]

Tried it on my Laptop -> Having MP on a secondary screen is not usefull anymore. MP will minimize as soon as you click on any other window giving it focus. I know some people are using the scenario, so they will perceive this as a missing feature, not as a bug fix.

Also: MP will hang when trying to show TV. First it takes a long to time to switch to fullscreen TV, then it shows a black screen.