4 replies to this topic

[bdormer]

Anyone that's build a cabinet knows that you mount the playfield monitor portrait (.vs. landscape) with "down" being to the left.   That's great when you have your frontend (PinballX for example) all set up and everything's running smoothly.  But while you're configuring and tweaking (and you'll be doing A LOT of that)... it's a PITA (google it) to use the monitor 90 degrees from where it should be.  I knew there had to be a better way - and I found 2 ways.

 

Now, if you happen to have a video card that the driver will rotate the display with Ctrl-Alt-<arrow key> - then you have a manual option to rotate the display to the correct orientation.  nVidia is supposed to do this - but on my 3 monitor 750Ti setup, it doesn't seem to work (maybe because more than one monitor is running off the same card?)

 

If your driver doesn't support Ctrl-Alt-<arrow key> - you can download iRotate :

 

http://www.entechtai...il/irotate.shtm

 

iRotate is ancient history (2008) - but it works all they way up to Windows 10.  It's great for MANUALLY getting the screen to match it's actual orientation, but what if you want it to all happen auto-magically?  For that, you'll need to get Display :

 

http://noeld.com/programs.asp#Display

 

Display is a command line utility that lets you rotate the display.  You can put this in batch files or into the "run on startup/exit" of your fronted (works beautifully with PinballX).  To see all the things Display can do, run it from a command prompt and type the command "Display /?"

 

Since I've have these programs in my utility belt, I haven't had to work on a sideways display once.

 

I haven't seen this info posted anywhere else, so decided to share (this is also my first post here that wasn't a question).  Hope this helps someone.

 

 

 

[Drybonz]

I use Display Fusion... great progam for multiple monitors that will allow you to create as many monitor profiles as you want and even set up a keyboard shortcut for switching... it does a bunch of other nice stuff too.

[BorgDog]

Or you could simply setup your cabinet with the playfield in portrait, with down being down and not ever have to switch it.

[sliderpoint]

yup, what BD said.  All the digital pinball softwares out there support portrait mode.  In VP you need to know how to adjust the backdrop settings, which if you are using VP, you should learn how to do anyway. 

 

-Mike

[bdormer]

Wow.  I thought I'd discovered something profound... because every time I see a YouTube video of a cab, it's in landscape until the frontend or emulator fires up.  I've even seen a very recent randr video where he's using the display sideways.  And I know that I read somewhere (a while back) that leaving the display in landscape was a requirement.

 

Oh well...

 

Anyway - in case anyone is still interested - I learned that iRotate has a command-line option that can be used in a .bat file.  It will even support multi-monitor setups.  So "Display" isn't really necessary.