Game launching using the wrong monitor

[Dimitri Filichkin]

Despite being clearly designated as the primary monitor in my two screen setup, the game only launches, and seems to be incapable of being played on my primary monitor, and instead only runs on the secondary monitor to my side. No other game I own, or have ever played, has had this problem so I'm not sure what the problem is.

[76561198311888512]

Can you run DxDiag and paste the log here, or email the log to [e-mail] please?

[Dimitri Filichkin]

I sent an email weeks ago and I still have yet to receive a proper response. I am still experiencing the same problem.

[76561198311888512]

Our apologies. We haven't forgotten, but the issue is a UE4 bug and so fixing it isn't straightforward.

The bug is logged and we do plan to fix it ASAP - you should expect a fix around the time that we release the first content update (...soon!).

[Dimitri Filichkin]

First content update has been out for a while now and I still have the issue. The game won't run properly on my main monitor. Still have had no response beyond the auto-reply email.

[76561198311888512]

We can't reproduce this bug, so fixing it isn't straightforward. I've always had a multi-monitor setup - and the game always launches on whichever monitor I have set up as my primary. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, can you go to "Configure Surround, PhysX" and make sure that "Span displays with Surround" isn't enabled?

Looking at the UE4 code (which is the engine that Aven Colony is using), the game is forced to be on the primary monitor if you choose Fullscreen (not Borderless), so maybe that is some help? Have you tried both fullscreen options? In theory, switching to windowed, dragging the window to the correct monitor, then choosing Borderless should go fullscreen on that monitor without switching.

There isn't currently functionality in UE4 to specify which monitor to display on, so that's something that we'll have to add to try and help - but since we can't repro the issue, we can't guarantee that it'll fix the issue for you. It *should*, we just can't guarantee anything.

Other options, so that you don't have to wait, would be to try using Steam's Big Picture mode. In that mode, go to Settings->Display Settings and set the target monitor - that should help. A final trick would be to use a utility such as Gamers Window Relocator[gwr.orekaria.com].

We're definitely not ignoring you, we want to fix the issue (and the bug is assigned to me!), but please understand that trying to fix anything inside the engine itself when we can't reproduce the bug is difficult. We do plan to add an option to select which monitor the game will appear on, but it will only ever be able to work in a window (or borderless fullscreen).

[Dimitri Filichkin]

Span displays is not enabled. I have made sure that the monitor I use as my primary is indeed the designated primary monitor. The game will launch on the primary, then switch to the secondary after the logo screens, regardless of the fullscreen mode. Switching to windowed, dragging it to the primary monitor, and then switching to borderless will then send it back to the secondary monitor. I tried all of that when this first happened.

[76561198311888512]

When you get a chance, could you try launching the game using either Steam's Big Picture mode (or using GWR) and see whether that helps? We just need some more information to try and help pinpoint the issue.

So far nobody else has reported this issue, so it seems like it's a rare bug (or some configuration setting!) - but we definitely want to track down this issue to fix it for you and for any other customer who would otherwise hit this bug!

[Dimitri Filichkin]

In Big Picture mode the game began launching on the correct monitor, just like normal, and then, again, after the logo screens it switched to the second monitor and the primary monitor was just a blank blue screen.

[76561198311888512]

Interesting!

I know this must be annoying for you, but I have one more question - could you try switching the primary monitors around, run the game and then see what happens?

I looked into the UE4 code on Friday and it looks like it should be doing the right thing when the game is set to Fullscreen - it queries the primary monitor and that's where it should set up the game window. But clearly there's an issue because it's not happening correctly for you!

[Dimitri Filichkin]

This one is a real kicker. So I switched the designated main display to the small one I have off to the side, and launched the game. It launched on the second (now set as primary) monitor perfectly and loaded up the main menu without any issue, and actually loaded faster than it had been before.

After that I closed it, returned the monitors to their normal settings, and launched the game again. Once more, after it passes the logos, it switched to the second monitor (now once more set as secondary) in order to load up the main menu.

So no matter what, the game will do everything in its power to never actually display on my primary monitor.

[76561198311888512]

That's... madness.

Well, that gives me something to go on anyway - either the Windows API is telling UE4 the wrong monitor, or it's correctly telling UE4 and UE4 ignores it!

I will try and put together a special diagnostic build for you ASAP if you don't mind testing it out - I'm going to try and fix it for you. I should warn you though, it probably won't happen until Wednesday at the earliest - any engine change that I make has to go through a lot of testing!

[76561198311888512]

Okay, you should have an email now - hopefully we can figure this out for you quickly!

[Vladamier]

I am having the exact same problem..... did you guys ever find a fix???

[Dimitri Filichkin]

Originally posted by Vladamier:

I am having the exact same problem..... did you guys ever find a fix???

Not yet.

[Vladamier]

Seriously? That's crazy, the only work-around I've "sort of" found is to play in windowed mode and drag the window to the correct monitor. Sounds like the exact same issue you've got.