Big Picture mixes up multiple monitors

[China]

I'm running big picture mode with three monitors (22", 24", and 46" tv lined up in that order). I use the 24" as my main monitor when not using big picture mode. Every time I activate big picture mode, it jumbles the orders of my monitors. I have to fix it every time. Any idea how to fix this or anyone else with this problem?

[COPFACE]

Swapping displays is perfectly fine. Their guy explained why it's the only way. The only problem here - is that it's not re-swapping it back for some people.

[MrPlowjoy]

I get the same problem but for me, it's very much a dealbreaker.

I have an Nvidia 780, hooked up to two monitors and the TV. TV to the left, primary middle and secondary right. If I move my mouse around, that's the orientation.

Now, when Big Picture is enabled, my prim and secondary monitors go haywire, with resolution changes and all sorts of stuff. BP then shows on my TV but when I exit it, the PC is properly messed up, needing all the monitors to be rearranged again.

It's not convenient. I didn't even research BP before I went ahead and configured my entire room, running HDMI under the boards to the TV and now it feels like its a real mess. I bought a wired Xbox controller purely for it as well, but its been left untouched until (if) this is all sorted out.

Here's what I want..I want to be ablle to activate BP, keep my existing monitors exactly as they are and then move to use my Xbox controller with the TV. When I exit BP I then want to go back to my desk and carry on using my PC as though nothing has happened or changed. Until this is implemented, it's not going to be used.

Also, my Nvidia 590 used to show each monitor as a separate, unique label within the BP settings. Now, with the new 780 all monitors are listed as 'Generic PnP', so trying to figure out what belongs where is a drawn out process.

Tighten it up guys and look at this exact use-case, because I guaranteee its going to be the predominant use-case for BP for PC gamers. Very few people will have their gaming PCs hooked directly into a single TV.

[KasperKnop]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย MrPlowjoy:

I get the same problem but for me, it's very much a dealbreaker.

I have an Nvidia 780, hooked up to two monitors and the TV. TV to the left, primary middle and secondary right. If I move my mouse around, that's the orientation.

Now, when Big Picture is enabled, my prim and secondary monitors go haywire, with resolution changes and all sorts of stuff. BP then shows on my TV but when I exit it, the PC is properly messed up, needing all the monitors to be rearranged again.

It's not convenient. I didn't even research BP before I went ahead and configured my entire room, running HDMI under the boards to the TV and now it feels like its a real mess. I bought a wired Xbox controller purely for it as well, but its been left untouched until (if) this is all sorted out.

Here's what I want..I want to be ablle to activate BP, keep my existing monitors exactly as they are and then move to use my Xbox controller with the TV. When I exit BP I then want to go back to my desk and carry on using my PC as though nothing has happened or changed. Until this is implemented, it's not going to be used.

Also, my Nvidia 590 used to show each monitor as a separate, unique label within the BP settings. Now, with the new 780 all monitors are listed as 'Generic PnP', so trying to figure out what belongs where is a drawn out process.

Tighten it up guys and look at this exact use-case, because I guaranteee its going to be the predominant use-case for BP for PC gamers. Very few people will have their gaming PCs hooked directly into a single TV.

This is by far the best way I have found to handle this use case: (I have the same setup as you, just with three PC monitors instead of two)

1. Right click on desktop
2. Select Screen Resolution
3. Set the TV as my main display
4. Go sit in my couch and press the xbox home button to launch BP.
5. When done playing I just swap the main display back to my PC monitor of choice.

Doing this prevents Steam from changing the order of the screens both when in BP, and after exiting :)

[[DM] Surye]

It's still not swapping back, and only seems to support monitors in a linear configuration, I have my TV logically below my monitors.

[ACID FAN]

same issue here

I have lost my wireless mouse which i kept in the living room so this wasn't as big an issue, buuuut that mouse has grown legs and walked away! So the process of setting the monitor back to main display is a chore of walking from one room to another making slight adjustments to the pointer via wired mouse. luls

I got faith in steam, I'm sure the issue will be solved. How many years till we get a Valve OS?

[MisterS42]

I purchased DisplayFusion for this reason and it has been a Godsend. Hotkey monitor setup for the win!!

[Abbadon]

I only have 2 monitors right now but am looking to add another plus a tv later this year. However, the way Big Picture is working right now... It's very discouraging.

Unlike the main issue of this thread, if i change my target monitor to my secondary screen, it swaps when starting and goes back after exiting... So that actually works for me. The fail of it all is that I can't let my kid play a controller game using BP while I browse or play some other game on the remaining monitor! As soon as I click back to my primary monitor, the BP display on the secondary monitor minimizes! (this is in full screen) So I switch the game's resolution to be in windowed mode. And upon doing this, the resolution is off and actually bleeds back over to the primary monitor where I can see a bit of the rectangle.

I'm ready to put console gaming behind me, but the difficulties of getting BP to work the way I think it should (and the way i need it to) are quite overwhelming.

And don't forget the audio issue!! Nothing is as frustrating as losing your audio (on either a full screen or windowed game) when you click over to the secondary monitor to perform another task or open a 2nd game... /sigh

[La_Poune]

Same problem here :( I have 3 screens + the TV and when I close big picture some of them are on top of each other and stuff...

[Worm🐛]

Since more and more games are supporting borderless windowed mode can't big picture simply use that?

[dostatochno]

It'd pretty much be fine if Big Picture put things back the way they were when it exited, but Big Picture messes up the relative positions of the displays (e.g. it leaves the displays diagonally offset, when the displays were originally horizontally offset) if there's a different resolution between the different displays. It actually screws up the positioning twice, once when starting Big Picture and again when exiting.

It's a quite annoying problem that makes Steam look sloppy and second rate, and it adds a tedious step of correcting the display layout every time Big Picture is used and creates a barrier to entry for those who aren't very computer literate, who are the ones who need Big Picture the most anyway.

This should be a quick and simple fix. There's no reason for Steam to modify the display layout at all when it switches which display is the Main display when entering or exiting Big Picture mode.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย jmccaskey:

@Skooma93, Big Picture itself would be perfectly happy to run on a secondary display. Unfortunately approximately zero games work properly on anything but the primary display and near zero are even possible to run on a non primary display. Thus we have a compromise of allowing you to choose your secondary monitor but having to flip it to primary when you run Big Picture so that games have some hope of actually launching on your TV when run through it.

So, because of this the order flipping is expected on startup, but when you exit it should be fixed. It's unfortunate that better multi monitor support isn't supported more easily in Windows and that no games really support what is there well. It means we can't really solve this in a better way for now. Your monitors should always be restored to their original positions when Big Picture exits though.

[Matyas Blues]

I used to see the process happening correctly for months. I recently switched to W8.1 and now I have the same problem.

I noticed both monitor and TV, in the Big Picture Video Preferences tab, are both addressed as: Generic Plug and Play monitor. Maybe the program can't distinguish the two when reverting back?

[UnReal-4-Life]

Order is key . Main moniter is pluged into the hdmi. Then the sides are duel dvi. Or the sides are the other sli card. It Stoped doing that when i follow that rule.

[Aleideka]

Same problem here, with 2 monitors

[dostatochno]

Big Picture Mode no longer makes any effort to revert display setup when returning to windowed mode. It still rearranges monitors oddly on entry, and therefore leaves them oddly arranged on exit.

[Hurrakan]

XBMC does it properly, so Steam Big Picture should copy however XBMC does it.

When I start XBMC it displays on my 3rd monitor, which is my plasma tv (connected via HDMI). The XBMC audio comes through the TV, and other sounds still come through my PC speakers. When I close XBMC, it just closes.

I guess the problem is that XBMC does not have to work on the primary monitor - but Steam Big Picture does for some reason.