Problem Unable to turn off monitor when not playing

[GodAtum]

Obviously for long missions I need to turn off my monitor at times (ie when I go to bed or leave the house). But when I do I get the attached error. I am in windowed mode. Please help!

 

[N_Molson]

Are you sure that your GPU isn't powering off to save power or something like that ?

I think it can happen depending on your Windows power savings options.

 

[DaveS]

Are you sure that your GPU isn't powering off to save power or something like that ?

I think it can happen depending on your Windows power savings options.

On the video tab where it's says Full Screen Mode, select Full Screen Window. True Full Screen doesn't support anything that makes Orbiter lose focus.

 

[GodAtum]

On the video tab where it's says Full Screen Mode, select Full Screen Window. True Full Screen doesn't support anything that makes Orbiter lose focus.

I tried this but still getting same error. I'm using an Intel NUC with integrated graphics. Power settings look fine.

 

[Gondos]

Are you sure it's shutting down the monitor that does that and not your system going into sleep mode?

 

[GodAtum]

Are you sure it's shutting down the monitor that does that and not your system going into sleep mode?

Yes my system is still fully on with sleep disabled.

 

[steph]

Well, while I haven't tried it in Orbiter, are you sure you can't just turn it off manually, via the power button? My PC doesn't seem to notice when I do that

 

[Gondos]

I can reproduce it on my end just locking/unlocking my session. It's a D3D limitation with no good workaround for us : usually you need to reset the device and recreate every buffers/textures. The problem is that Orbiter uses lots of render targets to create its visuals (the sketchpad API mainly, but also cockpit textures), and no provision was ever made to recreate them on the fly. I may be wrong but it looks like quite a task. @jarmonik could confirm.

 

[N_Molson]

So maybe it is caused by a privacy setting, that could log out the user after some time of inactivity ?

 

[jarmonik]

I can reproduce it on my end just locking/unlocking my session. It's a D3D limitation with no good workaround for us : usually you need to reset the device and recreate every buffers/textures. The problem is that Orbiter uses lots of render targets to create its visuals (the sketchpad API mainly, but also cockpit textures), and no provision was ever made to recreate them on the fly. I may be wrong but it looks like quite a task. @jarmonik could confirm.

This is exactly how it is. There is a work-a-round: Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to cause the window to pop-up on purpose. Click "Ok" to close the window and then shutdown your display. Orbiter should keep running without graphics. When you are ready to continue. Turn on your display and shutdown Orbiter with Ctrl+Q and then reload a quick-save.

 

[GodAtum]

Thank you for testing. It might be easier just to put a black cloth over my monitor!

 

[steph]

Thank you for testing. It might be easier just to put a black cloth over my monitor!

just be careful about overheating

 

[kuddel]

Maybe (if your monitor is HDMI) you could check if you can disable HDMI-CEC on your monitor.
It is the monitor that "tells" Windows: "I'm off", so maybe if that message is not sent/received it might help.
A similar option might be available for DisplayPort, but I have no idea how it might be called.
...just an idea

 

[n72.75]

You could also disable the graphics client.

 

[jarmonik]

Thank you for testing. It might be easier just to put a black cloth over my monitor!

That's a potential fire hazard. Maybe just a black image on a full-screen on an image viewer.

 

[GodAtum]

You could also disable the graphics client.

Is there a way to run without graphics on one PC (as a server) and with graphics on another (as a client)?

 

[N_Molson]

Back in the days there was a working Multiplayer experiment (Orbiter Multiplayer Project aka. OMP), so yes, it can certainly be done.

 

[Boxx]

At least not with OMP directly. OMP server computes nothing in terms of flight dynamics. The client only "runs" Orbiter and sends its vessels status to the server, only for the sake of signaling to neighbour vessels in other clients. If the client is stopped, all its vessels are deleted.

In OMX, the fork I'm working on, it's quiet similar but if a 1st client is stopped, its vessels are automagically taken over by another client.

If you would run OMP (or OMX) without grahics on one client (orbiter_ng with "D3D9" disabled in the launchpad), and assuming you installed the server and you connected this client to it, then indeed you could "see" the vessels of the 1st client on another client/other PC, but you would still need to pilot the vessels from the 1st client (if it is even feasible without graphics...).

Of course, one can develop a fully new program inspired by OMP-architecture, but it will be a full new complex project, IMO.

 

[n72.75]

Is there a way to run without graphics on one PC (as a server) and with graphics on another (as a client)?

No, unfortunately. The client connects to Orbiter through pointers and function calls, not over TCP.

Would be a cool idea though. Not by any means easy to impliment....