This isn't Photoshop alternatives. Profuse apologies all around. I just didn't have time to adequately test GIMP, perhaps because I got sidelined on the fun below.
All right, so I have a dual monitor computer hooked to another dual monitor computer via a network. The first computer is named Tinsy. It is my better computer. The other computer is G1. It is old, but it has dual graphics cards (AGP and PCI) and can run four monitors by itself, granted I have enough monitors around. Of course right now I don't. I keep letting people use my acquired CRTs.
Anyway, I thought, “Hey, I should be able to control all four of these monitors with Tinsy.” The only way I knew that was possible without a lot of hardware changes was using the software
MaxiVista. I have so far been unable to find anything that does the same thing, but with enough finagling it's possible using RealVNC, which is free. As far as I'm aware, no one else has discovered this exact configuration, but I pretty much stole somebody's idea and just expanded it to apply to four monitors.
Here's how:
RealVNC is intended to control a computer remotely. What I want to do, then, is control Tinsy with G1. Now, that may sound backwards, but it's not. Tinsy is the computer with all the displays, so I want to control it with G1. To accomplish this, I had to install RealVNC on both computers. Now, I just did the full install on both, but it should work equally well to just install the server version on Tinsy and the client version on G1. Theoretically, that's all you need.
Next, I needed to install a virtual monitor. Now, this seems to come under many names, and I can't figure out which one is right. Virtual desktop driver? Virtual graphics driver? To me virtual monitor makes the most sense, so I'll use that term. The best driver to use, though is
ZoneScreen. ZoneScreen
? has some sort of mirroring software, too. This is useless for my setup, so I want only to install the driver. This driver must be installed on Tinsy. It can be installed on G1, but that would serve no purpose whatsoever.
From here, I can choose to extend my desktop onto the virtual monitor from within the Settings tab of the Display Properties.
Now this is all fine and dandy for three monitors. This has been done before and with this exact configuration; however, I want to take it one step further. I want four marvelous monitors, not a weak and laughable three. This is where the trouble comes in. There's no way to tell ZoneScreen
? to make up two monitors. There's no way to tell ZoneScreen
? that its resolution is the width of two monitors but the height of one. There's no way to install two instances of ZoneScreen
?, at least not that I'm aware.
The solution, then, was to find another virtual monitor driver, then. This proved rather difficult, but I finally tracked down a version of MaxiVist
? that's somehow free. (I'm not sure why.) It's called
Maxivist SE. The trick here was that it only needed to be installed on Tinsy as a server. Actually running the software is pointless, but installing it grants another virtual monitor, so life is good.
I had to set G1's dual display mode to be one horizontal desktop, run RealVNC Client, and make it full screen. Other than making sure both virtual monitors were in the right place on Tinsy and active displays, I didn't really need to do anything. Here's the checklist:
1.Install on main use computer: RealVNC Server, ZoneScreen
? driver, MaxiVista
? SE.
2.Install on remote computer used just for hosting extra two monitors: RealVNC Client.
3.Run on main computer: RealVNC Server (Service Mode, not User Mode)
4.Ensure on main computer: In Display Properties under Settings, both virtual displays should have “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor” checked.
5.Run on remote computer: RealVNC Client.
6.Adjust your resolutions so everything is consistent.
That should do it.
I've noticed that sometimes RealVNC randomly turns off on G1, but I can always restart it. It's also a little laggy, but it's still ultra cool.