9

Video Driver and Display Problems 899
PCI slots in your system, you could theoretically
drive four monitors. However, in order for
these cards to operate at the best resolutions,
each card needs to have the same amount of
video RAM (vR AM) installed. So, if your had
two cards and one had 32 MB of vRAM and the
otheronlyhad8MB,youcanonlyconfigureto
the highest resolution supported by the 8 MB
card.
Display configuration is normally done through
thevideodriverssoyouhavetheoptionto
configure wider screen areas. For example,
instead of configuring each display individually
to 1280x1024, as described above, you would
treat both monitors as a single display and
configure the screen area to 2560x1024 pixels.
Spanning Across M o nitors
Whenever, you start 3ds Max, the user interface
spans across both monitors. You find yourself
constantly resizing the program to fit on one
screen so you can see the programs located on the
other screen.
This is usually a problem on systems that let you
configure both monitors as one, in “Wide” mode.
The utility software that loads with the g r aphic
card manufacturer’s drivers probably has a feature
that forces programs to open across the entire
expanseofthedisplay.Youcanturnoffthisfeature
and programs will open in the last position and
size you gave them.
Viewport Transparency
Afterstarting3dsMax,theuserinterfaceappears
but you can see the system desktop through each
of the viewports. This problem normally occurs
if you have the display configuration set to either
OpenGL or Direct3D and your graphics card does
not completely support OpenGL or Direct3D.
If configured for Direct3D, you might also see this
problem coupled with the “Direct3D initialization
failed” message.
To remedy this problem, follow the steps outlined
in Basic troubleshooting start point (page 3–xii) and
configure for Software. If 3ds Max opens correctly
in this mode, check the video card manufacturers
for updated drivers for the display mode you ’d
prefer to use.