Concerning Aspect Ratios and Mouse Repeating

Here are some questions about window layouts I found myself asking and researching answers to, and thought they may be useful for discussion for anyone looking.

Does the mouse repeating option in ISBoxer depend on the window layouts having the same aspect ratios for accurate placement of the mouse cursor in slave windows?

Also, does the resolution of each pane impact the ratio and the relative positions of the cursors?

Helpful hint: Make sure that all of your UI elements across each and every window is scaled and placed in the exact same coordinates. This way you can be sure mouse repeating is as accurate as possible for all windows.

[lax]

The cursor position will depend on the actual rendering size of the window. If your cursor is at 100,100 in the current window, repeater will put the cursor at 100,100 in the target windows, taking into account any resizing done to the window. If you're on a different aspect ratio, the game itself may have UI elements placed in different areas, *and* any shrunk windows may look distorted (e.g. short and fat, or tall and skinny). If your main window is smaller than others (the actual rendering size; this applies to multiple PCs or if Swap is disabled), then some areas of the other windows will be inaccessible via repeater (i.e. your cursor will appear limited to the upper left region that matches your current window's size), and likewise if the other windows are smaller (same thing about the rendering size) then only the upper left region of the main window will give you a cursor on the target windows because they will not have the extended cursor positions.

Hope that answers your questions.

[oxigun]

I'm having similar issues with the compression of the slave screens. Specifically:

-The client's native resolution is 1920x1080 and I have made sure the slave windows have the same aspect ratio. Unfortunately, the level of detail on the slaves is not what I expect and does not offer enough information for the game to work properly.

Is there a way to improve the slave resolution? Unfortunately, the windowed mode of the game does not offer any smaller resolution, so I'm stuck...

[lax]

From another thread with a similar question:

Are your monitors the same size? Or aspect ratio? There shouldn't be any actual "distortion" unless the aspect ratios of the monitors are different. If they are the same, the aspect ratio should be preserved by all of the windows in your window layout. However, you will notice that the windows are shrunk from their full size, so not only are the windows now 1/4th the size, everything in them -- including text -- is now 1/4th the size as well. While this may sound inconvenient, the truth of the matter is you don't actually need to read anything in the other windows. (But if you'd rather, I will explain how in a moment) It is impossible to get instant window swapping without this -- which is why you will never see this speed in today's other multiboxing software. Note that with this instant speed, you can switch to any window you want, read whatever text it was you wanted to see, and switch back (recommend using Jamba for whisper forwarding, I don't know anything else that I care to read on my non-main toons personally). This is also a factor in the perfect mouse broadcasting.

So, assuming you want to keep the Swap feature enabled, there is a way to change the look of the windows. But it's also going to change the look of the main window. By default, the main window is "actual size" and the others are shrunk from that size to the configured size. But, you can set it up to be that the smaller windows are "actual size" and the main window is instead blown up. Or, pick a happy medium where the main window is blown up and the smaller windows are shrunk. Any of these can be accomplished by setting the "Desired rendering size" option (you can type your own size in the box, the drop-down is just suggestions). This can let you keep all of the speed but give yourself some readability in the slave windows, at the cost of also changing how the main window looks.

[oxigun]

I'm having similar issues with the compression of the slave screens. Specifically:

-The client's native resolution is 1920x1080 and I have made sure the slave windows have the same aspect ratio. Unfortunately, the level of detail on the slaves is not what I expect and does not offer enough information for the game to work properly.

Is there a way to improve the slave resolution? Unfortunately, the windowed mode of the game does not offer any smaller resolution, so I'm stuck...

I'm sorry, I'm new at this and I'm not using the right terminology. I only have one screen for ISBoxer, albeit a 30" one with a 2560x1600 resolution. Instead of overlapping the various game windows at the same size of 1920x1080 (cumbersome), I am using ISBoxer to designate one as primary (1920x1080) and 3 more as secondary (800x450). I am using the swap feature, but what I'm saying is that the smaller windows, albeit at the same aspect ratio as the primary seem to be compressing rather badly. I don't wish to read the text, but I'd still like to check the vitals of the ship (this is Eve Online). This involves graphic readouts that are not clearly visible in the smaller windows, not because they're small, but because the compression has dropped pixels.

Granted, I could always cycle through the windows, but I'm wondering if there is a way for me to improve the view without having to do that.

I'll play around with the rendering size and see what I can come up with.

[Ualaa]

Pretty much...

If everything is rendered at the same size.
And the smaller windows are then sized downwards.
And text is hard to read etc.
But you can instantly switch to the window.
And mouse broadcasting is exact for game interface elements.
And very precise (depending on camera angle, view distance, etc) for game elements.

If you go with different aspect ratios.
The smaller windows might be easier to read things in.
But your swap won't be instant between windows (which is a major strength of IS Boxer).
And mouse broadcasting won't be precise either, or rather it will be precise.. but game and interface elements won't be in the same position on each client.

I'd personally lean strongly towards the first option.
But, only you know what will work best for your playing experience.

I believe if the ratio between resolutions is .5 or .25 the scaling will look better.