Windows XBMC on TV gets minimized when doing anything on computer monitor

Hi all, I've recently downloaded latest Eden and bought a cheap Geforce 210 for dxva and dual monitor support. But whenever I do anything on the primary/computer screen, web browsing for example, XBMC gets minimized/disappears from the TV. Very annoying.

If I change in XBMC to use fullscreen window instead of true fullscreen then the problem gets resolved, but then I get severe tearing when watching a movie and also no sounds in the menus.

Is it my cheap Geforce 210 who is to blame, or does the problem lie within XBMC?

Thanks

A little of both. The GPU just isn't powerful enough to handle XBMC being in a window, thus you get the tearing. XBMC's fullscreen mode forces it to not play nice with any other running app. There isn't much you can do at this point except maybe a better GPU like a GT430 or maybe 2 discreet graphics cards, so one can be dedicated to XBMC.

(2012-04-03 21:21)kricker Wrote:  A little of both. The GPU just isn't powerful enough to handle XBMC being in a window, thus you get the tearing. XBMC's fullscreen mode forces it to not play nice with any other running app. There isn't much you can do at this point except maybe a better GPU like a GT430 or maybe 2 discreet graphics cards, so one can be dedicated to XBMC.

Ok I see. So that basically means that most people using XBMC with a dual monitor setup are forced to run it in window mode?

Correct. If you do a bit of searching you'll see this topic more than once.

(2012-04-03 21:56)kricker Wrote:  Correct. If you do a bit of searching you'll see this topic more than once.

Ok thanks. Do you happen to know any way of getting menu sounds when using window mode?

They should be there regardless of windows mode or not.

(2012-04-04 16:05)kricker Wrote:  They should be there regardless of windows mode or not.

Ok, I can live with that.

Last question now, I noticed that if I disable "adjust display refresh rate to match video", in other words, running 60hz on both displays instead of 60hz + 24hz, the tearing disappears. So would it really help with a more powerful GFX?

Maybe your display doesn't support 24Hz.

(2012-04-05 03:14)kricker Wrote:  Maybe your display doesn't support 24Hz.

It does and it works perfectly in true full screen. Anyway I returned the card for a GT520 instead which supposedly is even better than GT430 at DXVA http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/discr...hootout/10 but got the same problem so I give up. True fullscreen seems to be the only thing that really works. Thanks for your help!

Are you running it on the primary monitor? When you identify the monitors, they should be labeled 1 and 2. Primary is 1.