DisplayMagician: Automate display/audio/app changes with a single desktop shortcut

[terrymacdonald]

Hi!

Do some of your games require that you use your triple monitors individually, yet other games require you use a single NVIDIA Surround or AMD Eyefinity screen? Do you get as frustrated as I do with having to modify your display settings when changing from one game to another?

Well I do! Or I did.

That's why I developed the free and open source DisplayMagician. I wanted to click a single desktop shortcut (or press a keyboard shortcut), and have DisplayMagician do the following for me:

• Change my display settings to what the game needs (and change it back when done)
• Change my audio speaker settings to what the game needs (and change it back when done)
• Change my microphone settings to what the game needs (and change it back when done)
• Pre-start a few applications BEFORE it starts the game (e.g. SimHub, CrewChief)
• Wait patiently while I play my game
• Revert everything back to the way it was automatically when I exit my game!

And that's what I built. I started with the incredible HeliosDisplayManagement software by Soroush Falahati, and then spent the next year or so developing new features and making something that would be easy to use, yet hide itself away when you didn't need it.

DOWNLOAD DISPLAY MAGICIAN NOW!
(It's free and open source code)

I've written this to scratch a programming itch I've had for a while, and to make my simracing life easier. I'm a big believer in letting software do the work for you, so I hope at least some of you find this useful!

Current features
DisplayMagician lets you set up the following information for each game or application:

• Create and save a Display Profile to be used within future Desktop Shortcuts
• Save a Game Shortcut that will automatically change to a different Display Profile and start your Game when you double-click on it.
• Run your Game Shortcut using a keyboard shortcut (Hotkey).
• Or start your games by right-clicking on the DisplayMagician Notification Tray icon.
• Choose which Audio Device you want the shortcut to use. Like using the wireless headset when driving? This lets you with a single click.
• Add one or more programs to pre-start before your game or application
• Works with the following Game Launchers:
  • Steam
  • Ubisoft Uplay
  • Origin (Electronic Arts)
  • Epic Games
  • GOG.com
• Optionally rollback to your previous Display profile once the game or application has closed.
• Or maybe just create a Shortcut that permanently changes to a different Display Profile! The options are endless.
• Also comes with a Shell Extension that allows you to change to a different Display Profile by right-clicking on the desktop background!
• Supports NVIDIA Surround setups, AMD Eyefinity setups and standard Windows multi-desktop views.
• Supports many different connection types including HDMI, DisplayPort, USB and Wireless.
• Supports SuperDisplay and SpaceDesk android-tablet based monitors

To use:

• Download and install ‘DisplayMagician’.
• Run ‘DisplayMagician’, and click on the ‘Display Profiles’ button
• Use ‘Windows Display Settings’ or ‘NVIDIA Control Panel’ to configure your display(s) exactly as you would like them (AMD EyeFinity is NOT currently supported).
• ALT-TAB back to DisplayMagician, and you should see the new display configuration shown in the Display Profile window.
• Click the ‘Save As/Rename’ button so that DisplayMagician will remember the current Display Profile so you can use it in your Shortcuts. You will need to do this for each different display configuration you want to use in any of your games or applications.
• Click ‘Back’ button to go back to the Main DisplayMagician window.
• Now that you have some Display Profiles set up, you can create some shortcuts that will use them!
• Click on the ‘Game Shortcuts’ button.
• You will be shown your Shortcut Library window. This is where all your Shortcuts live, and where you have to go if you every want to edit them. Click the ‘New’ button to create a new Shortcut
• Choose the Display Profile you want to use with the Shortcut. Make sure it matches what the game expects .
• Click on the ‘2. Choose Audio’ tab and select any audio changes that you would like to set for this shortcut.
• Click on the ‘3. Choose what happens before’ tab to choose as many applications as you'd like to start before the main game or application. Examples include SimHub or Crew Chief.
• Click on the ‘4. Choose Game to start’ tab, to choose the main game or application that the Shortcut will start up and then monitor. DisplayMagician will then pause until you close the main game or application.
• Choose the Game from the list shown, or if it’s not listed there then select the game or application executable. You can also choose to not start anything if you want to permanently change to a different display profile. NOTE: If your game isn't listed, then please launch the game at least once directly via game library (e.g. through Steam). DisplayMagician only detects games that have been run at least once.
• Click on the ‘5. Chose what happens afterwards’ tab, and choose if you want to rollback any display changes you make while starting the game, or if you want to keep them. If the ‘auto-suggest name’ option is enabled then a Shortcut Name will be entered in automatically for you. Feel free to change the name if it's not quite right.
• Once you're ready, click the ‘Save’ button to save the Shortcut to the Shortcut Library. If you can only see the outline of a button rather than the word Save, then the shortcut isn't valid yet. You probably have some missing fields you need to fill in. The Save button only shows if you have a valid Shortcut set up. The minimum requirement is to select a Display Profile, and select a main game or application.
• Once you’ve saved the Shortcut, it should appear in the Shortcut Library.
• To create a Desktop shortcut file from your Shortcut, select the Shortcut from the list in your Shortcut Library, and click the ‘Save to Desktop’ button. This will then write the Shortcut to your computer, ready to use!

​

You now have 4 different ways you can start your shortcut:

• You can double-click on the Desktop shortcut you just saved to the Desktop to start your game; or
• You can right mouse click on the desktop background, and select the Game Shortcut from the DisplayMagician pop-up menu to start your game; or
• You can right mouse click on the DisplayMagician notification tray icon, and select the Game Shortcut from the DisplayMagician pop-up menu to start your game; or
• (optionally) If you've set a Hotkey for your Game Shortcut, you can press the Hotkey keyboard shortcut whenever DisplayMagician is running and your Game Shortcut will run.

The Desktop Background menu that allows you to change your display profiles with a single click is shown here:

If you find this useful, let me know. I'd love to hear what you think of it, or if there are any features I can improve or add to make your lives easier!

Thanks
Terry


More screenshots:

Enjoy!

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v2.7.2 released!

DOWNLOAD DISPLAY MAGICIAN NOW!

DisplayMagician v2.7.2​

DisplayMagician v2.7.2 is a new build with a large number of changes since the last release. Firstly, it now uses AMD, NVIDIA and Windows configurations at the same time. This is a large departure from how the video libraries worked in the past. This should *hopefully* make things more reliable for people running multiple GPUS from multiple vendors.

You can now also 'update' Display Profiles. If your video card manufacturer releases a new version of your video card with new settings added, you can now simply swap to that Display Profile, click the 'Update' button, and your current settings will overwrite the settings in that Display Profile. No longer do you need to update the Game Shortcuts that used your modified Display Profile - the new Display Profile settings will be used automatically!

There were a few bugs in v2.5.0 that needed squashing, and v2.7.2 does just that. It supports the new Steam file format, it avoids many exception errors, and it has numerous other improvements that increase reliability such as try/catch statements to capture errors and handle them silently.

Lastly, there is a big number of changes under the skin. We've moved from .Net Framework v4.8 to .Net 8.0 under the hood. This is a large change that has required many modifications to the codebase, including to the installer. We now require the .Net 8.0 Desktop Runtime to be installed, and to make it nice and easy we've included it in the installation bundle. For this reason the installer is a little bit larger than v2.5.0 was!

Thank you for using DisplayMagician

I've been working on DisplayMagician for the last 4.5 years. I really do love adding features and hearing about how the software has helped you, so feel free to post messages in the [Overtake.gg Forum Thread](https://www.overtake.gg/threads/displaymagician-automate-display-audio-app-changes-with-a-single-desktop-shortcut.199994/). And if you feel like DisplayMagician is worth it, I’d always [appreciate a donation](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/displaymagician)!

Credits

I’m so very thankful for the help of the following people, who make DisplayMagician possible:

* Sean at SimCraft (Thank you so much for your generous donation!)
* Domenic (Thanks for the solid month of troubleshooting help and the monthly sponsorship!)
* Frcooper (thanks for the monthly donations)
* Miiinttt (thanks for the monthly donations)

Also big thanks to:
* Stefan Hergesell (Thanks for the donation)
* bladews (Thanks for the donation)
* bstrut (Thanks for the donation)
* Luca Bassini (Thanks for the donation)
* Aaron S. (Thanks for the donation)
* leechy70 (Thanks for the donation)
* redbus500 (Thanks for the donation)
* lgraves098 (Thanks for the donation)
* SitromR (Thanks for the donation)
* versedi (Thank you for your donation)
* Detonation EMS (Thanks for the donation)
* Nathan Anstice (Thanks for the donation)
* Luuk (Thanks for the donation)
* mastercko (Thanks for the donation)
* Yohan (Thank you for your donation)
* davedontmind (Thanks for the donation)
* hmalatian (Thanks for the donation)
* dewetdavel (Thank you for your donation)
* versedi (Thank you for your donation)
* MrGarrettSmith (Thank you for your donation)
* AshMcConnell (Thank you for your donation)
* kkouvaras (Thank you for your donation)
* ganzoni (Thank you for your donation)
* ondrejholan (Thank you for your donation)
* ClankyBanky (Thank you for your donation)
* richmorn (Thank you for your donation)
* DismalBree123 (Thank you for your donation)
* nibeaos9 (Thank you for your donation)
* Beauchica (Thank you for your donation)
* bolf51 (Thank you for your donation)
* LukeDowding (Thank you for your donation)
* mdelecate (Thank you for your donation)
* TiredRob (Thank you for your donation)
* mattmazgaj (Thank you for your donation)
* Zenairo (Thank you for your donation)
* Impal3rVlad (Thank you for your donation)
* Dmanzano1 (Thank you for your donation)
* Yohan (Thank you for your donation)
* Guennid (Thank you for your donation)
* RBZL (thanks for the past monthly donations)
* Davedontmind (Thank you for your donation)
* Hmalatian (Thank you for your donation)
* Nielssoeth (Thank you for your donation)
* Markus Ewert 'dinex86' (Thanks for letting my use your FOV logic)
* Dogy007 (Thanks for the sponsorship)
* Ceramed (Thank you for your donation and your help troubleshooting SuperDisplay and SpaceDesk screens)
* Bjorg (Thank you for your donation)
* MichaelDWheeler (Thank you for your donation)
* Frank (Thank you for your donation)
* Dan Clark (Thank you for your donation)
* Fonzmonster (Thank you for your donation)
* Logozo (Thank you for your donation)
* 5th (Thank you for your donation)
* Patrickdiezi (Thank you for your donation)
* Fifowole (Thank you for your donation)
* Brett Horton (Thank you for your donation)
* Patrickdiezi (Thank you for your donation)
* NoDepth (For your bug report)
* Chris5gd (For your bug report)
* JabberJon (Thank you for your donation)
* Sikhalv (Thank you for your donation)
* Friedobaer (Thank you for your donation)
* PanthaRhei (Thank you for your donation)
* Matthex (Great help testing multiple display adapter bugs and 7 different screens! And for your donation!)
* NudeNull (Thank you for your sponsorship)
* 20vmki (Thank you for your sponsorship)
* Lazerwolf22 (Thank you for your sponsorship)
* Spmac (Thank you for your sponsorship)
* Mcdbergh (thanks for the bug report)
* JSchoonbrood (Great help testing multiple display adapter bugs and SuperDisplay Android Tablet support)
* Outerspacejunky16 (Thanks for testing AMD support)
* Matthex (Great help testing multiple display adapter bugs and 7 different screens!)
* Dev1981 (Great help testing multiple display adapter bugs and DisplayLink USB)
* Domenic (Thanks for the solid month of troubleshooting help and the sponsorship!)
* Gretzer (thanks for the cool idea)
* Erbkaiser (One of the most impressive testers with an amazing eye for detail)
* SneakingJ (Major props for the help getting cloned display profiles to work)
* Scowling (Again, without you, AMD support wouldn’t exist AT ALL! )
* Slippery-silvia (Again, thanks for the testing help for Mosaic cards with v2.1)
* Mobeeuz (Your thorough testing logs really helped!)
* S4b0tage (Thanks for the testing help and the donation!)
* Gpo123 (thanks for the bug report)
* Whitestar127 (thanks for the bug report)
* Frcooper (thanks for the sponsoring)
* Stringfieldmark (thanks for continued sponsoring and the testing help)
* Bossebossebosse (thanks for the donation)
* Sk666 (thanks for the donation)
* FormelLMS (thanks for the continued sponsoring and the testing help)
* Neilperson (thanks for the cool idea)
* DragRedSim (thanks for the bug report)
* Original HelioDisplayManagement project created by the amazing Soroush Falahati
* Various icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

There have been some absolute rock stars who have helped do a lot of troubleshooting for me in order to iron out a large collection of bugs with the new video libraries, and I’m forever indebted to you. DisplayMagician is only as good as it is thanks to your help!

Terry

v2.7.2 RELEASE NOTES

• Converted from .Net Framework 4.8.1 to .Net v8.0
• Created new Wixv5 based installer
• Bundled .Net v8.0 Desktop Runtime to simplify installation for user
• Updated DisplayMagician Display Profiles so that AMD, NVIDFA and Windows display configurations are used simultaneously. This means DisplayMagician will detect multiple GPU configurations much more reliably.
• Added separate DisplayMagicianConsole.exe to allow for command line changing of the Display Profile from the command line. Note: DisplayMagicianConsole.exe doesn't work with Game Shortcuts - only Display Profiles.
• Removed ability to set a particular display library mode as no longer needed: e.g. --nvidia|--amd|--windows command line options are removed.
• Fixed Steam library parsing so that it works with the new Steam file format released in September 2024
• Added to detect, run and monitor non-Steam apps added to Steam
• Added ability for DM to detect, start and monitor UWP Apps installed from the Microsoft Store
• Fixed DisplayMagician screen layout rendering to make it work with multiple GPOU manufacturers.
• Image grabbing is now much more reliable and avoids a CTD when there is an error
• Changed to using registry set Desktop Background menu rather than registering via COM. Makes it much easier to install and avoids the need for a Windows reboot.
• Added tracking of number of starts and showing to the user
• Simplified update checking logic
• Upgraded libraries to the latest versions

v2.5.0 RELEASE NOTES

• Added ability to select an application from a list of those installed in Windows
• Added ability to start UWP Apps installed from the Microsoft Store (IMPORTANT: DM cannot detect when these are stopped due to Windows Permissions Restrictions. This will only be fixed when DisplayMagician is upgraded to .Net 7 which will take months to do)
• Added FOV calculator using Markus Ewert 'dinex86' code (Thanks for saying yes when I asked Markus!)
• Fixed DisplayMagician so that screen rotation is shown correctly in NVIDIA, AMD and Windows drivers
• Fixed Steam library parsing so that it works with the new Steam file format released in December 2022
• Fixed Image grabbing now detects when an exe doesn't have an icon in it and instead uses a default DM icon
• Fixed freeing Steam files after parsing them that was preventing Steam client upgrades while DisplayMagician was running
• Fixed DisplayMagician window positioning so that it recenters itself on the primary display after a display profile change (screen coordinates change after a display profile changes which may mean DM is off the screen, so it needs to be moved)
• Fixed Desktop Background menu not working
• Upgraded libraries to the latest versions

v2.4.1 RELEASE NOTES

• Fixed CTD caused by window centering logic

v2.4.0 RELEASE NOTES

• Added code to center all windows after a screen resolution change. No more lost windows!
• Added ability to disable the start up windows and windows messages
• Fixed high CPU usage whilst playing games
• Fixed empty Steam libraries causing CTD
• Refactored Program Settings so they are more reliably applied
• Added Working Directory to any starting processes to allow relative file names to work
• Fixed UpdateactiveConfig to reduce the number of times it runs
• Added Windows DPI Scaling Support (requires a new Display Profile format)
• Fixed Game Shortcut system tray context menu not working just after DisplayMagician start
• Refactored TaskBarLayout lonitoring to make it more reliable
• Improved NVIDIALibrary and WinLibrary ability to handle reordered displays (Windows does this randomly sometimes!)
• Fixed the way that WindLibrary sets the Windows GDI settings to align with Microsoft recommendations
• Fixed patching the Windows DPI Scaling entries in PatchAdapterIDs
• Fixed bug in NVIDIALibrary that sometimes caused CTD when changing from NVIDIA Surround to non-Surround display profiles
• Fixed bug that cause CTD when removing a Display Profile
• Made taskbar location gathering more robust
• Fixed potential CTD error during screen UI image generation
• Added network check before attempting autoupdate to stop error when playing on laptops with no network connections
• Added additional startup logging to gather data if DM doesn't load at all
• Improved exception logging to catch all the data when something goes wrong
• Improved Uplay library processing
• Added Windows DPI Awareness to the DisplayMagician so correct per monitor DPI figures are returned by Windows.
• Added feature so that Program Settings are saved automatically when DisplayMagician is exited

v2.3.1 RELEASE NOTES
Added: Converted DisplayMagician to single instance model to speed up loading. Makes DisplayMagician incredibly fast in comparison to 2.1.5 (as long as you select to load on computer start).
Added: Many more NVIDIA Settings tracked
Fixed: NVIDIALibrary bugfixes
Fixed: Bugfixes that improve support for older hardware (e.g. DVI-D, component connections)
Updated: Improved start program process monitoring and stopping
Updated: Improved single instance command parameter handling
Added: Ability to get name of current display profile from command line with `DisplayMagician CurrentProfile` command
Fixed: Fixed issues with drawing tricky display layouts
Added: Works with USB and Wireless displays
Added: Supports SpaceDesk android tablet displays

v2.1.5 RELEASE NOTES
Added: Can run Applications as an administrator (UAC)
Added: Can run Start Programs as an administrator (UAC)
Added: Can run a program afterwards as administrator (UAC)
Fixed: UI Bugfix for Start Programs
Fixed: Improved Shortcut Repository initialisation code robustness

v2.1.2 RELEASE NOTES:
Added: Supports multiple display adapters
Added: Supports SuperDisplay (Android Tablets as a locally attached display)
Added: Supports USB displays
Updated: All windows are now resizeable
Fixed: Robustness fixes for various display driver parsing
Fixed: Fixed some WinLibrary bugs
Fixed: Improved cloned screen reliability with older displays
Added: Added cancel button to UI form and to Windows Toast
Fixed: Rewrote process detection logic to improve reliability

v2.1.1 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Display Profiles MUCH faster (in some cases under 5 seconds)
Added: It works with AMD Eyefinity
Fixed: It saves NVIDIA and Windows HDR settings
Fixed: It saves primary display
Fixed: It stores screen refresh rates and bezel settings
Added: It can apply a Windows background when it changes profiles
Added: You can chose the image you want for your shortcut
Fixed: System tray shortcut and profile menus updated in real time
Updated: Improved start program robustness (note - cannot run programs that require admin privileges - hope to fix that limitation in a future version)

v1.1.4 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: You can use application-based Game Shortcuts again!

v1.1.3 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Command line argument passing to start programs works again!
Added: More reliable handling of unsupported game libraries.

v1.1.2 RELEASE NOTES:
Added: Epic Games launcher support
Added: GOG.com launcher support
Added: More reliable stopping of started start programs
Fixed: All start programs after a start program with the "Don't start if program already running" checkbox will now be started

v1.1.1 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Game Shortcut Hotkeys now work!
Fixed: Windows Notifications are now silenced unless really needed

v1.1.0 RELEASE NOTES:
Added: Hotkeys
Added: Unlimited Start Programs
Updated: Game selection is much easier
Updated: Icon extraction logic is more reliable
Added: Debug and Trace command line parameters
Updated: Errors are communicated to user through UI where they are important enough
Updated: Errors are logged through log file where not as important. Go there first if something isn't working.

v1.0.6 RELEASE NOTES:

Fixed: Missed Origin Library references which caused errors detecting, creating and loading Origin Games (thanks @ngoetje for helping)
Changed: Made the game shortcut execution and game monitoring more reliable. Handles missing alternative executables properly now.
Added: Lots more logging in the Origin Library.

v1.0.5 RELEASE NOTES:

Fixed: DisplayMagician workaround to work with broken NVIDIA 466.11 driver for RTX 2080Ti video cards. Thanks to @m0ellemeister
Fixed: Display Profile and audio/microphone weren't being left as is when the user asked them to be
Changed: Massive refactor of GameLibrary and Game code to make it easier to add new GameLibraries
Changed: Standardised the Game running logic as much as possible to make it more reliable
Added: Origin/EA Game Library support
Added: Can specify alternative executable to monitor for games run through game library
Added: Can open Main application window by doubleclicking the sytem tray/notification icon
Changed: Clicking on the 'Start DisplayMagician minimised in notification area when computer starts' checkbox now sets the minimise setting and the start on boot setting all in one go.

v1.0.4 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Both Steam and Uplay library logic would error when the library was installed, but didn't have any installed games. Thanks to @joeymanson23 for the report.
Fixed: Steam library processing was missing the default steam library. This meant that only people with additional steam libraries were detecting games.
Fixed: Attempting Audio detection on unsupported hardware chipset would cause an exception.
Fixed: Attempting Audio detection when no active audio devices or microphones would cause an exception.
Fixed: Uplay library parsing extracted the incorrect Game ID.
Fixed: Audio volume settings weren't applied unless the audio device was changed.
Fixed: Game process detection was failing on Steam and Uplay due to logic flaw. Now corrected.
Fixed: Didn't create the required DisplayMagician AppData folders on boot. Does now.

v1.0.3 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Upgrades now successfully restart explorer.exe
Fixed: Can close the ApplyProfile window if display change errors (was getting locked in rare cases)
Fixed: Improved game process detection in rare cases
Fixed: DisplayProfile matching is improved

v1.0.2 RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: UI closing when saving shortcut
Fixed: Included missing shortcut writing DLL so that now works
Fixed: Setup now removes prior versions of DisplayMagician correctly
Added: Ability to only run start programs if they aren't already running
Fixed: System Tray notification icon is correctly updated

 

[terrymacdonald]

reserved

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.0.5 released!

This release includes a some cool new features, and a couple of bugfixes.

One new feature is support for the Origin/EA Game Library. This took a while to sort out, but works well, and hopefully helps make it easier to add shortcuts for games you have in Origin.

Another new feature is the ability to monitor a different executable to the game you start from a game library. Previously this feature was only available if you selected the game executable directly through the game executable mode. Now you can choose to monitor another .exe other than the game and only revert things back when that changes. Gives you a lot more flexibility to have things exactly as you want them.

And lastly you can now doubleclick on the notification/system tray icon and the main application window will open. I'm not sure how I missed adding that until now, but there you go.

Two bugs were also fixed. The first one was the the Display Profiles and Audio/Microphone settings weren't reverted when the user asked them to be. That was my mistake, but now it's been fixed. The second one is a bit more nuanced. The latest NVIDIA 466.11 drivers don't correctly get hardware information from the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti video cards, so I've had to build some protection around the information gathering code to attempt to keep this application working even if the NVIDIA code fails.

If you have the NVIDIA driver issue then you will need go into each of your Display Profiles and save them (press the rename button). You will then need to go into each of the shortcuts and select that same Display Profile, then save them too. This will use the new profile matching logic and will get you back up and running. Note: When NVIDIA realises this and fixes their driver you will need to perform these steps again.

v1.0.5 RELEASE NOTES:

Fixed: DisplayMagician workaround to work with broken NVIDIA 466.11 driver for RTX 2080Ti video cards. Thanks to @m0ellemeister
Fixed: Display Profile and audio/microphone weren't being left as is when the user asked them to be
Changed: Massive refactor of GameLibrary and Game code to make it easier to add new GameLibraries
Changed: Standardised the Game running logic as much as possible to make it more reliable
Added: Origin/EA Game Library support
Added: Can specify alternative executable to monitor for games run through game library
Added: Can open Main application window by doubleclicking the sytem tray/notification icon
Changed: Clicking on the 'Start DisplayMagician minimised in notification area when computer starts' checkbox now sets the minimise setting and the start on boot setting all in one go.

 

[Stevie_007]

Love this, is it possible to add more programs to start then 4. this software has solved a problem i had as ive got 5 monitors

 

[terrymacdonald]

Sure! I've added it to my road map. The plan was always to make it an unlimited number of programs to start, but I hurriedly added an interface for 4 programs just to get the app out quickly.

Depending on difficulty, I might even be able to add it into the next release. We'll see how that goes. I'm currently adding in Origin library support and plan on adding hotkey support too in the next release.

Thanks for the nice feedback!

Terry

 

[Jallisey]

Hi Terry, been using your software for a week or so and find it very helpful!

I'd love to be able to bind a profile to a key shortcut. Reasoning behind this, I'd love to be able to switch profiles with my streamdeck. I've tried using the streamdeck to open the *.lnk shortcuts generated, however this just opens another instance of Display Magician.

Cheers

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi Terry, been using your software for a week or so and find it very helpful!

Thanks!

I'd love to be able to bind a profile to a key shortcut. Reasoning behind this, I'd love to be able to switch profiles with my streamdeck. I've tried using the streamdeck to open the *.lnk shortcuts generated, however this just opens another instance of Display Magician.

That was on my roadmap thanks to an enhancement suggested on the github issues list: https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/issues/6

During a discussion there we came up with the following potential places where the keyboard shortcuts could be useful:

• A hot key 'per profile' to directly swap to a particular display profile?
• A hot key 'per shortcut' to directly run a particular shortcut?
• A hot key to open the shortcut library?
• A hot key to open the display profile selecting window?

I'm planning on adding some hotkey functionality into the next release (assuming a hotfix for the latest release isn't needed).

Thanks
Terry

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.0.5 released!

This release includes a some cool new features, and a couple of bugfixes.

One new feature is support for the Origin/EA Game Library. This took a while to sort out, but works well, and hopefully helps make it easier to add shortcuts for games you have in Origin.

Another new feature is the ability to monitor a different executable to the game you start from a game library. Previously this feature was only available if you selected the game executable directly through the game executable mode. Now you can choose to monitor another .exe other than the game and only revert things back when that changes. Gives you a lot more flexibility to have things exactly as you want them.

And lastly you can now doubleclick on the notification/system tray icon and the main application window will open. I'm not sure how I missed adding that until now, but there you go.

Two bugs were also fixed. The first one was the the Display Profiles and Audio/Microphone settings weren't reverted when the user asked them to be. That was my mistake, but now it's been fixed. The second one is a bit more nuanced. The latest NVIDIA 466.11 drivers don't correctly get hardware information from the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti video cards, so I've had to build some protection around the information gathering code to attempt to keep this application working even if the NVIDIA code fails.

If you have the NVIDIA driver issue then you will need go into each of your Display Profiles and save them (press the rename button). You will then need to go into each of the shortcuts and select that same Display Profile, then save them too. This will use the new profile matching logic and will get you back up and running. Note: When NVIDIA realises this and fixes their driver you will need to perform these steps again.

v1.0.5 RELEASE NOTES:

Fixed: DisplayMagician workaround to work with broken NVIDIA 466.11 driver for RTX 2080Ti video cards. Thanks to @m0ellemeister
Fixed: Display Profile and audio/microphone weren't being left as is when the user asked them to be
Changed: Massive refactor of GameLibrary and Game code to make it easier to add new GameLibraries
Changed: Standardised the Game running logic as much as possible to make it more reliable
Added: Origin/EA Game Library support
Added: Can specify alternative executable to monitor for games run through game library
Added: Can open Main application window by doubleclicking the sytem tray/notification icon
Changed: Clicking on the 'Start DisplayMagician minimised in notification area when computer starts' checkbox now sets the minimise setting and the start on boot setting all in one go.

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.0.6 released!

This release is just for bugfixing.

The bug was a couple of missed Origin Library references which caused errors detecting, creating and loading Origin Games (thanks @ngoetje for helping). Now fixed, and should stop any game loading issues.

I took the opportunity to make the running of game shortcuts much more reliable. It has multiple checks to make sure both the game library and game itself are running before going into monitoring mode, and it also has some error checking to handle it when things don't run when they are supposed to. It also reports any issues to the end user through notification toasts so you should get more visibility into what is happening.

I also added a LOT more logging into the Origin Library code, so it will now be able to help me troubleshoot remotely if you put the DisplayMagician logging mode into 'Full Application Trace' mode, and restart the application.

Also as an FYI, NVIDIA has released new 466.27 drivers. I'm hoping they correct the faulty 466.11 driver that didn't correctly get hardware information from the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti video cards, and that everything returns to normal. I reported the issue to NVIDIA in the hope they'd produce a fix. Let's see.

If NVIDIA have fixed the NVIDIA 466.27 driver , then you will need to perform the following steps to fix your Display Profiles so they work again:

- Delete the old Display Profiles
- Recreate each DisplayProfile again from scratch
- Go through each of your Game Shortcuts to use one of the newly created Display Profiles.

Unfortunately that's the only way to regenerate the DisplayProfileIdentifiers and make everything match up again . Thanks NVIDIA.

RELEASE NOTES:

Fixed: Missed Origin Library references which caused errors detecting, creating and loading Origin Games (thanks @ngoetje for helping)
Changed: Made the game shortcut execution and game monitoring more reliable. Handles missing alternative executables properly now.
Added: Lots more logging in the Origin Library.

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.1.0 released!

This release adds quite a lot of new functionality, all of it requested by the awesome people using DisplayMagician!

Firstly, DisplayMagician now has Hotkeys! You can choose a combination of keys to press while DisplayMagician is running, and the Hotkey will perform the task you associated the Hotkey with. You can have Hotkeys for:

- Running a Game shortcut (click on the Hotkey button when editing the Shortcut)
- Changing to a different Display Profile (click on the Hotkey button when you've selected the Display Profile in the Display Profile window)
- Opening the Shortcut Library window (set this in Program Settings)
- Opening the Display Profile window (set this in Program Settings)
- Opening the main DisplayMagician start window (set this in Program Settings)

You can also clear all the Hotkey's at any time by going into the Program Settings and clicking the 'Clear All Hotkeys' button. There is one big caveat to the Hotkey feature: If another application has the same Hotkey, and you're using that application, then that application you're using will it may grab the Hotkey and it will never reach DisplayMagician. In this case my recommendation is to choose a different Hotkey within DisplayMagician as that will make it far more likely to work!

Secondly, you can add as many Start Programs to a shortcut as you want. No more limit of four, you get to add as many as you want. You can also change the priority of the Start Programs you add using the arrow keys or drag-and-drop, as well as temporarily stop them from starting (say if you want to stop them for now but they have some weird and wonderful command line parameters you don't want to lose) which should save everyone some time.

Thirdly, I've recreated the Game Selection window within the Edit Shortcut window. It was always bugging me that it was so ugly and the selection process was a two-step affair, so I've made it a lot larger and hopefully easier to use.

As a side effect of this I had to revisit all the Icon extraction logic for Games, Shortcuts and Display Profiles. The older logic was flawed and didn't always extract the highest resolution images. It turns out that Icons and bitmaps are a real pain to process within Windows 10! After a lot of trial and error 've now found the icon sweet spot and DisplayMagician always extracts the best quality Icon it can find. If the icon looks bad, it is most likely the fact the game just doesn't have a high quality icon within it. DisplayMagician does it's best, but it can't make a high quality icon if there isn't one there .

Fourthly, you can now quickly and easily create a debug log with the `C:\Program Files\DisplayMagician\DisplayMagician.exe --debug` command line, and you can create a trace log file with the `C:\Program Files\DisplayMagician\DisplayMagician.exe --debug` command line. This should make it far simpler to generate a log file to submit if you have any issues!

Fifthly, I've added a *Help* button. This will send you to the DisplayMagician Wiki page. There I hope to add some documentation to help people use DisplayMagician. While I try to make it intuitive to use, there is just so many features that I've added that I think I'll need to help provide guidance on how to use it!

And lastly, I've also made a lot of robustness improvements. The icon logic can now cope with nearly everything going wrong. The monitor detection code now tells the user when their monitor isn't communicating properly. The AutoUpdater logic copes with a wider range of scenarios, and the control masking while running a program works more efficiently. And DisplayMagician tells you when it starts (if it can) if another application has registered a Hotkey that it's trying to register.

That's all a lot of work!

RELEASE NOTES:
Added: Hotkeys
Added: Unlimited Start Programs
Updated: Game selection is much easier
Updated: Icon extraction logic is more reliable
Added: Debug and Trace command line parameters
Updated: Errors are communicated to user through UI where they are important enough
Updated: Errors are logged through log file where not as important. Go there first if something isn't working.

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.1.1 released!

This is a bugfix release to fix the fact that Game Shortcut Hotkeys were broken. They now work in this release.

Also stopped the annoying 'bing' each time that Windows Notifications were created as DisplayMagician went through it's normal operation. These have all now been silenced (except for when there is an error that needs your attention).

RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Game Shortcut Hotkeys now work!
Fixed: Windows Notifications are now silenced unless really needed

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi Terry, been using your software for a week or so and find it very helpful!

I'd love to be able to bind a profile to a key shortcut. Reasoning behind this, I'd love to be able to switch profiles with my streamdeck. I've tried using the streamdeck to open the *.lnk shortcuts generated, however this just opens another instance of Display Magician.

Cheers

Hi Jaillisey,

I've added the ability to swap Display Profiles using a Hotkey (keyboard shortcut), as well as the ability to set Hotkeys to start your favourite Game Shortcuts too!

As a tip, you can right click on the *.lnk files and select 'properties'. You can see the command line parameters that DisplayMagician uses to know what DisplayProfile to run in the 'Target' field. If you do that on your Display Profile shortcut, then you'll see something like this: C:\Program Files\DisplayMagician\DisplayMagician\bin\Debug\DisplayMagician.exe ChangeProfile "ef852215-45a3-4c95-82dc-5b96b5a7cda2". Note that the UUID shown after the ChangeProfile in your installation will be different to the one I've listed here, as each Display Profile has a different UUID.

You can then put that command line in your streamdeck, and you'll be able to change profiles using streamdeck itself!

 

[terrymacdonald]

Love this, is it possible to add more programs to start then 4. this software has solved a problem i had as ive got 5 monitors

Hi Sdubbin,

The latest version of DisplayMagician now can start as many start programs as you can be bothered to enter into the Shortcut! There is no limit within DisplayMagician, but I've tested at least 9 start programs and it handles them fine.

Please give it a test, and log an issues at https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/issues/new/choose if you find anything broken.

Thanks!
Terry

 

[Jallisey]

Hi Jaillisey,

I've added the ability to swap Display Profiles using a Hotkey (keyboard shortcut), as well as the ability to set Hotkeys to start your favourite Game Shortcuts too!

As a tip, you can right click on the *.lnk files and select 'properties'. You can see the command line parameters that DisplayMagician uses to know what DisplayProfile to run in the 'Target' field. If you do that on your Display Profile shortcut, then you'll see something like this: C:\Program Files\DisplayMagician\DisplayMagician\bin\Debug\DisplayMagician.exe ChangeProfile "ef852215-45a3-4c95-82dc-5b96b5a7cda2". Note that the UUID shown after the ChangeProfile in your installation will be different to the one I've listed here, as each Display Profile has a different UUID.

You can then put that command line in your streamdeck, and you'll be able to change profiles using streamdeck itself!

Awesome! I'll give it a try and report back with any issues.

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.1.2 released!

DOWNLOAD DISPLAY MAGICIAN NOW!

Two big new features in this release! We now support both the Epic Games launcher and the GOG.com game launcher.

Another new improvement is that DisplayMagician now attempts multiple different ways to stop applications that it started (if you ask for the start programs to be closed). It first tries to stop the start program process it spawned, but if it can't do that, it attempts to find any additional processes launched by the start program process it spawned. This is to be able to detect start programs that use a launcher to run the main program. And finally, if neither of those detection mechanisms work, then it looks for processes with the same process name, and tries to stop those. The result is much more reliable stopping of start programs.

Lastly, this release fixes a bug with the start programs where any start program after a start program with the "Don't start if program already running" checkbox set wouldn't be started at all . This has now been fixed and the fix confirmed with testing.

Note: Once you add an Epic or GOG game to your game shortcuts, you won't be able to downgrade DisplayMagician to an earlier version without first removing those Epic or GOG game shortcuts from the shortcuts json file. I hope to add a bit more resiliency in the shortcut file processing in the future to just ignore unknown game libraries to allow you to perform a seamless downgrade if you want.

RELEASE NOTES:
Added: Epic Games launcher support
Added: GOG.com launcher support
Added: More reliable stopping of started start programs
Fixed: All start programs after a start program with the "Don't start if program already running" checkbox will now be started

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.1.3 released!

DOWNLOAD DISPLAY MAGICIAN NOW!

Bugfix release to fix a stupid error that prevented passing command line parameters to the start programs. Now fixed.

Also added some resiliency changes that we all DisplayMagician to load a shortcut file from a later version of DisplayMagician without crashing (though it will ignore the shortcuts that use a Game Library that it doesn't support). This will allow you to downgrade from a later version of DisplayMagician without needing to edit your shortcut file if you find a bug in a future version of DM. It doesn't really help for now, but it could prove useful in the future .

A reminder that in the last version I added support for both the Epic Games launcher and the GOG.com game launcher. And that DisplayMagician now attempts multiple different ways to stop applications that it started (if you ask for the start programs to be closed). You can read more about those in the v1.1.2 release notes

RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: Command line argument passing to start programs works again!
Added: More reliable handling of unsupported game libraries.

 

[terrymacdonald]

DisplayMagician v1.1.4 released!

DOWNLOAD DISPLAY MAGICIAN NOW!

Bugfix release to fix a stupid error that prevented users seeing any application-based Game Shortcuts in the Shortcut Library Now fixed.

RELEASE NOTES:
Fixed: You can use application-based Game Shortcuts again!

 

[bosse!]

Thank you for this program, and also for keeping it updated! It's perfect for me as I can easily switch (using my Stream Deck or keyboard shortcut) from my desktop where I have a single screen, to my rig where I'm running triples. It also handles profiles that has surround enabled. Great!

 

[terrymacdonald]

Thank you for this program, and also for keeping it updated! It's perfect for me as I can easily switch (using my Stream Deck or keyboard shortcut) from my desktop where I have a single screen, to my rig where I'm running triples. It also handles profiles that has surround enabled. Great!

Thanks @bosse!

I've tried to make the program that I wish existed. I have to give a massive shout out to Soroush Falahati who developed the original HeliosDisplayManagement software that I used as a starting point. He did all the heavy lifting for the Display Profile changing... so he's the real genius!

I really appreciate the kind words though. It's this sort of thing that keeps me going .

Thanks
Terry