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!

 

[Esstoo]

Hmmmmm, tricky. This could be an issue with the video card driver not liking part of the configuration it is sent, and only applying some of it the first time, then it being fine with the whole configuration the second time? It's hard to say without logs.

Can you please log a new issue at https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/issues/new/choose and then create a Support ZIP File (its a button under Settings) and then upload your log files to the new issue. That will let me have a detailed look at what is going on.

Thanks
Terry

Yep, no worries. I'll do that. Thanks.

 

[jrzanolini]

WOW!
This software is pure gold. I was suffering for months, using surround 100% of the time even when I didn't need it, and now I can enjoy the best of both worlds, in software that just works.
I'm going to push that donate button so hard!

OBS: I would like google to make this work of art more relevant in searches.

 

[ArcticGypsy]

Hi, I've recently been having some issues getting the app to load. It just displays the splash screen and then fails to load anything else. I've tried uninstalling, removing the app data folder amd reinstalling. I tried it on a VM, and it worked, but does not work on my normal machine.
Windows 11

Love the app BTW!!!

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi, I've recently been having some issues getting the app to load. It just displays the splash screen and then fails to load anything else. I've tried uninstalling, removing the app data folder amd reinstalling. I tried it on a VM, and it worked, but does not work on my normal machine.
Windows 11

Love the app BTW!!!

I understand from the issue that you reinstalled Windows and now the problem has gone away. If you have any more issues please feel free to log new issue at https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/issues/new/choose.

Thanks
Terry

 

[terrymacdonald]

WOW!
This software is pure gold. I was suffering for months, using surround 100% of the time even when I didn't need it, and now I can enjoy the best of both worlds, in software that just works.
I'm going to push that donate button so hard!

OBS: I would like google to make this work of art more relevant in searches.

Thanks @jrzanolini!

I am working on some improvements and a massive move from WinForms and .NetFramework 4.8 to the much more modern WinUI3 and .Net 7.0 which will take a while. I'm trying to also remove the limitations where DM chooses which 'video mode' is best; it chooses an AMD, NVIDIA, or Other mode when it starts. I've learnt over the last few years that there are people out there running AMD and NVIDIA cards together at once, and they want to be able to use all the cards in the machines, so the DisplayMagician v3.0 will attempt to support this.

Further down the track will be Intel Arc support added once I get the new v3.0 working.

Thanks again for the kind words!
Terry

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi All,

Thought I'd give people an update on DisplayMagician and where I'm at with it. I love working on DisplayMagician and making it better and better, but I'm just not getting as much spare time at the moment as I used to, so development has slowed right down. That, combined with the fact I need to learn how to use WinUI and .Net 7.0, means that the first version of DisplayMagician v3.0 could be up to a year away . This is not what I had hoped, but it really the most likely timeframe.

For that reason I am still going to do some more work on ironing out a couple of edge-case bugs that are still affecting DisplayMagician v2.5.0, in the hope that I can make it a bit more reliable even when people have expansive setups using 3 adapters and 8 displays! Once I get the video libraries working together a bit better then I'll probably do a new release of DisplayMagician v2.5 to get those fixes out to you. My goal is to make the difficult things easy and reliable, so I'll keep striving for that goal.

So, TLDR - There will be fewer DisplayMagician releases now, at least until DisplayMagician v3.0 comes out. That version is likely to have a few bugs (as it includes so much new code) that I'll probably release a few beta builds until a sufficient number of users have tested it for me - enough for me to be confident it works well enough for a full release.

Thanks
Terry

 

[dami1]

Hello everyone
After testing lots of alternatives to use NVIDIA Surround setups, AMD Eyefinity supports easily I found DisplayMagician so a big thank you for this incredible software, for people who used 3 screens for simracing and 1 screen on a desk for other games

I just have a little suggestion for the future added a hotkey view current display
(why: because I use an HDMI/displayport Switch on my PC and the fact of Switch requires the screen to be updated and with the macro plus the stream deck that would be perfect)

thank you again, and long life to this software, good luck

 

[Haroldiniho]

i dont know how to even download the thing! click download takes me to github and then theres nowhere to download it. aarrgghh

 

[terrymacdonald]

i dont know how to even download the thing! click download takes me to github and then theres nowhere to download it. aarrgghh

Hi Haroldiniho,

With Github projects you click on the latest Release item under the Releases heading on the right-hand side of the page (alternatively you can bookmark this page https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/releases) and then scroll down to the Assets heading and download and run the .msi file.

Hope that helps

Terry

 

[Kost9lbrik]

Hello there.
It feels to me I found a proper app to solve my 5 screen setup with 3 different models of monitors (triples for simracing are all the same+widescreen on top of triple+main-working-TV55''). Though I guess I"m getting t oo old to understand how to use it properly. I suppose this app allow me to run a game without a need to adjust the position of windowed games (AC, DR2.0, ACC), but I get no idea how to do that.
Do you havea tutorial somewhere (best would be on youtube), to see how to make it run properly with some examples?
Thx in advance
PS I use AMD graphics card (7900xtx)

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hello there.
It feels to me I found a proper app to solve my 5 screen setup with 3 different models of monitors (triples for simracing are all the same+widescreen on top of triple+main-working-TV55''). Though I guess I"m getting t oo old to understand how to use it properly. I suppose this app allow me to run a game without a need to adjust the position of windowed games (AC, DR2.0, ACC), but I get no idea how to do that.
Do you havea tutorial somewhere (best would be on youtube), to see how to make it run properly with some examples?
Thx in advance
PS I use AMD graphics card (7900xtx)

Hi,

The DisplayMagician wiki page has some setup instructions here: https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/wiki/Initial-DisplayMagician-Setup

Also, if you prefer to see a video on how to setup DisplayMagician, check out this awesome 'How to Setup DisplayMagician' video from JDM PC Gaming.

Hope that helps.

 

[Kost9lbrik]

Hi,

The DisplayMagician wiki page has some setup instructions here: https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/wiki/Initial-DisplayMagician-Setup

Also, if you prefer to see a video on how to setup DisplayMagician, check out this awesome 'How to Setup DisplayMagician' video from JDM PC Gaming.

Hope that helps.

Amazing, will ckeck out the wiki, though this awesome video is not availalbe anymore (((.
If you know of any other ones would appreciate a lot as it looks like not so easy to find any videos about it. Thx once again.

 

[Slappers]

Hi @terrymacdonald ,

Trying to use display magician with 2 profiles to turn on and off my 4th screen on the simrig. I have the unfortunate issue with AMS2 doesnt like having more than 3 screens setup, so I turn the 4th off in nvidia control panel - Setup Multiple Displays - uncheck the monitor.

The AMS2 profile turns off the monitor and all is well to play. When done racing I apply the default profile, to enable the 4th monitor, windows chimes the connecting devices sound, screens go dark, but when they come back the 4th does not. I can manually go in and enable it, screens go black but all 4 will enable (with that display zooming thing w11 does). I will have to acknowledge the display change however.

Any idea why DM has the difficulty with enabling the 4th screen?

Thanks
Mark

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi @terrymacdonald ,

Trying to use display magician with 2 profiles to turn on and off my 4th screen on the simrig. I have the unfortunate issue with AMS2 doesnt like having more than 3 screens setup, so I turn the 4th off in nvidia control panel - Setup Multiple Displays - uncheck the monitor.

The AMS2 profile turns off the monitor and all is well to play. When done racing I apply the default profile, to enable the 4th monitor, windows chimes the connecting devices sound, screens go dark, but when they come back the 4th does not. I can manually go in and enable it, screens go black but all 4 will enable (with that display zooming thing w11 does). I will have to acknowledge the display change however.

Any idea why DM has the difficulty with enabling the 4th screen?

Thanks
Mark

Not really without logs. The tricky things is that DisplayMagician stores whatever settings it detects from the NVIDIA or AMD video card drivers, and then it tries repeating those settings when you swap display profiles. Problems arise when updates are made to the drivers where those changes modify the settings in some way. This means when DisplayMagician attempts to apply the settings it previously stored then those changes are refused by the driver (or by Windies itself).

I normally recommend that people simply recreate a new display profile again and see if that works. If it does, then you swap over your game shortcuts to use that new display profile and it should work for a while again.

If you want to help me troubleshoot it, you could try swapping to the display profile that is failing, and then after it has failed, create a new display profile with the failed settings. Then go into the DisplayMagician settings, and create a Support ZIP File and upload it to the GitHub issues page in a new GitHub issue. That will let me compare the display profiles together and see what settings are different/incompatible.

I just recently thought of a simpler way of fixing this which I'm looking to implement - I want to create an update button in the display profile window which would allow DisplayMagician to re-detect the correct display settings for a display profile. If things didn't work like your experiencing, users would simply create the correct display layout, then would go to the display profile and would click update. The new 'fixed' settings would overwrite the older incorrect settings, and everything goes back to working.

I'm trying to sketch out how that would work now, and hope to have something to release in a month or two.

Thanks
Terry

 

[DragonHere]

Hi, so I need help i have my main desk display running off my graphics card and my racing sim display running off my graphics card. But my secondary display is running off of integrated graphics from my CPU and i can not get it to show up in displaymagician, my secondary display shows in windows display settings but not Nvidia control panel is there anything i can do to get displaymagican to work with windows display settings and not Nvidia control panel?

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hi, so I need help i have my main desk display running off my graphics card and my racing sim display running off my graphics card. But my secondary display is running off of integrated graphics from my CPU and i can not get it to show up in displaymagician, my secondary display shows in windows display settings but not Nvidia control panel is there anything i can do to get displaymagican to work with windows display settings and not Nvidia control panel?

Hi @DragonHere ,

Is your CPU an AMD? If so then you'll need to either wait until v2.6.0 comes out, or you can try one of the test v2.6.0 versions that I've been releasing in the comments within issues on my GitHub. GitHub is where I handle all my development work.

I'd probably recommend looking at the zip file in this issue as I think it's the latest? https://github.com/terrymacdonald/DisplayMagician/issues/257#issuecomment-1939511836

One big warning here though. V2.6.0 is under active development and will eventually incorporate a configuration change that will break your display profiles. This is necessary to fix a bug in NVIDIA land.

Hope that helps!

Thanks
Terry

 

[DragonHere]

Thanks I got it to work, one last question does display magician work with a DisplayPort or HDMI switcher?

 

[terrymacdonald]

Thanks I got it to work, one last question does display magician work with a DisplayPort or HDMI switcher?

So think of DisplayMagician as display layout recorder and playback software. It grabs whatever settings that you have at the time you create (or update) a Display Profile, and it attempts to put those settings back when you use a Display Profile.

What this means is that if you can set up your DisplayPort or HDMI switcher, then save the Display Profile, then it should work in the future. One important thing to note though is that DisplayMagician makes sure that only valid Display Profiles are able to be selected. DisplayMagician will therefore only allow you to use Profiles that it can 'see' - so you will have to change your HDMI switcher to swap to any Display Profiles using it.

DisplayMagician should detect the display layout change and will recheck which Display Profiles are valid and you should then be able to select them.

In other words, changing Display Profiles becomes a two step process:
- Change your HDMI/DisplayPort switcher
- Wait for DisplayMagician to detect the change and then apply the Display Profile you want.

Hope that helps!

Thanks
Terry

 

[mikediswhoibe]

Hello! Is there the ability to switch profiles via command line vs keeping DisplayMagician open all the time?

 

[terrymacdonald]

Hello! Is there the ability to switch profiles via command line vs keeping DisplayMagician open all the time?

Hi Mike,

Not in the current version (its broken), but there is a command line version coming in v2.6.0.

You're missing out though if you're only using DisplayMagician to swap display profiles. The real power and ease of use comes from using Game Shortcuts.

Game Shortcuts allow you to set up DisplayMagician to do everything you need to in order to prepare your computer to run your favourite games. For example I have a shortcut on my desktop for Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC). When I doubleclick on that ACC shortcut this happens automatically:
- My current display layout is temporary saved for later
- My triple screen Display Profile is applied
- My audio output is changed from my speakers to my headset
- My microphone is changed from my speakers to my headset
- Simhub is started and ACC is selected (cmdline option)
- ACC is started, and then DisplayMagician sits and waits.

I then play my game, knowing that everything is always set up the way I want it. When I've finished gaming, I simply close down ACC. DisplayMagician automatically detects that, and then reverts everything back to what it was:
- Simhub is stopped
- My microphone and audio settings are put back as they were
- My previous display layout is reapplied

All that happens when I simply double-click my ACC shortcut.

I have all my games set up as Game Shortcuts and I have various helper programs installed that are only started as I need them. I don't even have to have DisplayMagician running on start up as it will automatically do this even if it hasn't loaded - though I recommend having DisplayMagician load on startup if you have lots of games as it otherwise takes DM a long time to start.

If you've not tried Game Shortcuts I really, really recommend it!

Thanks
Terry