Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Multi-monitor support

I've never posted in the wish section before (certainly not recently), since I generally believe the developers don't pay that much attention to what goes on here.

But I thought I'd just ask (even though I likewise don't realistically expect an answer),

Is there any chance that Archicad my get (TRUE) multi-monitor support like it seems Revit will be getting in their upcoming version:



This follows the most recent versions of Vectorwors (2018) and also Allplan for quite some time (since 2015) all having multi=monitor support, which.....one would have thought would be a no-brainer for a graphics-related, CAD/BIm design program and with the proliferation of really powerful graphics cards and GPU's nowadays.

I asked about this some time back, and no response, and I swear if I didn't know better, I would think that Revit developers read Graphisoft forums and then get features to improve or add, from the requests that people make here.
24 REPLIES 24
Brett Brown
Advocate
Hi Bricklyne, Are you using Windows? On a Mac we have multi montor support. Check the Reference guide of the version you are using. In 20, only available for Mac, not Windows. Don't know about 21.
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
I'm on Windows and it's not available (as in TRUE multi-monitor support and not just stretching a window across two monitors) in any version as far as I can tell (I'm on the latest version).
And this has been a major request going several years back now, so it would be a little disappointing (and annoying but ultimately not surprising) to learn that they implemented it already on the Mac side for a while already.

What makes it even harder to understand why this would be a low priority wishlist item for them to implement is that currently pretty much all their rivals and alternative programs out there (Revit, Allplan, Vectorworks, Microstation) ALL have multi-monitor support. Especially now with Revit adding it to their latest version.

It's a no-brainer (or at least it should be) for the type of industry we are and how we work in a visual medium and in a visual way of thinking, and given where graphics card and GPU technology are today.

It boggles my mind sometimes why they drag their feet on implementing features such as this
Brett Brown
Advocate
Archcad 21 Help, page 352, undock Tab and drag to second monitor, Mac only. Still doesn't work like Revit, which continually updates all open windows without the user doing anything. We have to click in each window for it to update.

One of many basic glaring omissions we still haven't got

Only a couple of weeks to wait to see if any have been implemented in 22
Imac, Big Sur AC 20 NZ, AC 25 Solo UKI,
Anonymous
Not applicable
Don't expect it in 22, but there are rumors that it could come in next version. It's on dev radar
Yes, I didn't expect it in version 22.
(to be honest, I didn't even expect it in version 23 next year).

But it's important that its at least somewhere on their roadmap, since it's something they have unforgiveably dragged their legs on (to the extent that they're now the only ones in the market that don't spot this feature).

Made even more worse by the realisation that they already implemented it, but only on the Mac side and for two versions already.
daviiiiidave
Advocate
Hey Guys,

i think this option is the most important thing for Archicad v23.

But dont praise it to much cause it should be a standard option.

Its like the full screen mode of apple. long time ago there was no full screen mode. then they implemented it and made a big thing of it.

I think in the most offices people work with 2 or more screens. Make it happen GS.

I think with this option it could be possible to have 4 Views (Top, Side, 3D and Cut) like in cinema, rhino or blender next to each other.

ARCHICAD 19-25, Student & Full Archicard, CI Tools, Germany
Mifcom Renderbox AMD Ryzen 9 5900X GeForce RTX 3070 TI 32GB RAM 980 PRO SSD Win10
Thinkpad P52 4K i7 8850H NVIDIA Quadro P3200 (6 GB) 32 GB RAM SSD Win10 Pro

furtonb
Advisor
daviiiiidave wrote:
I think with this option it could be possible to have 4 Views (Top, Side, 3D and Cut) like in cinema, rhino or blender next to each other.
I think Revit has a more useful way to organize more than 4 views with the "window tile (W~T)" command (the video won't demonstrate, but it works with dozens of views also):


but it seems like that the tabbed views are influencing them too:
odv.hu | actively using: AC25-27 INT | Rhino6-8 | macOS @ apple silicon / win10 x64
Professor Pickle
Advocate
I'm a long time Revit user just starting to look at ArchiCAD because Revit is so frustrating. Don't think that the grass is greener on the other side. It might look it but it is just astroturf, not even real grass 😉

Anyway, Revit's current multi-monitor support is rudimentary at best. Yes you can drag tabs out onto a second screen but they don't really behave like real windows. Also tabbed views are a real mess. For example, when you have multiple projects open there is no visual distinction between the tabs. It gets really crowded and messy very quickly. The tiled view is not all that useful unless you have a high DPI monitor, otherwise you just see less of more. Not very useful.

In my mind multi-monitor support is a no brainer but it needs to implemented well. Look towards apps like Adobe's Creative Suite to see how they manage multiple windows. In particular how they support tabbed vs separate windows. Most importantly once tabs are dragged / separated into individual windows it is important that they behave like the native OS's windows and not something weird with strange decorations, buttons, etc.
Pushing the boundaries of local time/space continuum since 1972.
Archicad 26 | iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) | 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 | 24 GB | Radeon Pro 580 8 GB | macOS 12.6


Wow, this old thread.

When I posted a year ago, I predicted that it wouldn't be implemented in version 22 and I was right.
And I also predicted not to expect it in version 23 and it seems like I will be right about that as well.

So I'll go ahead and predict that it won't be implemented in version 24 next year either.
Graphisoft developers seem to have their own list of priorities of what they seek to address in the program that seems to have nothing to do with these wishlist sections which is why I have such little faith in the effectiveness of the whole wishlist request system.

And one seems to get the impression that this feature, as important a feature as it may seem for us the users, doesn't seem to rank that high for the developers.
(my guess is that it might involve a major rewrite of the program's graphic kernel to allow it to handle multi-monitor GPU processing and processes and I just don't see them investing anything in that direction at this time.)

It's worth noting of course, that it's only us PC and Windows' users that are the redheaded step-child being denied this since it's already been implemented on the Mac side.