Synchronize frame lock across a display cluster

This feature is only available for Autodesk Showcase Professional.

When presenting across multiple displays or projection systems, it may be important to operate the displays in unison to create the appearance of a single display. The NVIDIA Frame Lock hardware and software enable you to create one large virtual canvas by using multiple displays.

Frame lock hardware and software requirements

To use frame lock, you must use supported graphics hardware and make sure it is set up to enable synchronization. For details on how to set up frame synchronization in the graphics driver, refer to the NVIDIA documentation; in particular, NVIDIA’s ForceWare Graphics Drivers: Frame Synchronization User’s Guide.

Also, frame lock is only supported when running Showcase in OpenGL mode. (See http://www.opengl.org/.) OpenGL mode is indicated by this icon in the lower right corner of the Showcase window: .

To run Showcase in OpenGL mode, do one of the following, then restart Showcase:

Load the StereoCustom add-in with the Add-in Manager, or;
Use Windows Control Panel to set the SHOWCASE_DEVICE_API environment variable to GL.

Once you are finished your hosting session, remember to unload the StereoCustom add-in or disable the SHOWCASE_DEVICE_API environment variable if you do not want to use Showcase in OpenGL mode for subsequent sessions.

Synchronizing frame lock across a display cluster

After you have set up frame lock and started Showcase in OpenGL mode, you need to enable frame lock for the host. You need to do the same for each client used as part of the cluster display at the time it joins the host session.

On the host computer, select Present > Collaboration Mode > Host Session.
Set up the host session as described in Set up and participate in online sessions, and select Enable Hardware Framelock in the Host Session window.
From each client computer that will be used as part of the cluster display, start Autodesk Showcase and select Present > Collaboration Mode > Join Session.
Select Enable Hardware Framelock from the Join Session window.

Working without frame lock

If you do not have the requirements needed to use frame lock, you can still select Enable Software Synchronization in the Host Session window to improve synchronization between host and clients.

In other cases, neither frame lock nor synchronization is necessary, such as when:

The host and clients are physically separated and do not need to be tightly synchronized.
The host and clients are separated by a WAN connection and you want to avoid the extra network overhead used by synchronization.