Thread: Dual monitors - your opinion

I just wanted to see how many others are running dual monitors on their gaming system. If so, do any of you have different sized monitors that require different resolutions like say a widescreen and a normal sized monitor? Also, have you guys had any problems running dual monitors while gaming?

i have dual monitors and its not very useful in fullscreen games, i could have something open on 1 and the game on the other but the resolution change from game to desktop pushes everything to the right and whatever was on the right screen is pushed halfway off.

Its good if you play games that dont need to be on fullscreen (windowed mode) like an mmo

Cecil, I was thinking the same thing. Although I will paraphrase what I said in the other one...

There shouldn't be an issue with monitors of different resolution. For a while I ran a 21.5" and 15" monitor on the same rig.

As for gaming, it depends on the game. Full screen games will lock you to your main screen. Yes, you can put other things on the 2nd monitor but keep in mind that the resolution on the second screen will change to the resolution of the game so they might not appear on the screen anymore or might be in a unusable position. If this is the case, you can move your screens around to fit on the new resolution. Ideally, you want both monitors to be the same size to avoid this.

Playing a FPS in windowed mode will be a nightmare since your mouse won't be locked to the screen and will go across both monitors.

If you want to get REALLY high tech and want to use multiple computers with multiple screens, check out a program called StarDock Multiplicity. Through your LAN, it will seemlessly link all of your computers into 1 seemless screen with negligable bandwidth usage. I used it for a really long time until I stopped using multiple monitors and screens.

for gaming, not so great. But at work, I have three right now and I am adding more at my next chance.
Nothing like having all my windows full screen all the time.

Yeah, great for productivity or having a windowed game running while you do work. I will sometimes have a civ game running on one (in a window) and some homework or other such mess on one of the others.

For gaming, useless. Especially in FPS land.

But when I am writing papers it is really nice to have PDFs or websites I am using as references open on one or two of my secondary monitors while I type away at the document on my primary. It is all in how you configure your desktop and run windowed programs. But when gaming FPS style or any intense game that runs full screen, I just run one monitor.

yeh i run a 19inch widescreen as my primary and secondary i have a 24inch full screen that i throw all of my junk like steam and xfire, vent and a few other things i like to see while im in game