Dual Monitor Questions

**Glitch** · 10-18-10, 01:18 PM

Ok, so I have a 24" widescreen and have teh opertunity to get a 20" also. I have dual monitors at work and LOVE it. I know my video card has VGA, DVI, and HDMI outs so that wond be an issue. Will just have one monitor on DVI and one VGA.

I know games I run windowed will be fine like Civ IV.

However when I launch a full screen game how will that work? If I launch BF2, BF2142, Borderlands, Madden, etc I know these games wont use the secondary monitor but will it screw anything up? Will it cause any errors in those programs? Will the 2nd screen keep showing what I already have on it or will it blank out?

**Captain Coors** · 10-18-10, 01:30 PM

They will launch fine. The secondary monitor will show whatever usual windows desktop/icons you have on it.

You won't be able to move the mouse across to that monitor unless you alt-tab.

You could have a chat window/video/whatever streaming on the second monitor and watch it while you are in the fullscreen app but you won't be able to interact with it unless you alt-tab.

**Bunni** · 10-18-10, 01:31 PM

ill assume you have nvidia cards: depends on how you have sli configured.

I currently have my system configured to render each screen with a seperate card and when in game to render my entire desktop with both cards. Of course theres a performence hit when comparing to running a single monitor, but its not that big of a deal if you've got the FPS to spare (e.g. when in game on a single monitor you get 80+ FPS).

Best to run a game in a single monitor, in other words do not have the game sitting between/across two monitors if you are rendering each screen via a different card, however its fine if you are rendering your entire desktop via sli.

You'll be fine, just set SLi to run for max perf on multiple monitors (will render you entire desktop as a single monitor, ie your system will think that the desktop space between your two monitors is actually a single monitor, which then allows the system to use standard SLI rendering methods: AFR, SFR, Hyrbid, etc).

**Glitch** · 10-18-10, 02:20 PM

@Captain Coors; Thanks! exactly what I wanted to hear.

@Bunni: I am confident about stretching the desktop across both Monitors, Not going to even attempt to run games across both. Single Video Card (ATI :P but I assume the same idea would apply to crossfire) with 3 outputs on it. Same way we have at work, except they are on the MOBO and not an add on card but it should work the same way. I appreciate the information tho, it just doesn't apply in my particular case hopefully someone else will find it applicable.

**hannibal** · 10-21-10, 01:21 AM

With ATI, I have never had any problems with windows and dual monitors actually its fun to monitor system temps in game, with SLI, some games like Supreme Commander One need to have SLI disabled when using a dual monitor setup.

-H

**deathgodusmc** · 10-21-10, 01:35 AM

I run duals and it comes in handy for what i need it for. You should be just fine running them. The only thing i know that changes when the games kick in is my wall paper shrinks to about 800x600 roughly. As soon as the game closes it goes right back to normal.

**FireAtWill** · 11-01-10, 11:05 AM

I actually run Steam games in a window. Some don't like it but I can move between the game and my second monitor. I found that when I ALT+TAB out HL2.exe freezes a lot. When I run in a window it works much better. I am running 2 24" Screens.