Dual Monitor question

[Stimpy]

Hey folks, I've just purchased a 24" LCD to run along side my 20" I have got them running but what I actually want to do it be able to switch between monitors while gaming, so say I'm running HL2 and want to check a website or reply to a message on msm is there a way to keep the game on the main screen but switch to the other without having to alt-tab?

Cheers.

I forgot to mention I'm running Vista64 and they are both connected via DVI to a Radeon x1900.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Stimpy

Just a flying visit, but I don't think it's possible. You can certainly have a game on one screen and a browser or whatever on the other, but you will need to Alt+Tab to switch between the two (this is due to the way games are rendered).

Perhaps there is a third-party solution, or some neat trick to get around this, but last I checked there wasn't much (although admittedly this was a few months ago).

Kind regards

 

[inactionman]

Some things that may be of interest to you in the tools section.

Multi-monitor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Aesgir]

Hmm could you not use windowed mode set to the resolution of one monitor, just drag it into place and use the secondary for IM's etc? I can't remember how i used to do it (down to one monitor now) but pretty sure i could do it

 

[taB]

Yeh, I've had difficulty doing this with 2 different sized monitors, all the solutions I've read covered same sized ones. Admittedly I've spent little time trying to do it as *my* 2nd monitor is occasionally borrowed from work overnight.

 

[Ch3tan]

Clown used to pimp about an app called ultramon for dual screen funkyness.

 

[Clown]

Yeah, but it won't help him keep a game in full-screen while he browses the desktop. I guess the only other way is to have the game in a window as previously mentioned.

 

[Stimpy]

Ah well thanks for the replies anyway guys, I never realised you couldn't do this with dual monitors, I thought this was one of the reason people had them

 

[Litmus]

Hmm yea i was quite disappointed by duel mointers too. I bought a DVI to HDMI cable about a week ago so i could link my pc to HDTV... and tbh it wasnt its all cracked up to be, if you "clone" the screen, both screens have to use the same resolution which suck as my moniter is a normal 4:3 ratio and the tv is 10:something which means one of the other will look shit.

Also when watching movies over the cable isnt that good either, im pretty sure if you "stream" a HD vid to the TV it isnt in HD quality because it looks pretty crappy sometimes.

 

[Fweddy]

World of Warcraft has a full screen windowed mode, so you can use it on one screen seamlessly. Not enough games have this though

I still couldn't live without dual screen though. I'm too used to it now.

 

[Ch3tan]

Also when watching movies over the cable isnt that good either, im pretty sure if you "stream" a HD vid to the TV it isnt in HD quality because it looks pretty crappy sometimes.

Well it depends what you mean by a HD vid. My Tv is 1080p, so any 1080 content looks stunning. However lower res content will be upscaled (either by the PC or TV) and thus will not look as good.

If you think the majority of content on the net purporting to be "HD" really is.....

 

[Jonty]

Hi Litmus

Ch3tan is right, not all 'HD' content is made equal, and the image quality can be suboptimal if it has to be resized.

Other factors include how far away you're sat from the screen (you won't notice imperfections as much if you're further away) and the quality of the cable. If you're using a cheap VGA cable, it won't provide as good a picture quality as a decent DVI or HDMI cable. The length of the cable can also play a part, with longer cables sometimes introducing more interference.

Kind regards

 

[inactionman]

One thing I'll say about cables is don't get conned into buying expensive digital cables! (HMDI/DVI) If you are running them in spec the bitstream down a digital cable will be the same, it's only when you are running them out of spec (longer than the standard is rated for, so about 4.5M for DVI and about 5M for HDMI) that buying expensive cable is worth it.

The number of arguements I see about this! You wouldn't buy an expensive ethernet cable if it claimed you'd get better latency would you, same for digital video/audio.

 

[Jonty]

One thing I'll say about cables is don't get conned into buying expensive digital cables!

That's very true! I've seen some exorbitantly priced HDMI cables, so always use common sense when buying.

Kind regards

 

[Clown]

Glady I can run a movie in fullscreen on my HDTV (non clone screen) while using the other monitor for other stuff. I don't really play PC games anymore.