Gaming with dual display

D

dtac7

n00b
Joined
Aug 25, 2004
Messages
61
Hi,

I have two 24" BenQ's and a eVGA 8800 GT SSC. I have a few questions maybe some of you could answer.

1. Can I just use my left monitor for gaming if I am in span mode or do I have to be in dual mode?

2. If I'm in dual mode and the game is open on the left monitor, can I have the right monitor active and use the mouse over there when I want to?

3. In dual mode can you set up a windows wallpaper to span across both and not be mimic'd
 
dtac7 said:
Hi,

I have two 24" BenQ's and a eVGA 8800 GT SSC. I have a few questions maybe some of you could answer.

1. Can I just use my left monitor for gaming if I am in span mode or do I have to be in dual mode?

2. If I'm in dual mode and the game is open on the left monitor, can I have the right monitor active and use the mouse over there when I want to?

3. In dual mode can you set up a windows wallpaper to span across both and not be mimic'd
Click to expand...

Why dont you try it your self?

Question #2: If you run the game in a window, you could alt tab and since the game is in a window it wont minimize and your mouse will be free from being locked into that game.

I run two monitors with gaming, and run all my games in full screen. I keep stuff like teamspeak, gaim, windows mail, xfire, and vista sidebar on my second monitor. But when I want to actually open up a IM with someone, or click something, I have to alt+tab. Otherwise theres no way to free your mouse from being locked into that game.
 
widescreengamingforum.com has a lot of good information about gaming on multiple monitors.
 
dtac7 said:
Hi,

I have two 24" BenQ's and a eVGA 8800 GT SSC. I have a few questions maybe some of you could answer.

1. Can I just use my left monitor for gaming if I am in span mode or do I have to be in dual mode?

2. If I'm in dual mode and the game is open on the left monitor, can I have the right monitor active and use the mouse over there when I want to?

3. In dual mode can you set up a windows wallpaper to span across both and not be mimic'd
Click to expand...
1. I only use dual mode so i wouldnt know, but i think the game will run on the monitor designated as 'primary' no matter which mode you use.

2. If the game is running fullscreen, you will not be able to use the secondary monitor no matter which dual monitor mode. You will have to alt-tab to use the other monitor, some games will allow you to move the cursor over but it will minimize the game. You can run the game i windowed mode to use both screens at the same time, but many games take a performance hit.

3. I use Ultramon and it does allow this.
 
Thanks for the responses. That sticks I really wanted to use AIM while keeping the game window active in full screen mode. That really was my whole reason for having two displays lol. I guess I could try windowed mode to see if the performance is bad.

Any other cool tricks or settings?
 
Seconding the Ultramon recommendation. I can't live without that app.

If you're playing an MMO that doesn't require 100% attention, you can put it in windowed mode and move the mouse freely outside of it without having to alt+tab. I do this for WoW/EQ2 with the game on the left LCD and Firefox/Gaim/Foobar/etc on the other.

If you put the taskbar at the top of the screen you can move the game windows title bar up under it and expand it a bit more to gain a few extra pixels. :D
 
i used to play wow in maximized windowed mode so i can use the other monitor freely for everything else and it was really nice, i could never go back to alt-tab. There was a serious performance hit but in wow i didnt really matter since it's not that demanding anyway and you dont need 100fps like in CS.
 
dtac7 said:
Hi,

I have two 24" BenQ's and a eVGA 8800 GT SSC. I have a few questions maybe some of you could answer.

1. Can I just use my left monitor for gaming if I am in span mode or do I have to be in dual mode?

2. If I'm in dual mode and the game is open on the left monitor, can I have the right monitor active and use the mouse over there when I want to?

3. In dual mode can you set up a windows wallpaper to span across both and not be mimic'd
Click to expand...

1) You can span and game on your left
2) if you use your right monitor the game will lose focus and may minimise, usualy the mouse pointer is only active when the game also has a mouse pointer, such like when you're in the loading screen for HL2 games, even then you need to click off the game screen first
3) Yes you can, you might have to fiddle a bit, with Vista I had to set the wallpaper to tile and then make sure that the wallpaper is the correct resolution for the span (so it just tiles exactly once), so you'd need to resize your current wallpaper if it's not the correct size already.
 
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