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| Levels-4-You : Lounge : 2 monitors 2 different things at once |
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| DVL_IAC |
  Posted 28th Mar 2007 3:41am |  |
L4Y Member
Post 1126 / 1417
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I just got another monitor and I was wondering if it's possible to be playing a game on one and surfing the internet and talking on msn on the other? If it is how do you do it? |
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Assaultman67  |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 6:16am | |
Post 2077 / 4376
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its very much possible to be able to have windows and stuff open on one monitor and play games on the other ... but you have to alt tab between the programs, and often it takes a while for games to do (Which sucks)  ... |
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| SKA-Diesel |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 10:04am |
L4Y Member
Post 685 / 719
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I experimented with this before. Had Call of Duty 2 running on one screen, and a video playing in the other. Its not really all that practical, but its extremely cool if your using a video editing program, cos then you can spread your workspace over a larger area. |
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| cyrus5 |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 2:06pm |
[CP] Director
L4Y Member
Post 237 / 241
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Works fine with the following exceptions:
* Games lock the mouse, meaning you have to alt tab. Some games dont like this.
* Most games try to steal all your processor power and tend to have reasonable memory requirements; the other apps will find their memory gets pages out more often making doing 2 things at once slow at best.
* If you run a full screen game in a different res to the windows desktop, windows will kindly rearrange your apps and often your icons for you. drives me nuts.
The only way to do anything useful with 2 monitors is to not be playing games, or have 2 computers.
If you have 2 computers (one monitor each), you can share a single mouse and keyboard across both with crazily handy little program called Synergy http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/. Piss easy to set up and will allow you to simply move the mouse across between the two pcs. Also works across different os's so you can copy and paste and move the mouse back and forth between linux and windows as if it were just a single pc with dual monitors. This way I can, with one mouse and keyboard, play homeworld at lunchtime at work, and surf the web at the same time! Nice! |
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
I think it would be a good idea. - Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilisation.
cyrus5.co.uk! |
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Lace  |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 4:23pm |
Post 638 / 1216
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I am running two screens on my desktop. Just now I am using the main screen for surfing and writing this, and on the second I have a game running. I can freely move the mouse between the two screens and switch between surfing and gaming without any problems. It might not work on all games, though. I set it all up through my NVIDIA control panel. |
| A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. |
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Garner  |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 6:04pm | |
Post 2893 / 4125
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Depends on the game.
Some games dont like you alt-tabbing and will crash or freeze up the display and generally make a mess of things.
A few games need you to alt-tab out and depending on your PC and how much of a resource hog the game is it can take a while to reach your desktop. Eg GRAW takes my PC a good 30-60 seconds to do it.
Some games that dont lock the mouse cursor to the program boundaries mean you can simply move your mouse cursor to the other screen and click which does the same thing... CnC3 and Generals are two prime examples of this (WHEN THEY BLOODY SHOULDN'T!!!)
Some games are pretty instant, Age of Wonders for example you can move the mouse over, click and be doing something else within a second or so, clicking the game name in the start bar gets you back in the game.. again within a second or so.
For the most part however, its not really practical. I have Trillian on the second screen and all my chat windows are positioned so that if someone messages me they appear on the secondary screen. If I am playing a game therefore I can read the message with a quick glance. If the person the other end is just saying 'hi' I can ingore them without leaving the game.
On a side note... thats a pet hate of mine. People who message you to say 'hi', or 'you there?' when I'm busy. By all means say 'hi'... but then type what you want to ask and wait for a response. Waiting for me to say 'hi' back will see you waiting a very long time because I will not respond...  |
"Science is this extraordinary transnational, transcultural, trans-everything language which is the only way to discover Truth and its regrettable that billions are still stuck in the Middle Ages believing the crap propagated by Popes and priests..."
- Peter Atkins |
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| Lace |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 7:59pm |
Post 639 / 1216
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A really good thing with two screens, is if you need to have tutorials up for some program. Run the program on the main screen,and the tutorials on the second. And then run Trillian or other chatprograms on the laptop beside the desktop  |
| A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. |
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| Ugly Donkey |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 8:02pm |
L4Y Member
Post 787 / 843
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yes it works with a laptop and reg monitor.. i had my laptop doing that for a while before i got an actual desktop |
| Your Fugly and the Ugly Donkey Knows it |
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| Garner |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 8:14pm | |
Post 2894 / 4125
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Halsfire... been doing it since my GeForce 2 days.
One or two games are now begining to realise that they can use both monitors as well.
X2 was one 2-3 years ago, excellent game. The more recent one is Supreme Commander.
I do believe the original Star Trek Armada supported it as well but only with Matrox cards?
Needless to say... its about bloody time games started to offer the option of using two screens. All GFX cards since the GF4 that I know of have had 2 outputs and certainly the GF7/8 generation of cards have enough power to run two fullscreen 3D displays. Heck, X2 ran quite happily on my GF4200Ti on at 2048*768, 2560*1024 was ok... but pushing it... my GF6800 handles that without a problem. |
"Science is this extraordinary transnational, transcultural, trans-everything language which is the only way to discover Truth and its regrettable that billions are still stuck in the Middle Ages believing the crap propagated by Popes and priests..."
- Peter Atkins |
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| DVL_IAC |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 8:34pm | |
L4Y Member
Post 1127 / 1417
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| Quoting Lace | | I am running two screens on my desktop. Just now I am using the main screen for surfing and writing this, and on the second I have a game running. I can freely move the mouse between the two screens and switch between surfing and gaming without any problems. It might not work on all games, though. I set it all up through my NVIDIA control panel. |
what setting in the nvidia control panel do you find is best for having 2 screens? Clone, Horizontal span or dualview? 
| Quoting garner |
Depends on the game.
Some games dont like you alt-tabbing and will crash or freeze up the display and generally make a mess of things.
A few games need you to alt-tab out and depending on your PC and how much of a resource hog the game is it can take a while to reach your desktop. Eg GRAW takes my PC a good 30-60 seconds to do it.
Some games that dont lock the mouse cursor to the program boundaries mean you can simply move your mouse cursor to the other screen and click which does the same thing... CnC3 and Generals are two prime examples of this (WHEN THEY BLOODY SHOULDN'T!!!)
Some games are pretty instant, Age of Wonders for example you can move the mouse over, click and be doing something else within a second or so, clicking the game name in the start bar gets you back in the game.. again within a second or so.
For the most part however, its not really practical. I have Trillian on the second screen and all my chat windows are positioned so that if someone messages me they appear on the secondary screen. If I am playing a game therefore I can read the message with a quick glance. If the person the other end is just saying 'hi' I can ingore them without leaving the game.
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so theres no other way to talk to people and surf the internet while playing games like Red Faction that lock the cursor and crash if you minimise or alt tab? |
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| Lace |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 9:44pm |
Post 640 / 1216
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I run them in Dualview. |
| A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. |
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| Duke |
Posted 28th Mar 2007 9:44pm |
Post 899 / 1353
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| Quoting Garner | X2 was one 2-3 years ago, excellent game.
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Funny, as soon as I saw this topic, the first thing I thought of was how Garner mentioned that X2 had dual monitor support. If you have 2 monitors, you should get it. I'm yet to try it, but apparently X2 rocks with it.
Oh, and DVL_IAC, 'Clone' setting you should avoid. I think that's the setting for having the exact same thing on both monitors. I'd go with 'Horizontal Span'. Though, I have no idea as to what that 'Dualview' could be.
EDIT: Lace uses 'Dualview', so that could be the setting you want. Still have no idea what it is though. |
Those who follow the path of others lack the imagination or courage to create their own.
In my spare time I like to write game reviews for Game Revolution. |
Modified Mar 28th, 09:46pm by Duke |
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| DVL_IAC |
Posted 29th Mar 2007 5:11am | |
L4Y Member
Post 1128 / 1417
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Also is it possible to have a different wallpaper on each monitor insted of the same thing on both? If yes then how?
Also is it possible to play a video and have it streach across both screens so its like 1 big screen? Because when I tried it it would show half the video in 1 monitor then the other monitor would just be black and not show anything... |
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| Lace |
Posted 29th Mar 2007 7:40am |
Post 642 / 1216
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In Dualview, the same desktop is on both screens, except for the icons you use. They will be on the main screen. It should be possible to use horisontal span to let both screens act like one. You might have to try and fail a bit to get the correct screen set as the main one. I got help from Troll and Nitro to set mine up first time I did it |
| A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. |
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| DVL_IAC |
Posted 29th Mar 2007 10:18pm | |
L4Y Member
Post 1129 / 1417
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Right now I'm on dualview and have the correct screen set as the main one so all icons and stuff are on main screen and on other you just see the wallpaper and i can drag stuff onto it and stuff. It would be cool though if I could give it a different wallpaper then what the main screen has.
I tried on dualview mode draging the video player in between the 2 windows and full screaning but it only playes the video full screened on one side. Then I tried the horizontal span mode and full screened a video but it just showed half the video in 1 monitor then the other monitor was just black and didn't show anything... |
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