Dual monitors

I have shed my CRTs, and I'm down to a single screen again. I was tired of the heat, power and space consumption of dual 21" CRTs.
 
Guys, question. if i play a game full screen on my primary monitor, can i use my mouse to click into the extended desktop on my 2nd monitor without hvaing to minimize the game? I know you can do windowed mode but that doesn't fit the screen perfectly.
 
Well, if you think about it, for most games it would suck if you were able to move your mouse out of the game and onto your other monitor without minimizing, because most games require a lot of mouse movement and it would really get annoying when your mouse stops responding in-game because it's slipped onto your other monitor accidently.

Perhaps the best solution would be a hot key that would allow you to move over to your second monitor without minimizing.
 
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Yeah, true. My main problem is that I can't play video on one screen and a full screened game on the other, at least in VLC, because it refreshes both screens, causing the video to go blank.

Oh, and I'm about to rejoin the dual monitor club, I caved and got a 19" widescreen for 130, shipped, I'll post pics when it arrives ^_^
 
Crazyjeeper said:
Yeah, true. My main problem is that I can't play video on one screen and a full screened game on the other, at least in VLC, because it refreshes both screens, causing the video to go blank.
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I feel your pain on that one. I'd love to be able to do that too.
 
i can play avi's in vlc on my extended desktop when I play TF2. The images are more blocky/pixelated but it'd do for now.
 
So, I have my 22" LCD monitor as my main monitor..but then I have a 32" LCD TV as my extended desktop. Is there a way to get it so that a game runs on that 2nd screen, even though it's not my primary desktop?

Also, I'm having trouble finding the right resolution on the video card to get the TV to have full res...it's a 32" 720.
 
NecroJoe said:
So, I have my 22" LCD monitor as my main monitor..but then I have a 32" LCD TV as my extended desktop. Is there a way to get it so that a game runs on that 2nd screen, even though it's not my primary desktop?
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Yes, you can do this with UltraMon, which is a program that anyone with dual monitors should have. I wouldn't want to live without it. If you right click on the game shortcut and go to Properties, you'll see two UltraMon tabs there where you can set the preferences for that particular game.
 
AxlxA said:
i can play avi's in vlc on my extended desktop when I play TF2. The images are more blocky/pixelated but it'd do for now.
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This might sound like a stupid question, but why not use Media Player Classic? It has none of those second monitor issues... I'm always surfing the web while watching videos in MPC.

EDIT: NM, I just tried MPC with a game... found a slight problem: the video slows to a crawl while the game is on...
 
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I think the issue is doing it while playing games....something that pulls the focus of your PC away from it's 2ndary monitors more than just having a browser open.
 
P5138 said:
This might sound like a stupid question, but why not use Media Player Classic? It has none of those second monitor issues... I'm always surfing the web while watching videos in MPC.

EDIT: NM, I just tried MPC with a game... found a slight problem: the video slows to a crawl while the game is on...
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I can deal with the slow. I run seconday displays on a seperate vid cards.
 
Crazyjeeper said:
I can deal with the slow. I run seconday displays on a seperate vid cards.
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That would probably fix it. Honestly, though, I can't see why you'd want to be so over-run with media. If I'm playing a game I am pretty focused on the game; if I'm watching a movie, a slight bit of web-browsing is all I'm really in need of if I get an idea... Is it a case of "we do it purely because we can"?
 
P5138 said:
That would probably fix it. Honestly, though, I can't see why you'd want to be so over-run with media. If I'm playing a game I am pretty focused on the game; if I'm watching a movie, a slight bit of web-browsing is all I'm really in need of if I get an idea... Is it a case of "we do it purely because we can"?
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It is definitely a case of "because I can" :lol:

If I actually want to watch a new show, I do it on its own, but top gear repeats are great as secondary entertainment. You know the good parts, and watch those and just listen to the rest as background noise.
 
I like listening to sports and stuff while I play games (not hardcore gaming, just casual stuff). It's nice to have two things going, especially since there are so many commercials.
 
With UltraMon, you can have a seperate wallpaper for each monitor, or one giant high res wallpaper that covers both, which is what I personally do. For instance, I'm currently using one image for my whole desktop, a photo I took with my 7 megapixel Canon:

http://pic.armedcats.net/a/an/anonymous/2008/10/20/Untitled-1_000.jpg

UltraMon is not free, but it can be found for free, if you catch my drift ;)
 
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jeffy777 said:
Well, if you think about it, for most games it would suck if you were able to move your mouse out of the game and onto your other monitor without minimizing, because most games require a lot of mouse movement and it would really get annoying when your mouse stops responding in-game because it's slipped onto your other monitor accidently.
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I have a few games like that (Live for Speed for example). Drives me fucking nuts as I'll go to move right, click, and minimize the game. :mad:

World of Warcraft is awesome in that I can run the game windowed, but fully maximized (no taskbar, or anything else). It looks fullscreen, but I can press my Windows key to move my mouse to the other monitor. That means I can type on IRC while keeping an eye on WoW. :cool:
 
My second monitor arrived. No dead pixels to speak of so far.

Its a Hanns.G 19" widescreen. 1440x900 max res. Pic coming soon.
 
I used a quad setup at work, they were all 17" but in terms of productivity it was worlds ahead of my 22" at home. But I'd rather watch a movie/play a game at home.
 
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