Dual monitors and games

[CrazyDeadMonkey]

When I've got to moniters running as an extended desktop, is there a way to run a game on one moniter and to have windows running in the other. at the mo the second screen just shuts down when ever I start a game.

[SemiCycle]

That is the same thing that would happen to me.....I think it is normal,but yoy may want to do a google search on it....I didn't worry about it too uch, because the game required my full attention anyway :)

[Kaneda]

ATHALON!...................

[Mr. Chambers]

Originally posted by CrazyDeadMonkey
is there a way to run a game on one moniter and to have windows running in the other.

in short, no... it isnt possible. i have read that some high-end cards that have dual ramdac's support this, but i have yet to hear people doing it..

[ajrettke]

I think it would just be easier to get two boxes and one of those keyboard and mouse switches....you could easily find a cheapo celeron or duron setup for dirt cheap.

[RedDeathDrinker]

It's a problem I'm trying to find the answer to too......

I was trying to set up nView so I could watch a DVD/VCD on one monitor (the telly in my case!) and surf on the main monitor. Opening a media player in one screen works fine, I could surf on the other, but if I put the media player to full screen, and then went back to work in a window on the other screen, the media player went back to being a windowed application again.......I tried this with Windows Media Player, DivX and Quicktime.....no hope with any of them.

[james.miller]

Originally posted by Mr. Chambers


in short, no... it isnt possible. i have read that some high-end cards that have dual ramdac's support this, but i have yet to hear people doing it..

high end? bah. my gf 4 440mx does this (just very slowly).

games
i set the desktop to extend over to the t.v (my gf4 440mx has 1 monitor and tv out). and run the game in windowed on one monitor. (very sloooooow)

as for films:
you have to have clone enabled for this (its under 'nview display mode')
in your graphic card drivers, youll see an option called 'full screen device' (its under overlay controls in the newer detonator drivers).
set it to your secondary display.
now when you open media player or divx player and start a film, it will go full screen on the secondary display (tv or monitor) and the primary display will still function as normal

[ptcg]

I'm trying the same thing.. I want to run a game fullscreen in my primary display & read through walkthroughs while playing in the secondary screen.. No luck so far.. When you switch to the second monitor, the first one goes out of fullscreen... I'm trying that 'fullscreen display' option now, but I don't think it will work for games, only video.

(using a GF4 Ti4600 & 2 monitors w/ DVI adapter in Win98)

[HotKoala]

Originally posted by Mr. Chambers


in short, no... it isnt possible. i have read that some high-end cards that have dual ramdac's support this, but i have yet to hear people doing it..

It works. I watch movies while playing War3 plenty on my Parhelia=P

R3XX default to this dual display.

You can switch between two kinds on the Parhelia and GF4 and later cards.

[unreal]

it can but depending on cpu and gpu how well...

[nealric]

my old (now dead) chaintech ti4200 could put windows in the second montor while i played games (it was good for trillian and teamspeak) so Im sure its possible with at least some cards.

[CrashOveride]

Originally posted by HotKoala


It works. I watch movies while playing War3 plenty on my Parhelia=P

R3XX default to this dual display.

You can switch between two kinds on the Parhelia and GF4 and later cards.
OOO, wonder if I can do that...



i can have windows open though.
Of course I use 2 video cards, one PCI and one AGP, it works fine though if I play at a resolution other than my desktop (1200X1600) it resises the other side in a weird way, and osme games like Half life dont work, they give an error so I have to disable the second monitor.

[baqai]

I have dual monitor setup apart from nview i use this program called Ultra Mon i strongly recomend this program to you if you are looking forward for dual monitor setup.

Till now i have experimented a lot with it and it goes from game to game normally as far as surfing is concerned you can't do it since either games "lock" your mouse to the monitor or if they don't they minimize to desktop if you click on something else

As far as watching movies is concerned media player likes to go back to default view from full screen if you decide to click on anything how ever i have found that if i run a movie in media player classic it happily runs in full screen while on other monitor i can do what ever i want to do (i havent tried playing a game while running a movie, will try it though)

Links To Check

Ultra Mon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/)

Media Player Classic (http://ads.afterdawn.com/tribal_defaults_to_fc_ad_eng.html)

[CrashOveride]

Originally posted by baqai
I have dual monitor setup apart from nview i use this program called Ultra Mon i strongly recomend this program to you if you are looking forward for dual monitor setup.

Till now i have experimented a lot with it and it goes from game to game normally as far as surfing is concerned you can't do it since either games "lock" your mouse to the monitor or if they don't they minimize to desktop if you click on something else

As far as watching movies is concerned media player likes to go back to default view from full screen if you decide to click on anything how ever i have found that if i run a movie in media player classic it happily runs in full screen while on other monitor i can do what ever i want to do (i havent tried playing a game while running a movie, will try it though)

Links To Check

Ultra Mon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/)

Media Player Classic (http://ads.afterdawn.com/tribal_defaults_to_fc_ad_eng.html)

BSPlayer ( http://www.bsplayer.org/ ) will allow you to play the movie on the desktop (only the primary for me), I can chat and browse onteh secondary monitor all I want and it will play under the Icons (I only have a few) and whatever windows I strategicly place over it). I like it:D

Won't play .mov though, so media player classic wins there.

[Mr. Chambers]

ah, my mistake. i thought he wanted to put his game up on BOTH monitors.. ala matrox or something... my bad.

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by Kaneda
ATHALON!...................
Yup, the good old homophone confusion. It's "dual", as in "two". A "duel" is a fight of sorts. Fixed the thread title for you. (monitEr was spelled wrong too, and I happened to notice :))

Also, WELCOME TO THE FORUMS.

[Flewdefur]

i just started playing with dual monitors today. was gonna use the svideo but my svideo to rca converter was for 3pair svideo so instead i got my dvi->vga adapter and a spare monnitor. Played with the Nview and the UltraMon, ultramon is definitely better but alas, i too am unable to go between a game on one monitor and webbrowing on the other, a feature which would really be nice. In WC3 my curser is locked into the game, and in Tribes2 i can move the curser over but when i click junk it minimizes tribes :(

so i guess what i wanna ask is, is there any way to set it up or any app which will allow you to interact with each screen independently while in games? sure would be nice to chat/mp3/browse while in some of the gaems i play.

[bluestreakLB]

I also just started with two moniters, i was using an old 4mb PCI card but i couldnt stand how poorly it ran.

I then used the DVI to AGP adapter and used that on my 9800, i got the extended desktop however whenever i start a game the game its self crashes.

I just want to be able to have MSN/AIM etc on one while i play madden or what have you.

[HotKoala]

Originally posted by Flewdefur
so i guess what i wanna ask is, is there any way to set it up or any app which will allow you to interact with each screen independently while in games? sure would be nice to chat/mp3/browse while in some of the gaems i play.

Only, *only* if the game supports "running in windowed mode." Otherwise you have no option but Alt-Tab between them. This get annoying when you don't have a LCD because CRTs have to resync to a different resolution than your desktop(unless you play with the same resolution)

Even then, Alt-tabbing only works for DX games. Every OpenGL game I've tried alt-tabbing has always messed up in one way or another. Some like NWN are unplayable. Others like CS start getting buggy.


I then used the DVI to AGP adapter and used that on my 9800, i got the extended desktop however whenever i start a game the game its self crashes.

I just want to be able to have MSN/AIM etc on one while i play madden or what have you.

Is it just Madden? For the most part there shouldn't be a problem unless it's game-related or driver conflicts. Having MSN/AIM open is pretty much the same as having it in the background.

If it isn't, try setting both monitors to the same resolution.