advantage of dual monitors...any ?

Ok Now i purchased a new 19" samsung 930b monitor and i still have my Sonicview 17" laying around. My question is what is the advantage of having both hooked up ? The computer now is mainly used for BattleField 2 (I am addicted). Now if i hook up two monitors will that just extened my viewing ? (Ex. will i see one longated view of the battlefield) Or would that just allow me maybe to better benchmark things ? (Ex, I can run BF2 and see my perfomace of windows in second monitor) ? Whats the big deal ???????





Also is there any kind of performace hit i would take for this ? (I am guessing not)

i think its useful for people doing editing type things where there are many windows that need to open at one time.

You could probably use the other monitor to extend you viewing i dont have bf2 so i dont know. I wouldnt reccomend it because of the space between the monitors. I use an old crt to monitor my temps and stuff

Multitasking is the best use...if you have two with small frames then possibly some sorty of desktop extension could be used

I was hoping that it could make my gaming more enjoyable. I am between either using it for gaming/benchmarking or just ebay'in it.

Dual monitors wont make your gaming any better. Most video cards cant render 3d across multiple monitors, and even if yours could, you'd probably suffer worse performance.

Now.. Dual monitors are GREAT for everything else. You can easily:
Do homework and leave all your chat windows there
surf the web and leave your chat windows
watch a movie and chat
write a paper with your reseach open on the other screen
check out externaly linked pages while reading the forum without loosing track
extend large excel sheets
any type of editing (cad, audio, video, image) - or anything with toolbars can be moved

Dual monitors are awesome.. they have no benefit in games, but for everything else they help a lot...

How does dual monitors actually work? Does it mean a bigger desktop? If you open a webpage and press the maximize button, wouldn't the webpage take up both monitors? I understand if you leave the webpage at its normal size, you can fit a whole extra webpage on the other monitor usually. You get lower fps with two monitors?

Dual Monitors totally ROCK!! I have Trillian up in one monitor and usually iTunes or Winamp on the same monitor. Its also good for MMO's. When ya get boarded, you can watch a movie on the other one or play your favirote (SP) xbox game on it!

yeah rys prett much hit it. I have winamp, trillian, desktop icons, and TV on one monitor and then my primary webpoage/working document on the main. I'm at home on leave and only have my laptop...otherwise I;d give ya a nice screen shot. It's incredibly usefull when typing papers or doing lap reports so you have a ton of information displayed on the screens and don;t have to flip back and forth from the windows. For good gaming experiance you gotta go widescreen...if you want the best of everything, get one widescreen and one normal like me

They're great if you're using multiple programs at once, I wouldn't recommend it for a gaming rig.

Well i might hook it up just to see how i like it(after christmas. I am getting a bigger desk from santa so i will have extra room. I can always sell it later if i dont. Thanks for all the input guys.

EDIT

Is it also true that i could run BF2 on one display then have the other display in windows and watch benchmarking programs while i play ?

I'll agree with the general "dual monitors rock!" sentiment that's going on in the thread. You never realize how useful the extra desktop space is until it's there to be used Whenever I'm on my laptop or somebody else's computer, I really miss having two screens.

Does it mean a bigger desktop? Yup. Your desktop will be extended and windows can be moved to each monitor (or even exist on both monitors at once since it's just one big desktop). The secondary monitor won't have the start menu/task bar on it though.

If you open a webpage and press the maximize button, wouldn't the webpage take up both monitors? Not with Windows alone. The normal behavior is to maximize a window to the monitor it is on (or mostly on if it's on both). ATI's Hydravision and nVidia's nView can change this though and add an extra button that allows windows to maximize across both screens.

You get lower fps with two monitors? Not really. I guess that you might have a slight drop since the GPU has more work to do, but I haven't noticed much of a change at all (be it FPS or 3DMarks).

Is it also true that i could run BF2 on one display then have the other display in windows and watch benchmarking programs while i play ? Yup. One thing I sometimes do is open up ATI Tray Tools' FPS graph on the second display and get a good view of what the FPS is like over time in a game. Other programs like chat or a game walkthrough can be open and visible on the second monitor as well. If you're playing a game though, you'll still need to ALT+TAB out to let your mouse wander over to the second monitor if you need to do something on it.

JigPu

I think its a waste. Just get a widescreen. Then your not staring at a stupid line down the middle.

"Ok Now i purchased a new 19" samsung 930b monitor and i still have my Sonicview 17" laying around"

Its not a waste of money when its free :O)

Dual monitors are great for a lot of different things as others have mentioned. It was a necessity for me when I used to play 6 or 7 tables of poker at a time. Oh, and Ultramon is a must. Very useful program that allows you to manage your windows and taskbars efficiently.

I have a BFG card with the 6800 set and dual DVI/Analog outputs.
I currently have a 20.1" Viewsonic LCD (DVI) connected to the right port (when looking at the rear of the pc) and the smaller 15" analog LCD plugged into the left port.
In the display panel the large DVI monitor is #2, and the analog is #1.

I read somewhere about having two DVI monitors connected, and that one may lose some speed on one port, which causes ghosting on moving video.
I am considering upgrading the smaller analog LCD to another 20.1" DVI LCD, but not sure it would really buy me anything.

In some of my games, they say dual monitors will work as long as both monitors are set to the same resolution. I think they also say that you must configure the monitors as one single desktop, so that would preclude having multiple apps while I'm running the games.
But if I'm going to see degraded performance on one/both of my monitors then I should probably stick with my current setup.

BTW, the main game I play is Trainz (TRS2006), which I admit is kind of lame in terms of action, but for graphic requirements, it definitely makes huge demands on the system.
I had to upgrade the heatsink/fan on my Intel 3.4G and also upgraded RAM to 3G (from 1G).
My mainboard is the Asus P5AD2E Premium.

Advice?

Thanks

FW

Not needed for BF2

No only really needed for video/photo. I recommend a 19" Sony with TRU bright that is what I got and it made my assault life on BF2 alot easier. Hope this helps.

Ebola said:

I think its a waste. Just get a widescreen. Then your not staring at a stupid line down the middle.

Click to expand...

Good point! Just wish I had done that when I bought the 20.1" last year.
I guess I can get the widescreen now and use the 20" as the second one.

Ebola said:

I think its a waste. Just get a widescreen. Then your not staring at a stupid line down the middle.

Click to expand...

Have you used dual monitors before? Wide screen is great, but dual is even better. Best? dual widescreens

you all have too much goddamn money... give me some so I can have a single wide screen