How many of you here use Dual Monitors?

[Mr. First Name Basis]

I think there is a way to keep from having to ALT TAB, also if you have hot keys that could even be a replacement but either way my dad had it set up for Dual Monitors and somtimes he would switch over without Alt+Tab but i'm not sure how. But then again I never really got familiar with the set up, also he has two comps and has one running dual monitors while the other is hooked to one or something. His Video Editing PC was hooked to both. I dk.

[Espada1]

I think there is a way to keep from having to ALT TAB, also if you have hot keys that could even be a replacement but either way my dad had it set up for Dual Monitors and somtimes he would switch over without Alt+Tab but i'm not sure how. But then again I never really got familiar with the set up, also he has two comps and has one running dual monitors while the other is hooked to one or something. His Video Editing PC was hooked to both. I dk.

Is there anyway you could contact your dad and ask him how he got his dual monitor setup?

[ultimaforce]

i used to use Dual Monitors

[Espada1]

i used to use Dual Monitors

What made you stop using it?

[Kn7ghT]

I used to, and disable it before playing games. I didn't care for it, the 2nd monitor was always a cluttered mess of windows I never used.

[FabianN]

Ok, so with the Alt-Tabbing thing, that will happen if you have an application running full screen, like a game full screen.
If you have the game running windowed, then you won't have that issue. But the game will also be windowed.
So, even with dual screens, the behavior of a program on how it minimizes does not change.
The other thing to look out for is when you are playing a game full screen, having it set at a resolution different than your desktop resolution, because if the resolution on one screen is changed, the other screen is also effected, and it can produce odd results.
It won't hurt, and once you exit the game it goes back, but it's kinda annoying.

And then also, X-Fire will always go into the game if you have the game open. It's just how it's programmed.

Now, because you have monitors of two different sizes, when you hook them up the resolution is going to be kinda weird on one of them. What I suggest is to not use the default Nvidia/ATI control panel to set up dual screens. Instead acquire ultramon and use that to manage the dual screens. You get a lot more functions, like a 2nd task bar for the 2nd screen, different resolution for each monitor, and the location of the screens in relation to each other.
And a whole lot more.



And moved to the tech section.


edit:
Oh, one more feature that ultramon has thats usefull is to be able to turn off the secoundary monitor easily. When doing that though, any programs that would noramlly open on the secound monitor still will open up in that space(ie: you won't be able to see it), but it's quite nice for playing full screen games.

[Espada1]

Ok, so with the Alt-Tabbing thing, that will happen if you have an application running full screen, like a game full screen.
If you have the game running windowed, then you won't have that issue. But the game will also be windowed.
So, even with dual screens, the behavior of a program on how it minimizes does not change.
The other thing to look out for is when you are playing a game full screen, having it set at a resolution different than your desktop resolution, because if the resolution on one screen is changed, the other screen is also effected, and it can produce odd results.
It won't hurt, and once you exit the game it goes back, but it's kinda annoying.

And then also, X-Fire will always go into the game if you have the game open. It's just how it's programmed.

Now, because you have monitors of two different sizes, when you hook them up the resolution is going to be kinda weird on one of them. What I suggest is to not use the default Nvidia/ATI control panel to set up dual screens. Instead acquire ultramon and use that to manage the dual screens. You get a lot more functions, like a 2nd task bar for the 2nd screen, different resolution for each monitor, and the location of the screens in relation to each other.
And a whole lot more.



And moved to the tech section.


edit:
Oh, one more feature that ultramon has thats usefull is to be able to turn off the secoundary monitor easily. When doing that though, any programs that would noramlly open on the secound monitor still will open up in that space(ie: you won't be able to see it), but it's quite nice for playing full screen games.

No no I am not planning to play the game on two screens. I just want to put all my web browsing and messengers on one screen and play games fullscreen with another.

Is that possible or do I need to play in window mode?

[Ronin]

For full screen modus of about any game, that runs on DirectX, it is set to an "exclusive mode" which bypasses the windows input/output system;

That has mainly performance reasosons, also windowed mode do not support propper z-buffering and many more important things, that speed up your gaming or increase the graphical appearance and also a better implementation of the keyboard and mouse.

To bypass the i/o, it has to shut it off; you won't be able to type stuff windows would recognise, move your mouse to windows screen area or do anything else windows related.

Every time, you jump out of it and back in the i/o needs to be enabled again, to work, such as the game needs to remake it's hardware interface afterwards.

Sorry to tell you so, but I do not believe there is any kind of fix possible for that.

[AlexanderVB]

I use tri 22" monitors.

[Toby]

I used to, but then realized it was completely pointless, and just took up desk space.