Dual Monitor Question

Impr3ssiv3

Impr3ssiv3

New Member
I am builidng a new computer soon and i will be getting a new 19" TFT LCD monitor and a 7900GT card



i was wondering is i could do a dual monitor setup with my current 17" CRT monitor and the new 19" LCD one.


i was thinking of having them both setup, but not in widescreen. i would have the CRT on one side for just extra room to put like WMP or other programs while i play a game or do PHOTOSHOP or the other 19" one.


is that possible?
 
Yes it's possible, but if your playing a game then it gets cloned or extended onto both screens, as far as i know you can play a game on one and have WMP on the other. But if you use photoshop, you could do that.

It will most likely look horrible though, because of the difference in size and appearance.
 
You won't see a game on one and another app like WMP or PhotoShop displayed separately on a second monitor unless you are setup with two not one video card. With cloning one screen display is duplicated to the other monitor. To open a game on one and another app on the second you would have to run the game in a window on one side of an extended desktop that stretched across the other screen. With two cards installed you would have to configure a load up of two different desktops. To really get that working you would practically have to be a software engineer for what you are trying to do.
 
PC eye said:
You won't see a game on one and another app like WMP or PhotoShop displayed separately on a second monitor unless you are setup with two not one video card. With cloning one screen display is duplicated to the other monitor. To open a game on one and another app on the second you would have to run the game in a window on one side of an extended desktop that stretched across the other screen. With two cards installed you would have to configure a load up of two different desktops. To really get that working you would practically have to be a software engineer for what you are trying to do.
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I beg to differ, windows have more multi-display support than you may think! So does Nvidia. I have a dual-display system, and windows sees two screens. I can play games on one screen, and have other things open on the other with no troubles. I have both screens on my Video Card, and with nvidia drivers I can set it to span, clone or dual display. And also you can get this program that has tons of multi-display features, like adding an extra Taskbar, having one screen saver on both screens (or different ones), or have different backrounds on both screens, and more.
 
It becomes more of a hardware issue then an involved software issue when cloning or extending a desktop across mulitple monitors with any one program.
[QUOTE:] "It will most likely look horrible though, because of the difference in size and appearance." The applications would have to be run with the support for the higher resolutions seen on lcds as well as demands placed on system resources especially seen with some games. While WMP or Photoshop wouldn't normally be an issue some game designs do not allow for multitasking with other applications running. Then you have memory as well as video power to meet the demands there.
 
PC eye said:
It becomes more of a hardware issue then an involved software issue when cloning or extending a desktop across mulitple monitors with any one program.
[QUOTE:] "It will most likely look horrible though, because of the difference in size and appearance." The applications would have to be run with the support for the higher resolutions seen on lcds as well as demands placed on system resources especially seen with some games. While WMP or Photoshop wouldn't normally be an issue some game designs do not allow for multitasking with other applications running. Then you have memory as well as video power to meet the demands there.
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True it will take up ressources, when you run more then one program it will anyway. What do you mean by hardware problem? Most modern video cards support dual-display. And you can run screens at different resolution to make up for the different of size. I suppose a older monitor would look different than the new one side by side, but it's better than one alone! ;)
 
The surprise isn't that newer cards support multiple displays. The ATI Radeon 9550 256mb AGP model here can do that as well with the Catalyst. The drain will be when pounding video as well as memory with some of the newer games out while running other apps at the same time. Some of the newer cards out as you will note include an extra power feed for this reason.

When gaming with intense graphics place a larger demand on a card in one direction and other apps pull in the other you have to have hardware as well as software support there. Cooling a card down while gaming alone is another thought since I quite often hear complaints about cards overheating. The card used also has to have two outputs not one in order to work. The problem with the card here was only having one vga with s-video out and not two vga out. Resolutions can obviously be set different for various desktops.
 
well i have this one at 1280 X 1024 so they will be at same resolution but different screen size


ive seen professional game makers and video makers that have different screen sizes and each screen does its own duty
 
The important thing with the one or more video cards you end up with is what it supports up to. Some models wouldn't even support 1280x1024 while others will go slightly higher then that. Most games however are limited to the 1280x1024 if they go that high. Many only get up to 1024x768. Don't forget that game and video makers have design engineers as well as hardware specialists setting up their equipment.
 
To sum up:

dual-display for gaming = bad (just don't run hard core programs with hard core games)

Dual-display for editing, surfing, strechting a window across and more windowed stuff = good.

You could even strech a game across screens. But it usally sucks because the middle is right in betwen the monitors, so games with cross hairs is split...

Impr3ssiv3 said:
well i have this one at 1280 X 1024 so they will be at same resolution but different screen size


ive seen professional game makers and video makers that have different screen sizes and each screen does its own duty
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If you do that, your icons will appear smaller in one screen, and bigger in the other. If you set the resolution proportionnaly, than the icons and stuff will be the same size, and your mouse wont jump from the top screen of the big monitor, down to the little one.
 
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If you are running XP the resolution will be set to 1280x1024 upon detection on the 17" just with the vga drivers found in Windows. The 19" would probably get the sam treatment upon detecion as well. Even with both at the same resolution you still would lose by extending the desktop with gaming in mind unless it was less resource/graphics demanding like a role playing instead of an intense shooter type.
 
i would have no icons on the 17" CRT because i have 6 icons but in the bottom right. so could i just have it setup as like extra space to put WMP or other stuff and just game on the 19" TFT LCD
 
Once you start gaming the WMP and other programs will either be minimized or not running at due to the pull down on resources many games will see. That is when you will be taxing the video along with memory. The small games like those that come included in Windows wouldn't see the possible lockups that graphic intense games and apps however.
 
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