Dual monitors anyone? Just a quick question...

BlochWave

Since like 2002 I've been using my bulky old 16 incher, and at my new job I just got my second monitor, a Dell 19 inch which I use with my laptop monitor now.

The 19 inch practically wows me with its size(I'm not used to bigger!)but I find it really handy having the second monitor(and with great effort I found a big wallpaper that lined up between them nicely and figured out what resolution to put the smaller monitor on so everything was the same apparent size)

I just recently ordered my new personal PC with a 19 inch monitor, and since they're not prohibitively expensive and I am, as the term goes, ballin' as far as money goes, is it particularly handy to have the second monitor? It's useful at work when I have lots of spreadsheets and documents and crap open at once, but I know it'll be more of a luxury at home

I guess what I'm asking, anyone have two at home and find it particularly worth the money? I know you can't actually play games across two screens(unless it offers like 3000x1200 resolution I guess)but I read the second monitor can interfere if you accidentaly move the mouse to it or something(especially in RTSs)

I have UltraMon at work and I see it's a one click affair to disable a monitor, will that solve that type of problems? So yah, comments, opinions, etc.

EggyToast

I find it worth it, just to help space shit out. It's not expensive, ya know -- good size and good quality LCDs are like $200.

If you really want to have everything perfectly "wide" then you run into issues, just with finding wallpaper, setting up things to span perfectly, etc. I have a 19" and a 17" so I have different desktops, have the bigger monitor set as the full-screen target for video files, etc.

Generally games will simply play in the "main" monitor, turning off the other monitor (displaying black or simply disabling the display).

I find that the general trick is to actually use the monitors. As in, do all of your work in one monitor, but set up the 2nd one for displaying shit -- iTunes, email, calendar apps, whatever else you would like to have up but hate having it eat up desktop space keeping it visible.

I'm on a mac so a lot of the setup is different, but I know that my Windows laptop, when I plug in a 2nd monitor, is also pretty smart with at least the basics.

blincoln

I have three monitors at home and at work, because I tend to have a ton of applications open at once and it makes it a lot easier to have a giant workspace that I can move stuff around on, a la Tom Cruise in Minority Report. I tried using two at first, but it felt unbalanced, and everyone around here wanted to get rid of their CRTs, so I have three 19" at work and a 21" flanked by two 19" at home.
It's *much* more useful at work, where I always have all three on. At home I only turn on the left and right monitors when I'm doing something productive, like software development. If I'm just reading email or browsing the web, I only turn on the center monitor.
I don't bother using anything like Ultramon.
If you are interested in playing widescreen games across multiple monitors, Matrox released an adapter awhile ago that makes three monitors look like one giant widescreen monitor to your video card. I believe it only supports VGA (as opposed to DVI or whatever).

RNEMESiS42

I have two 20 inch LCD's, and it's beautiful I mainly did it for when I do digital painting stuff in photoshop, but it also makes music and sound production WAY easier. I can put a whole panel of dials and crap on one screen, and have the actual tracking editor on the other. Also, when I play Warcraft III I can view programs like banlist and vent on the right monitor while I'm playing.
If you have the space and the money, I'd say go for it. The monitors I have are SCEPTRE's. Colors are great on them; I watch most of my DVDs on my computer because of the quality, and fairly cheap.

BlochWave

yah I was thinking about that too, games might not put the whole gaming screen, as it were, across both screens, but could still benefit from the second monitor.

You watch movies across both screens? Does the gap really bother you? Hmm, I don't work at home so I don't have anything that would call for it really like you guys do, but hell, it's not too expensive and if nothing else I can get some kickass wallpaper

Seguer

Depends on the games, but my dual monitor setup rarely affects the way games behave. The second monitor will still function, but the mouse (should) be trapped in the monitor that the game is on. Older games may not do this. I've found however that even in War3 the mouse is trapped. Half Life 2 is great though - you can go to the console or menu and get the mouse to get to the second monitor.

Playing older games that change your full-size resolution on your primary have the potential to mess with your secondary monitor's positioning, either temporarily or permanently (but you can re-arrange it back).

I sit MSN and Winamp on my second monitor, and MSN conversations open up there (but unfortunately with the newer versions of MSN they don't become visible automatically, just in the taskbar )

When working on stuff, I'll have the document I'm working on in my primary and any reference stuff on my secondary monitor.


Really, it increases productivity so much - I hate using other computers that are only single-monitor now.

RNEMESiS42

BlochWave wrote: »

yah I was thinking about that too, games might not put the whole gaming screen, as it were, across both screens, but could still benefit from the second monitor.

You watch movies across both screens? Does the gap really bother you? Hmm, I don't work at home so I don't have anything that would call for it really like you guys do, but hell, it's not too expensive and if nothing else I can get some kickass wallpaper

A movie will only fill up one screen, but it's already a pretty big screen.

Nakatomi2010

I run a 22" widescreen HP as my primary monitor and have a 19" Acer it replaced as a secondary... I have a Media center PC that I remotely log into to maintain, typically I put my remote sessions on the secondary monitor, or I've got VMWare and run the virtual machine in the second Monitor... works out pretty good... There was this one day when I wanted to put a ringtone on my phone, but since the Blurtooth dongle I have isn't compatible with Vista x64 I used VMWare to install XP and get everything going that way... It was awsome....

Oth times I'll just throw a movie on the second monitor, or just other stuff.... Mostly I find it useful for my remote sessions though.... I'd love to get a decent looking dual monitor wall paper that spans to screens at different resolutions....