Using two monitors:

Jaded

Greetings H/A!

I have a bunch of spare parts kicking around my place (I get a new compy every coule years) and would like to start doing some tweaking.
I play WoW... a lot...:oops:
And I like to listen to I-tunes... a lot.
I don't overly enjoy playing WoW in Windowed mode, so I am wondering... with spare parts and all how do I go about setting up my system to run two monitors?
And how does one go about navigating them?

I know I left a lot open here, I'm just not sure what other information needs to be provided as I have no idea where to start (aside from the idea itself).

Thanks!

Burtletoy

I was pointed twards a program called Ultramon.

It got me these pictures.

Spoiled for way too fucking large and I'm too lazy to resize them from their respective threads where size didn't matter.

However I don't do much PC gaming so I'm not sure if this is what you were looking for. Someone in the Shows us Your Workspace thread in Moes Tech Subforum was talking about mutli-monitor gaming, but I didn't really pay much attention to it.

Ruckus

Well, if your normal graphics card doesn't already have a secondary output, you'll need to install an extra video card into an available slot.

Then you plug a monitor into it.

Then you boot the computer and install the drivers for it.

I recommend using only graphics chipsets from one company (eg only nVidia or only ATI).

Taximes

This is largely dependent upon what graphics card you have, but usually it's as simple as connecting the second monitor to a secondary port on your graphics card (you may need a VGA to DVI converter), then configuring it in your display settings.

Your computer should detect both monitors, and then from the display settings you can configure them as to which one is your primary and which is your secondary, etc.

You'll want it set up as an extended desktop since you want to use the two displays independently (as opposed to having one mirror the other). I could be mistaken, but I think ATI cards call it 'extended desktop' and NVIDIA cards call it 'dualview'. I'm not sure if that applies to all cards, though.

Once you have it set up, I recommend Ultramon as a good program for other little tweaks, such as giving the secondary desktop its own taskbar.

proXimity

For a time I played WoW on a dual screen rig, and unfortunately, to play WoW on one screen and have the other open for stuff, you're going to have to run it in windowed mode. From what I was ever able to figure out, you can't maximize WoW to one of the screens and have the other function normally.

Infidel

Also recommending the Ultramon here. Having the separate task bar for the second monitor is important for any kind of usefulness in this kind of setup imo.

You'll want to run WoW at full resolution of your main display, but set in windowed and borderless. It will look like it's fullscreen but won't minimize when you alt-tab / mouseover to the second display to browse/scroll a webpage or such. I usually have my IM windows and some maps or item db in a browser window on my second display. There was no performance hit for me by switching to windowed over fullscreen and it makes interaction much smoother.

Jaded

Current Vid-card only has 1 output on it (I believe).
I'll check to make sure that I have two same brand Vid cards and try Ruckus' steps.
I know under settings I do have the option to display secondary monitors. I'll see what I can dig up about my computer, I posted the specs in an earlier thread.

E:
Aha! My current vid card is a Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX

AtomBomb

I'm using dual monitors right now. This is just a Dell, and I ordered it with a dual head video card. PCI-E makes it a lot easier than it used to be if you need to add a 2nd card (you only had 1 AGP slot, so the second card had to be on the slower PCI bus). I just use the built in windows screen management, but I think I'll check out Ultramon.

I don't play games on this machine, but I was happily surprised that when I full screen programs on one monitor they don't jump across. It's nice if I'm remoting into someone else's PC to toss their desktop on it's own screen.

This is a dangerous path you're heading down though. I'm trying to find space on my desk for a third monitor

Burtletoy

Infidel wrote: »

Also recommending the Ultramon here. Having the separate task bar for the second monitor is important for any kind of usefulness in this kind of setup imo.

I on the other hand run two monitors with 0 taskbars for each monitor and I think it works perfectly fine.

Jaded

AtomBomb wrote: »

This is a dangerous path you're heading down though. I'm trying to find space on my desk for a third monitor

The really sad part is, I have about 4 monitors collecting dust aside from the one I want to tack on as the secondary.
Secondly, if I don't have matching brands of vid cards can this still be done?

Infidel

Burtletoy wrote: »

Infidel wrote: »

Also recommending the Ultramon here. Having the separate task bar for the second monitor is important for any kind of usefulness in this kind of setup imo.

I on the other hand run two monitors with 0 taskbars for each monitor and I think it works perfectly fine.

I find that in this kind of setup, playing a game with many windows on the secondary, without having a taskbar on the second monitor it is pretty unwieldy. Tend to accumulate a lot of open browser windows and chats and such during my gaming.

And if you have an 8800GTX, you really should have two outputs already. I don't think there is a model with only one, that's a high end card. Do you know the exact model? Because I'm curious who made one with one output.

Neyla

I am certain he has 2 video out puts (i usually set up/fix the home toys). My only concern is he has had issues of his card crapping out on him. I am certain 2 monitors would certainly -not- help his vid card and cause more blue screens of death.

Jaded

One... stay out of my threads woman

Two... video card has been fine since the fine people of H/A gave me suggestions on how to fix it and you installed my second fan. Also, the blue screen of death never came up, just the crashing to desktop. The problem she refers to is the following.
"The display device has stopped responding and recovered."
An update of drivers (and possibly the second fan my lovely GF installed) made the issue go away, I haven't seen it for the better part of a month, when it was at it's worst it would occur every day or every other day, but only while playing WoW.

Three... Love you! You know I am gonna get you to set this up later for me. :P

Ruckus

I would most likely work with two different brands, the thing to watch out for is the utility apps that come with the card drivers (especially from ATI). They're little system tray apps for quickchanging your resolution and stuff, and having ATI and nVidia ones running at the same time has been known to slow things down. This can usually be avoided by downloading a "Drivers Only" package from the manufacturer website.