A couple of questions regarding dual monitor setup

[JackTheRipper]

Hi there,
Currently i have Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFT 24" monitor and i was thinking going for second one,so i could play game on the first for example and do something else on the second.Here the questions go:

Will it be fine if i put another 20" dell widescreen 5ms to work with my 24".Are they going to run on own resolutions (20" at 1680x1050,24" at 1900x1200) and is there any problem running dual monitors that are not identical?

Also if i run dual widescreens (but i play games only on the first one),how much extra power the GPU will dish out than running with only 1 for example?


2 questions over there,i'll be giving everything to the man who can give me a nice reply.

Cheers!

[mullered07]

im pretty sure you can run multiple monitors at seperate resolutions so you could run them both at there native resolutions but i wouldnt reccomend it. id suggest you try and get another monitor with the same res, as to avoid any complications, and afaik if your playing a game on one and doing somthing else on the other it shouldnt stress the gpu much more as in 2d (windows) mode it uses very little resources anyway.

[JackTheRipper]

im pretty sure you can run multiple monitors at seperate resolutions so you could run them both at there native resolutions but i wouldnt reccomend it.

Why not?
I dont have the money for another 24" and that would take the crap out of my gpu.Another option is to give up my 24" dell and go for dual 20" widescreens.

[lemonadesoda]

I recommend identical screens. It just looks VERY ODD having diff screens next to each other. Also, by using www.ultramon.com (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)... you can have 2 toolbars! One on each screen. Working independently. You can also extend the desktop and even ONE APPLICATION window across the two screens very easily. But anything other the 2 identical screens would limit your ability to do that well.

Problems with NON MATCHING screens

1./ Color balance. I have NEVER been able to get 2 different TFTs to match colors properly (even the same manufacturer, just different models).

2./ If different size, then the mouse "jump" when it crosses from one screen to the other rather than lining up perfectly

3./ Cannot open an application windown to fill the 2 screens perfectly

SUMMARY

DO NOT BUY A DIFFERENT TFT. GET THE SAME ONE AGAIN, or

SELL YOUR 24", and buy 2x 20" 1600x1200's

[lemonadesoda]

P.S. i'm running 2 x Syncmaster 204Ts side by side with ultramon.

[JackTheRipper]

Can i see pictures of dual monitors setups?

[randomperson21]

to answer your question:

No, there should not be any problem with running two different monitors at different resolutions. It would help if I knew what kind of graphics card you have. You need to make sure your graphics card has the capability of driving two monitors, and check what the max resolution your card can support is.
I had a very nice setup going at one time with two crt's, one 1024x768 and one at 1280x1024. Worked like a charm.

Only one of your monitors will be used for games, the primary. As a result, the graphics card will only do dx or ogl acceleration on a single monitor at any one time. Which also means no accelerated video spanning across dual displays. For games, only one display will be used. The other can still be used, but it cannot be running any accelerated video applications.

As for gpu load. I was running 2 19" widescreens for a time. Since one of the screens was not accelerated during games, i saw no noticeable difference in fps between driving one LCD and two LCD's.

Hope that helps.

[mullered07]

to answer your question:

No, there should not be any problem with running two different monitors at different resolutions. It would help if I knew what kind of graphics card you have. You need to make sure your graphics card has the capability of driving two monitors, and check what the max resolution your card can support is.
I had a very nice setup going at one time with two crt's, one 1024x768 and one at 1280x1024. Worked like a charm.

Only one of your monitors will be used for games, the primary. As a result, the graphics card will only do dx or ogl acceleration on a single monitor at any one time. Which also means no accelerated video spanning across dual displays. For games, only one display will be used. The other can still be used, but it cannot be running any accelerated video applications.

As for gpu load. I was running 2 19" widescreens for a time. Since one of the screens was not accelerated during games, i saw no noticeable difference in fps between driving one LCD and two LCD's.

Hope that helps.

so to summarise thats pretty much what i said then eh ? lol :p

[JackTheRipper]

I have 8800 GTS, the choices i have here are :
Get rid of 24" dell and get two Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP 20" Widescreen

OR,keep 24" dell and get another Dell E207WFP 20"

What would you chose,i really like my 24" dell,i just cant decide.
Can i see pictures of dual widescreen set ups?

[randomperson21]

so to summarise thats pretty much what i said then eh ? lol :p

mm not really.

[randomperson21]

I have 8800 GTS, the choices i have here are :
Get rid of 24" dell and get two Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP 20" Widescreen

OR,keep 24" dell and get another Dell E207WFP 20"

What would you chose,i really like my 24" dell,i just cant decide.
Can i see pictures of dual widescreen set ups?

oh my. an 8800gts should handle it perfect.

Heres my dual widescreen setup. dual 19" widescreens, 1440x900.

http://img.techpowerup.org/070128/Desktop624.jpg

idk how much you want to spend, but i'd assume that just getting a 20" and keeping the 24" would be cheaper. personally, i was never really bothered by the size diff between my 15" and 17" CRT's. But then again, i'm not that picky.

[J0N]

I use UltraMon for my dual screen set up. It works very well, and gives a lot of taskbar options etc...

Unfortuntely at them moment im running two different sized (and really old) CRT's. Despite this, resolution hasn't been a big problem, especially with UltraMon.

[65tweet]

I haven't researched dual monitor setup so sorry if this is a noobish question. Can you game with a dual monitor setup and increase your viewing field? (system capabilities aside)

[randomperson21]

I haven't researched dual monitor setup so sorry if this is a noobish question. Can you game with a dual monitor setup and increase your viewing field? (system capabilities aside)

Sorry, I'm not entire sure what you are saying here.

The dual displays are not clones of each other. The computer can be set up to span across both monitors, or in nvidia's case, enable dual-view across both monitors. For example, I can have My Computer up on one screen, and then grab it and drag it to the second display. Also, windows can span across both monitors.

The one place this doesn't apply is videos and games. Games appear on your primary monitor in fullscreen. They can't span across both.

Also, you can't span videos across both screens, unless you're using vlc in opengl mode (if other apps can do this, PLEASE tell me). You can move it between both screens usually, although i occasionally have trouble with powerdvd.

Hope that helps.

[J0N]

Some games have dual monitor capabilities. The only one that I can think of is the new Flight Simulator, but im sure theres a few more aswell. However for 99% of games, dual monitor isnt really possible or practical.

[randomperson21]

Some games have dual monitor capabilities. The only one that I can think of is the new Flight Simulator, but im sure theres a few more aswell. However for 99% of games, dual monitor isnt really possible or practical.

true. i once saw flightsim running on 13 crt's or something.
of course, it did need more than 1 computer pull it off.

and it was totally pointless.

[lemonadesoda]

Many applications work fine with multi screen setup. In fact, anything using the Windows API will work spread across 2 screens. ie. most 2D games. Unfortunately, most GPU's DirectX and OpenGL acceleration is limited to the "primary monitor"... so 3D games usually need to be designed to work with more than one monitor.

FS has been working on multi-monitor setups for YEARS. 3 screens is the common setup. Forward look, RHS and LHS.

Link: http://www.hartware.de/report_399_14.html

FS, Quake, Soldier of Fortune 2, Jedi 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

...seems more games than we though support multi-monitors