Putting a second monitor to use?

Dcully

I have a spare 17 " CRT monitor sitting idle beside me and wonder if i could utilise it in any way?
I have an x800xl gfx card ,i wonder could i use the second monitor with this card and maybe keep websites,irc,xfire etc on the 17 " monitor while i game on the 19" samsung synchmaster monitor?
Is this possible?
Would there be a performance hit while gaming with another monitor being displayed?
If i can do this how can i switch mouse control between the two?
Sorry if this seems a totally noob thread but ive never tried this before but have seen various "show us your setup " threads and seen multi monitor setups.

Endurance Man

Yes, adding it as a second monitor would work fine . It wont have any effect on your game performance, unless u start running a really big program on the other screen . Not sure how u would get the mouse over to the other screen while gaming :rolleyes: .

mp3guy

If you've got the right connection, you may need a DVI-VGA adaptor, but they're really cheap. There is a VERY slight performance hit, AFIAK. Mouse control is universal, alt-tab maybe

daywalker

mp3guy wrote:

Mouse control is universal, alt-tab maybe

AFAIK, if you run a game and have two screens the game will attempt to run on both screens based on the settings in the graphics properties, and games generally do not support alt-tabbing as it can cause the game to crash.

mp3guy

daywalker wrote:

AFAIK, if you run a game and have two screens the game will attempt to run on both screens based on the settings in the graphics properties, and games generally do not support alt-tabbing as it can cause the game to crash.

Really? Most games i've played support alt+tab, its just a bit slow going back to the deskop

Endurance Man

Ye, iv have never really had to many problems with alt-tab and games. If u while playing css and u go back to windows for like 10min then things go weird but if its just quickly to do sumting it usually works fine.
Had another thought, some games allow u to play in a window, like css. What u may be able to do is just play the games in a window, drag that window to 1 screen and then windows would show up on the other screen would it not ??

mp3guy

that should work, alot of games work in windows, and i'm sure you can get a patch or something for the ones that normally don't

Dcully

Ok have the secong monitor beside me and connected up.
Its showing my walpaper same as default monitor but it has no desktop icons etc.
I can change second monitor resolution no prob but cant seem to get mouse up on it or indeed any windows options.
It just seems to be a mirror image of my wallpaper right now .
Any ideas?

Ok just to edit,i just noticed i can drag xfire,mirc etc over to secong monitor by physically moving mouse out of main screen over to second,very cool indeed.
Thanks to all

Dcully

I didnt get time to reply before nowbut ive run into a problem.
All programs work fine by dragging them over to second monitor but when i try to play a game my main monitor it just freezes with a black screen and any open programs on second monitor seem to shift over to left of the second monitor screen.
Once i disable the second monitor all is well.
Any suggestions before i think about selling this second monitor along with my spare 9800 pro?

KdjaCL

No games you are playing will work on a dual monitor , maybe COD 1 but other high spec games will want to play on the main monitor.

ATi Tv out and Dual monitor setup sucks so can be a bitch to get working , try Extended Desktop and stick Xfire etc onto the crappy monitor manuall, games should run and take over Monitor 1.


Mouse will be fine as long as you dont aim to far to the right of lect or it will appear on the other monitor


kdjac

Dcully

Just had another go and all games seem to be working fineon main monitor.
I only want main monitor to display games and second one for xfire,teamspeak,etc.
Seems to be working just now and when gaming the mouse is stuck to main monitor and not drifting to second which is what i wanted also.
Weird how its worked fine this time round though.

ShevY

ultramon will give you a taskbar on the other monitor aslong with some other useful things..

CatInABox

Ultramon is well worth downloading, gives you a whole load of other options like different backgrounds and stuff.

Dcully

Yeah its cool but i only got a 30 day trial version

Dermo

Having a dual moniter is cool for games if you can run the games in windowed mode, then it's easy to alt+tab back and forth and be able to do anything

but sadly a lot of the action/rpg games nowadays only run in fullscreen mode, and if in a different resolution that you are running, would cause the second moniter to use that resolution too. it can be annoying at times.

A lot of the strategy games around though will let you play in windowed mode and are perfect for dual moniter set up, where you can have the net/irc/movies playing in the other screen without interuption, unless of course one or more of the applications are taking up a lot of juice