To Dual or not to Dual?

[TheReverendTholomewPlague]

Cool. Although I wont need a center screen. I will have the largest monitor in front of me, with the smaller one off to the side somewhere. :)

[evilneko]

I've been using a dual monitor setup for a while now on my desktop. It started with just using my tv as a monitor to play movies/tv eps on while I used my real monitor for web/irc, but a video card upgrade put an end to that. New one couldn't output anything the TV could use, so now I have a 1280x1024 LCD for my secondary monitor right next to my 1600x900 primary. A real monitor's a ton more useful than the old CRT TV. I can actually read the text on it. :tongue: I've never tried to put a game on the secondary though.

 

I'd never want to go back to single-monitor setup again.

 

I don't use any dedicated software to manage my setup, just Windows XP plus the multi-monitor features in SharpE shell. (bblean got a bit weird with some things with my always-on second LCD, even though it handled the tv, which I enabled only when I needed it, just fine...) I did try UltraMon (not free) but found that the feature I wanted it for didn't work (possibly because of SharpE), was not exactly what I wanted and was clumsy anyway. (I wanted apps to start where the mouse cursor is, Media Player Classic does this by itself--try it!)

 

The features of that MultiMon thing is kinda weird. What does a clipboard extender have to do with multiple monitors, and why does it matter which side the primary is on? (my primary has always been on the right) And why the buttons to resize across multiple monitors? You can resize across multiple monitors normally... :confused:

 

/ramble

[bben46]

Re Multimon - free version

The clipboard extender is just a gimmick they threw in - it is not required and can be disabled, but I have found it useful.

Resizing works when you have different resolutions on each monitor. If you move a full screen program from a higher resolution monitor to a lower resolution, it may not fill the screen - of if you go the other way it will be too big for the screen. As both of my monitors are the same size and same resolution, I don't need it. So I really don't know how well it works.

As for which side the primary monitor is on, XP locks you in. Multimon allows you to choose which monitor is primary. That one gets all of the icons.

 

My favorite feature is the separate task bar for each monitor. This allows me to clear only one monitor of all running windows without doing anything to the other monitor. I tend to start applications or new browser windows on the left, then move them to the right side when I want to start something else. After a while I might have 4 or 5 separate browser copies open on the right side. I pull the one I want out of the separate task bar for that monitor and kill the rest.

[evilneko]

I'd definitely want to disable it as I wouldn't want it to interfere with Ditto. Still think it's kinda weird to throw something completely unrelated like that in.

 

As for which monitor is primary, I've always had the primary on the right in both 2000 and XP. Sure Windows defaults to putting the secondary on the right, but you're allowed to move it.

 

Like I said though, what I really want is for apps to always start on the monitor where the mouse is, but even the non-free UltraMon doesn't do that. I couldn't find anything free or not that would do that, last time I looked. :( (hell if Windows 7 does that I might even consider it a good enough reason to upgrade. Anyone know?)

[DeadPool1979]

I've had a dual monitor (two 19" monitors) setup for years now. It's fairly useless when playing games as very few take advantage of it, but it's amazingly helpful for anything else you might do. Being able to web browse on one monitor and do stuff on another, for instance.

 

One small plus to having dual monitors when gaming is you can have information open on your secondary monitor (cheats, strategy guide, etc) while playing on your primary monitor. Other than that, however, the second monitor will usually remain unused.

 

Just so you know, you'll have problems finding appropriately-sized wallpaper. My screen real estate is 2560x1024 when combining both monitors and it's difficult to find nice wallpaper for that resolution. It's not impossible, but nowhere near as easy as it is to find single monitor wallpaper. In my opinion, that's a small price to pay for the overall greater flexibility of two monitors.

 

You don't need any special hardware or software to get this to work. All you need is a video card with two DVI ports (some older cards have one DVI and one VGA port) and you're good to go.

[evilneko]

I just use one wallpaper for each monitor, though that's partly because of the different resolutions of my two monitors. Built-in feature for SharpE shell, most third-party multi-monitor utilities have it too.