Best way to game on my secondary monitor (TV)?

[-BA-]

Hey guys. I output to my TV as my secondary monitor and there are a few games that I would like to 'send' to that instead of on my main screen such as Fifa 12 or Dirt 3.

I have Ultramon to manage my monitors and also have a hotkey set up on my keyboard to turn the secondary on and off. The problem is, when I launch games they always seem to default to the main screen and I don't really want to have to make the TV primary just to be able to game on it as its resolution is slightly different from my main screen (i.e. 1920x1200 on monitor and 1920x1080 on TV).

Is there some quick and easy method I am missing to be able to get games to run on the secondary monitor? Running an HD6970 on Cat 11.11s.

Ideas very welcome

 

[Cleeecooo]

Go to CCC and make the TV the primary monitor

 

[steve1873]

Yeah use Windows 7's own screen resolution tool (right click and select screen resolution) select 'only show dektop on 2', then create a preset with hotkey in CCC. Bobs your uncle. Anytime you want to game on secondary monitor select that preset and it will work. I do this all the time.

Not sure how having 2 different resolutions will affect this though as mines are both the same.

 

[-BA-]

Thanks for the replies guys. Currently what I do which seems to work ok'ish is to put a game in window mode then move it over and hit Alt-Enter. Works fine for Dirt 3 and will try it on Fifa when it arrives. Ideally I wanted a shortcut or command line switch to be able to launch directly to the TV but a workaround will do for now

 

[Cleeecooo]

Thanks for the replies guys. Currently what I do which seems to work ok'ish is to put a game in window mode then move it over and hit Alt-Enter. Works fine for Dirt 3 and will try it on Fifa when it arrives. Ideally I wanted a shortcut or command line switch to be able to launch directly to the TV but a workaround will do for now

That's probably the quickest way to do it!

 

[Tealc]

You can do all sorts of stuff with Ultramon scripts. Such as set primary, secondary, set resolution, refresh rate, disable/enable monitors etc.

I don't game on my TV but use a script that enables secondary, changes primary to TV and then disables the monitor. I also have it set resolution as sometimes it forgets whatnot should be. Oh and it's also possible for it to remember where your icons are, especially useful when your monitor and TV are different resolutions.

The scripts are basic vbs files that launch from a double click, or a button combo if you wish. You could even launch a game from the script I'd imagine, although you'd then need to run another script afterwards to set it back.

 

[-BA-]

Thought I would update this thread rather than start another which is a similar vein. I have setup some display profiles in Ultramon and use keyboard shortcuts to activate them. Everything is working great and my desktop switches over to the TV and displays fully (I am using the slider scale set to 0% on scaling options to make sure the desktop fills the entire screen).

Now here is my problem at the moment. Fifa 12 seems to want to run at 60Hz because when I go full screen into the game I get a black border around the picture that isn't there when on the desktop. I got the very same border when I launched Dirt 3 but as soon as I changed the refresh rate to 50 from 60Hz in the game's settings, it went back to full screen. Are there any similar settings for Fifa 12? The graphics options screen merely offers the resolution and not a choice of refresh rate.

 

[Tealc]

Are you setting the TV to 50 Hz with your scripts? I know 50 Hz is much better for video but perhaps a 60 Hz script would be better for gaming. The game should auto detect your tv refresh rate and display accordingly and that's probably why it's getting stuck at 50.