Dual monitors questions

Zaruz · 13 Sep 2013 at 18:23

Hey guys

I've got a couple of questions for a possible dual monitor upgrade.

First of all, the monitor that I have has gone out of production and is hard to get hold of new, so I can't have it matching (Can't afford 2 new monitors). Will it make much difference if it isn't the same size? I'm debating just getting a smaller one instead of a 2nd 24" to save on costs, but not sure of the implications of that.

Secondly, is it possible to have each monitor act as a seperate desktop? I've never looked into 2 monitors before, but I tried plugging a second one in years ago to play WoW full screen with messenger open on the 2nd screen, but the only thing i managed to do was put wow windowed on the left, which caused issues with the mouse when i move it to the edges of the screen.
The preferable solution would be that I could have a game fullscreen on my main monitor with webpages on the 2nd, and tab between them if possible?

Thanks a lot in advance

swiftmetal · 13 Sep 2013 at 19:25

That is totally possible to do as I do it now.

The resolution of the 2 monitors can be different it only matters when you have an eyefinity setup.

If you right click any where on the desktop and then selection the option for screen resolution you can just click extend display.

When gaming there are 2 options

1 have the game full screen and then just tab out to use the other screen.

2 set the game to the full resolution of your monitor and then use it windowed so you can just easily go from one to another.

Hope this helps.

Zaruz · 15 Sep 2013 at 16:08

Thanks swift, number 1 is perfect for me

I think I'll get a smaller second monitor as I'm not really interested in gaming on 2 screens

Orcvader · 15 Sep 2013 at 16:16

For option one, I don't know if WoW has the option but see if it can lock the mouse to it. Otherwise when you accidently move your mouse to the second screen, and click, it will minimize the game.

freshdeniability · 15 Sep 2013 at 17:53

Zaruz said:
Thanks swift, number 1 is perfect for me

I think I'll get a smaller second monitor as I'm not really interested in gaming on 2 screens

Not sure whether this is obvious, but when I started the dual monitor thing, I thought (naively) that if I had a game in full-screen on the one I could just move the mouse to the other and surf, etc, but it's not how it works. What happens is the game minimizes and stops and you then have to click it to get it back. Apologies if this is obvious, as mentioned above, windowed mode eliminates this problem, it's what I do now in most cases.

dan958 · 15 Sep 2013 at 19:54

lhw455 said:
Not sure whether this is obvious, but when I started the dual monitor thing, I thought (naively) that if I had a game in full-screen on the one I could just move the mouse to the other and surf, etc, but it's not how it works. What happens is the game minimizes and stops and you then have to click it to get it back. Apologies if this is obvious, as mentioned above, windowed mode eliminates this problem, it's what I do now in most cases.

Download a program called 'Actual Multiple Monitors'. You can quickly jump from one screen to another with a user set key combo (I use windows key + left or right) you can go to the other screen and do things on there and your game wont minimize.