Multi tasking on different screens?

[Vidar]

How easy is it to.setup your PC so that you can hook up a TV and watch movies on it etc while still using your machine and normal monitor for other things like gaming at the same time?

And what are the options? I don't have a lot of space in my flat but am wondering how best to achieve this.

 

[Zefan]

Really extremely easy in my experience.

It's usually as simple as hooking up your display inputs to a video outputs, and then - with both displays on - opening display settings (right click desktop or find in control panel I believe). You'll be able to select which display is your "main" display, and whether to mirror this image to the secondary display or to extend it. You want to extend it, so select that and then you can pick which side of your main display you want to extend over to the other display. It's quite intuitive and idiot-proof in my experience.

Whether or not you get a task bar bar on one or both screens will depend which version of Windows you are running. W8 and W10 allow the task bar to extend to all screens, whereas previous versions don't.

 

[Vidar]

Thanks Zefan, just never used more than a single monitor so was a bit unsure.

 

[Zefan]

I'm quite jealous of how much of a treat you are in for! You'll never go back

 

[Cern]

With a pair of monitors hooked up to a graphics card with at least two outputs you have all sorts of options. Windows has always supported dual monitors but since Windows 7 support has been very good and with Windows 10 it's pretty seamless.

For best results you need a pair of monitors running the same screen resolution, ideally a matched pair, so that as you move the mouse between them there's no jump. But you can of course use whatever you have to hand and it'll still work.

It means you can run an app or game on Screen 1 while you have a browser, film, TV or other apps running on Screen 2.

Personally I prefer dual monitors over a single large monitor. Yes a large 1440p or 4k monitor gives you lots of screen real estate, but there still a strong case for having an additional monitor. As a designer I like to have my main app maximized on my primary monitor and then I have reference material open on my secondary monitor. Obviously this is possible on a large single monitor too, but would mean messing around with window resizing.

 

[Vidar]

Thank you guys, really appreciate it.

 

[Deleted member 87287]

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[Cern]

It's actually quite hard to run a game on 1 monitor while having the other monitor continue to display something like the TV (as said in the opening post). Certainly in Windows 7, when you run a game, the other monitor goes blank.

It's not difficult at all, I do this all the time with a game on one screen, TV on another (via a streaming service). Win 7, 8 and 10 all behave the same in this respect.

It does depend on the game. Some games need to be in Windowed / Borderless Windowed / Windowed (Fullscreen) mode for this to work. Other games it works even if they are Full Screen. If the game is blanking your other monitor, it's likely Full Screen mode which is causing it.