Dual monitors affect gaming

[McFadyen]

When I have dual monitors, I have to have 1 plugged into the motherboard, and 1 into graphics card. It works, but only if my main display is in the mobo, not reversed.
If I keep it this way, then my games lag terribly (FF14)
If I unplug dual monitors and move my main display to the graphics card, it runs smoothly at60fps. Why?

 

[marksavio]

your intel/basic display adapter (internal graphics) may not be able to handle dual monitor performance being the main display. depending on your mobo, you can double check in the bios if you have the "integrated shared memory" enabled. you can increase teh amount of memory that is set there to 64Mb or 128Mb.

 

[jetfighter545]

Because the motherboard output port that you are using for your second monitor uses the integrated graphics on your CPU, which is not nearly as powerful as your graphics card. Usually there are multiple ports for monitors on a graphics card but if there aren't then there's nothing you can do.

 

[McFadyen]

Is there any reason I can't swap them around then? If I put my primary into the graphics card and secondary into mobo, then the secondary never comes on even though it's detected by Windows

 

[jetfighter545]

Is there any reason I can't swap them around then? If I put my primary into the graphics card and secondary into mobo, then the secondary never comes on even though it's detected by Windows

Because as soon as you tell your computer that the primary processor is your graphics card (by setting primary monitor on the GPU), your computer disables integrated graphics as you can only use one at a time.
Your GPU can't put output through your motherboard, so only one monitor will work.

 

[marksavio]

1 gpu 2 cpu, gaming on 1 OK
1 cpu 2 gpu, gaming on 2 NOT on 1 OK