duel monitor help

[jongley]

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting a 2nd monitor for Pc. But i don't really know how it all works and what benefits it has. (I know how to set it up)

like with gaming. Can i play a game on one monitor and have windows vista showing on the other?
would i be able to access windows at the same time as playing game? Would i be able to have the picture for game on both monitors like in "X2-the threat" could i split the screens in the game and have it on my duel monitors?

All help appreciated

thank you

 

[SpeedyVV]

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting a 2nd monitor for Pc. But i don't really know how it all works and what benefits it has. (I know how to set it up)

like with gaming. Can i play a game on one monitor and have windows vista showing on the other?
would i be able to access windows at the same time as playing game? Would i be able to have the picture for game on both monitors like in "X2-the threat" could i split the screens in the game and have it on my duel monitors?

All help appreciated

thank you

The benefit of a 2nd monitor is mainly for more desktop space. I am talking like working working on a Word document, while reading references on Web or something like that.

Or doing some coding on one monitor while reading the specifications or API documentation on another. Stuff like that.

Gaming on 2 monitors is less important. While it is possible to play a game so that it streaches both monitors, it is not particularly fun as the centre of the game (important most of the time) is between the monitors.

If you are going to play games across multiple monitors then 3 monitors is much better. To do that your need a Matrox TripleHead2Go or a software based equivalent like SoftTH. I use SoftTH to game on 3 monitors, but be warned, you'll need a powerfull system.

But with 2 monitors you can game on 1 monitor while using the 2nd to view things like IMs, or keeping and eye on Temperatures of you GPU\CPU, or if yo have important incoming email.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have more questions.

BTW, here is a video of me gaming on 3 monitors.

[flash=425,355]http://www.youtube.com/v/t4oPM3BgqhM[/flash]

 

[jongley]

Thats a good video, see what you mean about 3 monitors.
one last question.
if using 2 monitors one for gaming and the other for something else, is it easy to switch between the two or would you have to keep minimizing the game to go back to the other monitor.

 

[SpeedyVV]

Jongley, most games when you switch to a diff application the game will automatically get minimized.

So let's say you see a new email or something, when you Alt-Tab to it, the game will minimize.