Is this multi-monitor setup hurting my game speeds?

[VenomousRazer]

I was wondering if having my two monitors hooked up to my middle of the road GPU is hurting my speeds. I have a MSI GeForce GTX 660. The primary monitor is a 27" ASUS 1920x1080, the second is a smaller 21" PHILIPS 1360x768 TV. My CPU is an AMD FX-6300, and I have 8GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3(If that is relevant). Is having the second monitor gonna make it harder for my GPU to render nice graphics in games? My performance is pretty good in most games even on high graphics settings. I care more about nice graphics than I do a second monitor (plus taking away the second monitor would give me some more desk space). Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[GrimThunder62]

This depends a lot on what you're doing with your second monitor while you're playing your games. Doing work for more than one process is always going to make it a little more burdensome.

Of course, the best solution here is to test your games with and without your dual monitor setup to see how the performance varies. That's the only way to know for sure how much it is affecting your game play.

 

[VenomousRazer]

This depends a lot on what you're doing with your second monitor while you're playing your games. Doing work for more than one process is always going to make it a little more burdensome.

Of course, the best solution here is to test your games with and without your dual monitor setup to see how the performance varies. That's the only way to know for sure how much it is affecting your game play.

Thank You! One more question... Does running a game in fullscreen windowed affect performance because it is having to render the desktop aswell?

 

[AselHD]

If it is rendering more of anything, then yes, the speeds will go down; even if that is just the desktop background. What you should be asking, is it a substancial difference, in which case there is not with running it in fullscreen windowed (in my experience), but there is a ~5-10 fps difference for me just having 2 monitors plugged in.

This depends a lot on what you're doing with your second monitor while you're playing your games. Doing work for more than one process is always going to make it a little more burdensome.

Of course, the best solution here is to test your games with and without your dual monitor setup to see how the performance varies. That's the only way to know for sure how much it is affecting your game play.

Thank You! One more question... Does running a game in fullscreen windowed affect performance because it is having to render the desktop aswell?

 

[GrimThunder62]

With most full screen games, you usually can't do anything with your other screen. Processes, iirc, will still run in the background, but you can't touch them. You shouldn't notice too much of a difference between running a game in windowed mode as opposed to fullscreen as a result of your dual monitor setup, but running a game in windowed mode vs fullscreen comes with its own debate on performance.

 

[VenomousRazer]

Thank you both for you help! 😀