Dual monitor setup problem in games

Ambition sG

Honorable
Oct 20, 2013
3
0
10,510
ok so i have 2 1920x1080 monitors 1 acer and 1 lcd tv. the problem is when i launch a game the game appears only on one screen. how do i fix this? please reply fast

I have 2x geforce gtx 650ti boost in sli.
 
Solution

722C

Honorable
May 29, 2012
40
0
10,560
Most games will not take advantage of two independent monitors because games will generally display on only the primary monitor. When people game across multiple monitors, it usually is across three. I don't know off of the top of my head what support there is for playing across two monitors, but I assume it would be sub-optimal due to the bezels running down the center of one's field of view.
 

Ambition sG

Honorable
Oct 20, 2013
3
0
10,510


so its not possible to use 2 monitors to play games on?
 

722C

Honorable
May 29, 2012
40
0
10,560


It should be. I believe the way you would force games to span both displays would be to stretch your desktop across both monitors (process is vendor (AMD, nVidia, Intel, other) specific). This would trick the games into seeing both monitors as one.
 

Ambition sG

Honorable
Oct 20, 2013
3
0
10,510

and how would i do that?
 

722C

Honorable
May 29, 2012
40
0
10,560
I guess now would be a prudent time to ask (should have asked it sooner), do you want the displays mirrored (showing the same thing on both)? If you do, it should be as simple as (assuming Windows 7) right clicking the desktop and going to screen resolution, selecting the second display and choosing Duplicate These Displays.

If that is not what you want, you may have to look more closely into a hack of somekind. Apparently, somewhere along the transition from XP -> Vista -> 7, the ability to span just two displays was removed (at least for nVidia, don't know about others). If you can't find a hack, I would just stick to one display for games (or go the mirroring route).
 


Nvida cards can still span the desktop across two displays but 2D surround requires three monitors.
 

722C

Honorable
May 29, 2012
40
0
10,560


Should clarify that I mean making the computer see both displays as a single large nonstandard display, which is kind of what nVidia does for 2D and 3D surround.
 

That is what an extended desktop gets "seen" as but it doesn't work for gaming unless you have three monitors all running the same resolution.
 

722C

Honorable
May 29, 2012
40
0
10,560


Not quite. In extended desktop, the displays are all still indpendent . What I am referring to is similar to what the new 4K displays do: they appear as 4 1080p displays, but they are combined into a single 4K display. In this case, what I am referring to would act as a single display in all cases.
 
Solution