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Separate games on 2 monitors

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  • Video Games
  • Games
  • Monitors
Last response: in Video Games
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March 9, 2014 4:13:53 AM

Hello everyone!

I'm planning on getting a second monitor, after witnessing how great it is at work. It also made me thinking about having two games running on the different monitors at the same time...I just don't know to what extent is that possible.

The hardware setup:
CPU: i5-3570
VGA: Gigabyte R9 280X OC rev 2 (384 bit, 3GB)
RAM: 2x4GB 1600 CL9
SSD: Samsung EVO Basic 120GB
HDD: Seagate 7200 RPM 1TB drive
+ 2 FullHD 24" ASUS monitors.

The gaming situation I was thinking of:
I play EVE Online. Since it rarely requires my full attention for anything more than several minutes, I can do all sorts of other things besides it and that is what got me thinking.

Would it be possible to have EVE running on one monitor while I play another game on the other monitor? Games I was thinking of playing:
1. Warthunder - 1080p 60 fps at whatever graphics quality (ultra low if need be, I don't care for the eye-candy in this one).
2. World of Tanks - same deal as WT.
3. Blacklight Retribution.
4. Dwarf Fortress - I am fairly certain, this works without a hiccup, I can already do this with alt-tabbing. I'm just interested if there is a way to avoid alt-tab, like, how do I switch between them.
5. Skyrim - this might be pushing the limit, I have quite a large number of mods put into the game... but hey, maybe.

Same question: beside alt-tabbing, what other ways are there to quickly and preferably seamlessly switch between the games on the different monitors (alt-tab is a little iffy if there are other windows to interfere).

Thank you for your help and suggestions.

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March 9, 2014 4:36:46 AM

I run 4 Eve clients across 2 monitors easily, two primary plus a doorgaurd for wh sleepers for example, or two primaries for mission running, (twin Rattlesnakes, so managing drones on both), all in windowed mode for fast switching. For mining ops, 3 windowed and staggered so i can see ore holds on all three at once, plus minimized Orca pilot. since that one just chills in the POS.
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I also will run an Eve client in second monitor while playing WoT at the same time, or Eve plus Lotro, or MWO.

If the clients are windowed, you can just click w/e one to make it active, and/or select it from the active programs at the bottom of your main desktop.

You have as much or more PC than I do, no reason why you couldn't do this. Keep an eye on memory usage over long periods of time, the occasional crash of one client can happen, though this is rare.

Expect to have to reduce video settings on some games to keep vram usage under control.
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March 15, 2014 3:47:19 AM

Thaks for the helpful reply, good to know this won't be a problem. On the memory issue - I plan on adding 8 more GBs of RAM, in some combinations of activities (working in CATIA, while playing EVE, having 10-15 web pages in Chrome) are already barely fitting into the current capacity.

Thanks again.
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