How to set up dual screens for splitscreen Left 4 Dead 2

[guardianangel42]

I've been ripping my hair out, burning it off with a branding iron, and lazing it out with a chemical laser over this. I cannot find a how to for setting up dual monitors anywhere for Windows 7. I probably don't know the right buzz words or something.

If anyone can tell me set this up on my rig, single card (GTX 275), OC'd Quad core (Q9550 @ 3.9Ghz), I will crown you king (or queen) of the internet.

I have tried running my game windowed no border, tried running it windowed with border and dragging it to extend it (Didn't work as it wouldn't let me select the edge), tried creating a custom resolution in the Nvidia control panel, and tried changing the resolution in Windows.

I am trying to play Left 4 Dead 2 splitscreen using two monitors, one for each player. I have two monitors with one resolution 1080p the other a rather strange 2048x1152, which I would run @ 1080p.

 

[Herr_Koos]

This has nothing to do with Windows. You won't be able to do it unless the game itself supports a split-screen mode.

 

[guardianangel42]

It does. That part I've figured out.

 

[Herr_Koos]

If both monitors are plugged in, you should be able to enable the second one under Control Panel->Display->Screen Resolution.

 

[Herr_Koos]

After a quick google search is seems to me you will have to make some cfg file changes or install a mod of some kind for split screen to work.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1029890

 

[guardianangel42]

Again, I already have splitscreen working, its spanning that I want to figure out. With both displays active I can play splitscreen on one monitor while the other simply plays nothing.

What I really need to know is how you make a game recognize dual screens and span the image across both screens in Windows 7. This seems to be a case where it is so apparently obvious that it isn't documented anywhere.

How do you span screens? How do you make a game span the width of two monitors instead of one? Those are the questions I need answers to, not how to set up splitscreen in Left 4 Dead 2. Left 4 Dead 2 was just context for why I wanted dual screens instead of triple screens.

 

[Herr_Koos]

OK, understood. You might have stated the question a bit more clearly though. "I cannot find a how to for setting up dual monitors anywhere for Windows 7" is a bit ambiguous.

You need a way to make the game think the two screens are actually a single monitor. If you had an AMD GPU I would have said Eyefinity. Not sure if it can be done with your current setup, although it is supported on the 400 series and later cards.

 

[guardianangel42]

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I sorta confused another post I made on another forum with this one and as such wasn't very clear.

I don't know how to make my game use a resolution like that is my problem. I have seen people say that that is what you need to do but I haven't found out how.

 

[Herr_Koos]

Problem is that games by default do not span multiple monitors. That is what AMD Eyefinity and Nvidia Surround are designed to do. The Nvidia version however requires 2 cards in SLI and outputs to 3 monitors, not 2.

 

[guardianangel42]

Oh, so I can't do it. That sucks. Well, thank you for setting me straight on that, I thought it was possible to span displays with only one card but that I needed SLI to span 3 or more.

 

[Herr_Koos]

There might still be a non-official way that I'm not aware of, so don't give up just yet.

 

[OllieUK]

Do you actually really want to do this? Presumably your gun sight will be right in the middle of the 2 screens and therefore very difficult to aim nicely (unless you have some really fancy monitors with zero frame). 3 monitors makes sense as you still have a monitor at the center and one for each peripheral but for an FPS 2 doesn't seem to make much sense from a usability point of view..

Just a thought..

 

[Herr_Koos]

Do you actually really want to do this? Presumably your gun sight will be right in the middle of the 2 screens and therefore very difficult to aim nicely (unless you have some really fancy monitors with zero frame). 3 monitors makes sense as you still have a monitor at the center and one for each peripheral but for an FPS 2 doesn't seem to make much sense from a usability point of view..

Just a thought..

He's actually trying to split-screen across 2 monitors, so two people can play simultaneously. Thus there would be two gunsights, one on each screen.

 

[OllieUK]

Oh yes, I see...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3kIwpNdbUc

Never knew that was possible... assumed control would be too difficult but using a pad for each player would sort that..

 

[guardianangel42]

Best answer selected by GuardianAngel42.

 

[guardianangel42]

There might still be a non-official way that I'm not aware of, so don't give up just yet.

There is a software hack but it involves downloading files from a site I don't know if I can trust and altering the way the game loads. I was just hoping, what with the number of people doing this sort of thing, that it wasn't strictly limited to SLI on the NVIDIA side and that it was another case of my ignorance creating road blocks.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Herr_Koos]

No problemmo. Sorry we couldn't solve your problem. At least now you have a better idea of how these things work.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey