Question Regarding Dual-Monitoring?

[godbrother]

Hi, I have a few questions before I go ahead and get another 17" monitor to go dual with. (the GPU in question is a 9800GT.)

1) Can I watch a movie file on one screen, while working on the other? I tend to watch DVD's but mostly minimized as I listen to them while I work. Will Dual Monitoring solve this problem?
-- (can I watch one movie of both the screens?)

2) Will the same apply to games? Lets say I'm playing CoD4 and duty calls and I go back to the other screen, how do I make the mouse and keyboard switch over to the other screen? (this question is not so inportant.)

3) Last but not least... How will this effect the performance of the GPU... Having 2 screens run at once? (9800GT)

Regards.

 

[one-shot]

I actually have 2 monitors set up right now. I have my 24" as my main screen and a 17 as my secondary screen. You can change the orientation of the screens also. I have my 24" on the right as my main monitor, and a 17" on the left as my secondary. You can play a game, but it can't be full screen. Sometimes it'll pause the game, sometimes it won't. You can watch a movie, but you have to extend the movie to the screen. You can't fullscreen it. I use VLC media player and just make the video window as large as I can without being full screen.

I'm not sure on the 3rd question. I have 2 GPUs. 1 GPU per monitor. If you're just watching a video on one screen and whatever else on the other, it'll be fine. There shouldn't be any impact in 2D. In 3D, I'm not sure.

 

[godbrother]

Hmm, thanks for the awensers.

Regarding the game... How can I max that out only for one screen, while the other screen operates MSoffice/FireFox/MSN etc etc? How do would I move the mouse over to the other screen?

 

[one-shot]

If the program isn't full screen you can just move the mouse to the next screen. If it's full screen you can't move to the next screen. I can play Crysis Map Editor on one screen and use IM/Steam on the other screen.

 

[godbrother]

Aww, I see. So the only way I can move it is if I minimize the game correct?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I am sitting here with a 24" and a 19" run off a GTX 295.... have a game "full screen" on the 24" and am typing this in firefox on the 19" . The mouse moves from screen to screen just as if the screen borders weren't there. I am not experiencing the limitations that one shot is and can move the mouse from screen to screen.

 

[godbrother]

I am sitting here with a 24" and a 19" run off a GTX 295.... have a game "full screen" on the 24" and am typing this in firefox on the 19" . The mouse moves from screen to screen just as if the screen borders weren't there. I am not experiencing the limitations that one shot is and can move the mouse from screen to screen.

thats strange... How do you play the game? If you move it to far, won't the mouse skip into the next screen? Or is that only when its paused?

 

[godbrother]

^^ ??

 

[godbrother]

Anyone?

 

[godbrother]

ehem...*cough*

 

[geofelt]

I play civ-4. It has both a full screen mode, and a windowed mode. I also have a 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor and a 1920 x 1200 monitor. I play civ4 in full screen mode usually. When the cursor reaches the edge of the screen, the map moves, but the cursor stays on the main display. If I see an e-mail message come up ot the aux screen, I use the windows start key on the keyboard which minimizes the game, allowing me to respond to the e-mail or whatever.

If I play the game in windowed mode, I need to click on the map to see past the screen borders.

I wonder if a second cheap vga card for the aux display would improve game performance?