Dual monitor problem

foolfromhell

Senior member
Jul 18, 2006
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I have a 22" Samsung 226bw monitor at 1680x1050.

I remember on XP, I once tried getting a 19" monitor and 22" monitor together and whenever I fullscreened a game and tried using the other monitor for things like shuffling songs, the game minimized. I now have Vista and an 8800GTX, so is there anything that I can do to avoid that? Instead of minimizing the fullscreen game when accessing another monitor, can I keep it? Some games like WC3: TFT dont window.

I want another 22" and will order it after I get a satisfactory answer. Two 22" monitors would ROCK.

Also, what are the performance losses for this? Vista's Aero uses some 600MB of HDD. Very stupid. Yes. Will it affect gaming performance?
 

MegaVovaN

Diamond Member
May 20, 2005
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I don't know what is the issue here. On XP I had a 21" monitor and 22" monitor. I playing CS:S on one monitor and reading web sites on other. It (CS:S) did not minimize.

How much aero uses on HDD does not matter, matters how much RAM/CPU/GPU power it uses. Theoretically if you turn off Aero altogether (don't know if possible, I don't have Vista), you will have more free resources for your game.


Maybe there is an option in video drivers somewere to prevent minimizing?

Also I was able to just move mouse from one screen to another. Perhaps your PC "sees" 2 monitors as a single monitor, thus minimizing game when you bring up other app? (Just like it would if you had only 1 monitor and alt tabbed to Winamp).
 

Dkcode

Senior member
May 1, 2005
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Without sounding like a wiseass: When you play a FPS and you pull a 360º turn you want your mouse cursor on the other screen with all movement disconnected from your game?

I don't think there is a solution to your question. You can try running window but you still need to disconnect (if you will) from your game so your tracking is active on the windows desktop. This would still require alt+tabbing.

If there is some software that enables you to scroll of screen in a full screen app id like to hear of it.
 

foolfromhell

Senior member
Jul 18, 2006
277
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Yeah. 300-500 MB RAM space for Aero.

I want 2 more GB RAM.

Well, 100mb for Firefox.
70 for svchost
40 for dwm.exe
30 for AVG
30 for Sidebar
15 for xfire
15 for explorer.exe
15 for search indexer
11 for pidgin
10 for svchost (the second one)
10 for svchost (the third one)
10 for svchost (the fourth one)
10 for svchost (the fifth one)
Goes on like that

Also, I had different resolutions when I tried earlier. So, that might have caused it.
 

MegaVovaN

Diamond Member
May 20, 2005
4,131
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Originally posted by: foolfromhell
....
Also, I had different resolutions when I tried earlier. So, that might have caused it.

My 21" monitor was 1600x1200 and 22" 1680x1050.

edit: and Dkcode is right. It sucks to have cursor drop out of the game in the middle of firefight.
 

foolfromhell

Senior member
Jul 18, 2006
277
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Ah. I posted after Dkcode but did not know he had posted. Would Vista fix it? I would hope it will... I play CS: S and other games a lot and that would be damn annoying.
 

LOUISSSSS

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2005
8,770
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in ur control panel, do u have it set to something like span, as one desktop with both resolutions added together? or something like dual-view and have 2 seperate resolutions running next to each other?