New to multi-monitors, looking for some simple advice

[CurseTheSky]

Hi guys,

I'm a web developer / programmer by trade, and I do a little photo work and a lot of gaming on the side. I've used a single monitor for years. Recently, I've been hooking up a small 19" LCD to my laptop to help with tedious data entry and similar tasks, and it has helped a lot.

To make a long story short, My current 2408WFP has had an annoying vertical pink line of pixels that stays visible for ~5 minutes after waking for months now. I know it needs to be RMA'd (if I still can), but I can't sacrifice my only decent monitor for a week or two while I wait for a replacement. I just jumped on a decent deal for the NEC EA231WMI (23" 1920x1080 E-IPS, $315 shipped at Amazon), figuring that I could kill two birds with one stone.

First, will there be any noticeable problems with running the two different size / resolution monitors? I realize it won't look great aesthetically on my desk, but I simply can't afford to shell out another $500 for a 24" 1920x1200 PVA or IPS. I'm primarily concerned with how games will be displayed, and if I'll be able to use the second monitor for secondary functions (web browsing) while a game is running on the other one (full screen or windowed). What about full screen movies?

Finally, as a trivial matter of opinion, how would you guys set up the monitors? They both have USB ports on the left-hand side (which sucks), and I think I'd prefer my "main" monitor to be on the left. 24" on the left, or 23"? Touching, or leave a gap between the two?

Thanks.

 

[palladium]

I'm in a similar situation as you OP (need a bigger desk before I can replace the 17" with a new 24"). I'm assuming you're not using the monitors in clone mode (i.e. the displays are configured independently). In such cases, any games will display in the primary monitor; if you want the games to display in both monitors, you'd need to set up the monitors in clone mode, or use an Eyefinity-like 3rd party software. Be sure that your game runs at your primary monitor's native res, or else you'd get a funny 'shift' on your secondary monitor.

As far as browsing goes, I can't click on the secondary monitor while running full screen games (I'm guessing it has something to do with DWM losing control of the desktop). With windowed games, that is not an issue. If I click on the secondary monitor while watching a full screen movie, the movie no longer runs in full screen (mplayer classic would display something like 'focus lost to taskmgr.exe). I'm running vista, 7 may have fixed some or all of the problems.

 

[Lonyo]

If you've got a 1920x1200 and a 1920x1080 then you'd want to fullscreen on the secondary 1920x1080 for two reasons:

No black bars on the 16:9 if it's a 16:9 movie.
When you click away from the fullscreen movie window (in MPC or similar), if it's on a monitor with a taskbar, the taskbar will show overlaid on the movie.
If it's a non taskbar window, the problem can't occure, and it stays pure fullscreen and you can do whatever on the other monitor.

When it comes to games, fullscreen doesn't let you do something on B while the game is on A, and with windowed mode, it can still be an issue depending on whether the game catches the mouse within its window or not (but you can always alt+tab to escape the game window if it does), but most of the time with games, you're not really going to be wanting to browse the internet anyway.

The only minor catch with non-matching resolutions is that the mouse won't go from the bigger to the smaller perfectly, since they don't match up, but it's not something you'll ever really notice.

 

[lifeblood]

First, will there be any noticeable problems with running the two different size / resolution monitors?

...how would you guys set up the monitors? Touching, or leave a gap between the two?

No problems running different resolutions. I have a two different size/resolution monitors and it works fine. I do suffer the same idiosyncrasies as palladium but it doesn't bug me.

The monitors can touch. When I did multi-monitor with CRT's you had to have a gap as they would interfere with each other, but LCD's don't suffer that problem (that I know of)

 

[CurseTheSky]

The monitors can touch. When I did multi-monitor with CRT's you had to have a gap as they would interfere with each other, but LCD's don't suffer that problem (that I know of)

That part of my question was more about the aesthetics than the functionality. With the two different sizes, I'm thinking having them touching is going to look horrible. It's a really stupid question, but eh, I value other people's opinions.

Thanks for all the input guys.

 

[citan x]

You don't have to have your main monitor on the left. Currently, I have my main monitor straight on and the second one to the right.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

When using different resolutions on multiple desktops just using standard Windows OS, it can make your desktop wallpaper a little odd looking as it tries to resize it to accommodate all the resolutions (ie, it will shrink some or overscan, etc). That doesn't matter to me since I never see my desktop; but others care. Just pointing it out in case you do. Otherwise, it doesn't matter that they're different resolutions. Once you have a dual setup, you'll want a tri-setup. And it will go on from there. I think 3 is the sweet spot for displays. A main, a work, and a `play' so to speak.

Aesthetically, I like mine to touch. Harmony looks better when it comes to a bunch of geometrical shapes sitting around.

I went the extra mile and added a 4th display to my mix. All of them are 1920x1080, but I've ran the 37" LCD at lower resolutions for various reasons (overscanning, games, etc). It doesn't bother things at all (other than the mentioned wallpaper thing).

When you set up multiple displays in Windows, regardless of it being ATI/nVidia/Other, windows itself has good control panels for dealing with multiple displays. For example, you can select which of the displays you want to be your `primary' (which will have your task bar, be the main screen for various things, etc). You can drag and drop the screens to be in any config you want (any location). They are numbered and you can make the numbers appear on the displays so you can see which one you're moving, etc. You can put them side by side, or stack them on top of each other. Etc. It doesn't matter. It will do all of those options just fine.

Here's an example of basic Windows 7 and how it treats multi screens. I stacked one of my displays to be above the others. It works fine. When I move the mouse up towards that display, it goes up there. It physically is above, and on the desktop, it physically above the others so it feels natural when you move around exactly where you're looking to move to with your pointer.

Using it for lots of tasks and web use:

I also like to use software that allows me to dim windows/screens that I'm not currently using. It's very handy when focusing on certain tasks and not needing to see other things as often. It's easier on the eyes that way because really, more screens blasting white at you can be straining. It's SlimKEYS and it's freeware. You can google it, made by SlimCode. Very good stuff. I ditched ultramon when I found SlimKEYS.

I also use my main machine as a HTPC, so I like to watch DVD's while using the web, etc. You can put video on any screen, so it's handy to have multiple displays. I also liked how it felt to stack a screen above others for that purpose. It singles it out so I can see my media, while being separate from the web stuff, yet all coming from one machine and one big desktop extended across all the displays.

Finally, you don't need fancy cards to power lots of screens. Here, I'm using an 8800GT (two DVI ports) and an HD3300 (onboard chipset on my motherboard with DVI and HDMI ports) to power the screens.

Very best,

 

[CurseTheSky]

Excellent post MalVeauX, thanks. And thanks again everyone else.

My NEC EA231WMi just came in today. It was supposed to get here by about Tuesday next week... what a great surprise.

Making enough desk room was a pain in the ass. Other than that, everything went pretty well. No dead pixels, no glaring defects, etc.

The big problem I'm having right now is the color differences between it and my 2408WFP. With both set to sRGB, the NEC is far bluer and the Dell is either neutral or a bit green / reddish. I wish I had a color calibrator to straighten this out. Any suggestions? Unfortunately I can't afford to spend $50-100+ on another piece of hardware at the moment.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

You can adjust color settings per monitor in display properties. There's a whole wizard in Windows 7 for it. You just follow the prompts and adjust the colors to make the photo look the same on each monitor. You can do it manually.

Very best,

 

[CurseTheSky]

Heya,

You can adjust color settings per monitor in display properties. There's a whole wizard in Windows 7 for it. You just follow the prompts and adjust the colors to make the photo look the same on each monitor. You can do it manually.

Very best,

WOW. Previously I was using http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/, and the one built into Windows 7 helped me a lot more. The colors aren't perfect, but they're far better than they were before. Thanks a TON for the tip.

Lagom.nl's brightness and contrast tests are far superior in my opinion, though.

 

[CurseTheSky]

So everything is looking pretty good, but the colors on the 2408WFP are noticeably duller. Not by a ton, but for example, the top bar in Chrome looks a bit more gray on the 2408WFP, and a bit more blue on the EA231WMi. The NEC is overall more vibrant. Both are set to sRGB mode.

Contrast settings on the 2408WFP don't seem to be helping (if I go much higher, everything looks oversaturated). I tried turning down the red and green levels, but it doesn't seem to help much and whites get too much of a cool / blue tone.

What settings should I play with to get a bit more vibrance?

 

[CurseTheSky]

Any more advice on this? Looking for a quick color fix on the 2408WFP if possible. Hopefully I'll be able to sell it for around $250 at some point so I can pick up another EA231WMi instead.