Nvidia vs ATI drivers for dual monitor?

[cbn]

Right now I am using Catalyst Control Center for my dual monitor set-up.

At the moment I am somewhat disapointed in the lack of versatility. For example, I have not found a way to easily switch monitors for the purposes of playing the occasional game (Games always load on my primary LCD monitor, but sometimes I want to play them on the CRT monitor)

Do Nvidia drivers make it easier for the user to assign which monitor displays the game?

 

[zod96]

Yes imo. Which is exactly why I switched from my ati 4890 to a gtx285. THe nvidia control panel has so many more options in regards to dual monitors than ati...

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: zod96
Yes imo. Which is exactly why I switched from my ati 4890 to a gtx285. THe nvidia control panel has so many more options in regards to dual monitors than ati...

Thanks.

Will the Nvidia drivers allow me to choose the monitor I want to play a game on?

Also will Nvidia Control panel let me surf the internet and play a game at the same time?

At the moment with CCC I have to uninstall...then reinstall to select a new primary monitor.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Forget about using control panels from either IHVs. Use ultramon, a program that lets you do alot more than what you can find in a control panel (CCC/nVIDIA CP). Been using it since day one with my multi display setup.

The downside atm is that in multi display mode, your GPU will never go to the 2D clocks for power saving. Hence my GTX260 c216 is always on max 3D clocks, which is abit of a shame unless you downclock the core/shader manually using a 3rd party tool/Bios flash. Note that you have to keep your memory speed the same or else you might notice some flickering on the second monitor.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

nVidia drivers may be a hair more robust for using dual monitors, but I also find them to be more flaky than the ATI ones. I have used both several times in the last couple months (don't ask why). That said, yes, definitely just get Ultramon and buy whatever the hell card you want.

 

[cbn]

Thanks for the answers.

I downloaded Ultramon and admit the controls for selecting "primary" and "secondary" monitors is quite obvious but I finally found out how to do this with CCC.

In CCC a person needs to right click on the monitor in "Displayer Manager" to get a menu which has "enable", "primary", "identify" for these operations. While not as obvious as Ultramon....the capability is still there.

Incidentally, I find features like this could really help a person keep video card spending to a minimum. If a game is too challenging for a larger LCD then the second CRT (which doesn't have native resolution) or smaller LCD can be used. This lessens strain on Graphics computing.