Dual Monitors

[Lushy]

Hey guys..
Another tech question...

I have dual 22' DVI monitors running atm.. which is working well for all windows operations

When i start COD the non-primary monitor becomes disabled (i cant scroll my mouse over to it).
I was wondering if there is a way to activate it... not to run COD on 2 screens, but to be able to scroll over and type within chat, PM etc on this ToB website and MSN at the same time as playing COD4.

Conincidently, the same thing happens when i put in a DVD movie... the screen wants to "shift" and the pc wont let me have a movie playing on one screen and a word doc on the other... movie goes blank - black screen.

Computer Specs

- Gigabyte MA770-DS3 770FX MB PCIe/D2/1066/S2/RAID (AM2+)
- G.Skill 2GB HZ (2x1GB) DDR2 1000 w/Heatsink (CL 4-4-4-15)
- AMD Athlon64 x2 6400+
- GECUBE ATI RADEON HD3850 PRO 256MB DDR3 PCI-EXPRESS VIDEO CARD
- Thermaltake TR2 RX 550W

Any advice would be great

Lushy

[Ol'digger]

Sounds like a question for Dave,

"Youself" to the rescue please..............

Brett

[Goose]

dont know sorry

[Sniper]

simple

Hit your windows start button on your key board and it will drop cod to minimized (be somewhere where you wont get killed!)

open what ever you want and it will remain open on your other monitor.


Works for me

Curt

[Zaitsev]

simple

Hit your windows start button on your key board and it will drop cod to minimized (be somewhere where you wont get killed!)

open what ever you want and it will remain open on your other monitor.


Works for me

Curt

What Curt said definitely works! Or you could get the new Alienware curved monitor that is HUGE and like $5,000 once it's available. LOL

[Copydude]

his other monitor should go blank however,
It should still show TS, or a word doc or whatever,
However...you cna't just move your mouse to the ohter screen and start typing, you would still have to reduce the game to type on the other.
Karl

[Lushy]

i have seen that monitor...pity it is a rear projection...cant wait to see an LCD or Plasma version

[recce19]

As said, you have to minimise the game first and then do what you need to. Then you can re-enlarge the game and continue.

[bionic]

I run dual monitors as well. When I get into the game my secondary monitor stays active showing my wall paper of Mater. I have a radeon 1950 pro 512.

[Copydude]

it would be nice to be able to run clan con with out haveing to redue the game screen and get killed whilst having to deal with a moron..
I have dual screens on this computer and my old computer with a single and run clan con on it :)
that is one way to solve it.
so I have three 20" widescreens on my desk
:)
Karl

[Goose]

is it the punkbuster that prevents you from going from one screen straight to another ??

[Zaitsev]

is it the punkbuster that prevents you from going from one screen straight to another ??

Nope. It's just the design of Windows for applications that take control of the full screen.

If you ran COD4 in a window on one monitor, it might be different. Hadn't tried.

[Macaroni]

make sure (before starting the game) that for the second monitor - that in the properties you have the item checked to extend your desktop to the second monitor

when you start the game - should appear in your primary and the secondary should show the extended desktop with just the backdrop

then do what curt and others said about how to minimize cod and run apps over there

[Yourself]

First off....stay away from that curved monitor!

It's only 900 vertical res......that's basically two 19 inch widescreen monitors put together. The 19 inch widescreen monitors are 1440 x 900, and that curved system is 2880 x 900.

Word is that it is nice and wide, however it cuts off too much top and bottom.

Edit: for those of you that haven't seen the curved monitor, here is a link to it. (http://gizmodo.com/341413/alienware-curved-monitor-looks-like-its-from-another-planet) Scuttlebutt on the different forums say that there are verticle white bars in fast-action games where the logical resolutions join.....I think they mentioned them about 1/4 of the way across the screen, being caused by some overscanning that happens, I think that's because the screen is being treated like 4 small monitors side by side. Alienware claims that this will be fixed in the retail version.

For the dual monitors, Zaitsev is correct.

That will happen for any game (or application) that is set to run full screen - the system will always lock the focus to the primary screen, where the game is running.

Anything that is already on the secondary screen will still function, but you won't be able to mouse or key over to it without taking focus off of the game. In a full screen game, you will have to switch away from it (windows key, alt-tab, etc.).

If the game can be set to run in a window, you can size the window on the primary screen, and then you can mouse over to the second display.

Be careful, though.....if you move the game over to the secondary display, you are effectively doubling your in-game screen resolution, which will probably render your game as a slide show.

For example, I sometimes run two 19 inch LCD monitors....each monitor is 1280 x 1024 native resolution. If I run a game in windowed mode and move the window over to the second monitor, I effectively run the game in 2560 x 1024 resolution, and it quickly becomes almost a slide show.

Unless you have a mondo video solution. Keep in mind, however, that all consumer-available video solutions now bog down on a 24 inch monitor (1920 x 1200 resolution) with all eye-candy, so they will really have trouble with higher resolutions.

Karl, maybe you can verify this? Wait....will your SLI'ed video cards drive two displays in SLI mode? I've read that it won't, but I don't know.

Also, if you run two (or more) displays that don't have similar resolutions, running a full screen game will cause the secondary monitor to run the same resolution, possibly cutting off some of the screen.

For a while, we were running a 19" CRT and a 19" LCD, with the 19" LCD as the secondary monitor (the CRT had better colors). We were running the CRT at 1024 x 768 in desktop mode, so both monitors were running 1024 x 768. If you positioned a window on the secondary monitor towards the left edge and started up a full-screen game at 1280 x 1024, the secondary screen would shift about halfway to the left.

That would effectively cut off whatever was being viewed on the left half of the secondary monitor......switching resolutions would pull it to the primary monitor, and it would be covered by the full screen game.

Yourself (Dave)

[Ol'digger]

Dave,

You never cease to amaze me........LOL.

(And confuse the hell out of me with things I have little or no comprehension of.)

But your posts sure are informative and interesting.

Thankyou

Brett

[Copydude]

For the dual monitors, Zaitsev is correct.


Karl, maybe you can verify this? Wait....will your SLI'ed video cards drive two displays in SLI mode? I've read that it won't, but I don't know.

Yourself (Dave)

Dave the way I undertand it and I willl soon find out is that I can run two vid cards sli x16 and two vid cards sli x8
so effectively yes since I have four video card slots.
and even running two cards in sli I can run both monitors and if I window the came as you were stating then I should effectively in native 1440x900 be able to operate both screens when the came is in play since the cards would share the load.
also since each card is dual dvi then I can run 8 monitors off of one comuter and should be ablke to spit the load regardless whats running ie my mega-taskigng mother board.

I ahve never tried it and now you have given me a challenge I will try it in the next couple of days and let you know.
Karl

[Yourself]

That'd be cool.

Yes, I'd like a definitive answer.

So far, my limited understanding is that you can run as many monitors as video connectors, as long as you don't run the cards in SLI mode.

In SLI mode, as I understand, all the cards work together, but will only drive one display.

Yes...sounds like a challenge....I'm debating on either SLI or CrossFire for my next machine, and I'm interested to know.

I saw that video of the quad AMD cards in CrossFire running the eight screens of Flight Simulator, but that was just in a test environment.

Yourself (Dave)

[bionic]

Dave, I'm running that Radeon 1950pro 512mb. My issues is when I'm about 40 to 45 minutes into the game, (CoD4) my system locks up and I get a hum in my headphones. I can't ctrl-alt-del so I have to hit my reset switch to get back in. That card has a fan on it. I got two running on my case and actually took Mac's Idea an opened one side of the case to have a small house fan running as well. Still, does the same thing. Only when I'm running the game. Is the card still getting too hot? Inquiring minds wanna know.

[Zaitsev]

Dave, I'm running that Radeon 1950pro 512mb. My issues is when I'm about 40 to 45 minutes into the game, (CoD4) my system locks up and I get a hum in my headphones. I can't ctrl-alt-del so I have to hit my reset switch to get back in. That card has a fan on it. I got two running on my case and actually took Mac's Idea an opened one side of the case to have a small house fan running as well. Still, does the same thing. Only when I'm running the game. Is the card still getting too hot? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Could be the vid card running hot. Could also be the video drivers. Have you updated them to the latest and greatest?

[Yourself]

It does sound like you're overheating. If so, it's most likely the video card (GPU), but could also be your processor (CPU).

As Chad says, make sure you are running the newest (updated) drivers.

Are you running the X1950PRO in PCIe, or AGP? If AGP, I read something about an AGP hotfix for the newest drivers (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625) (AMD Driver version 8.1), so be a bit careful.

Also....a few things to try:

Download and run ATITOOL (http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/) - that'll let you set your GPU fan speed, or reset your GPU fan speed at different GPU temperatures. It'll also display your GPU temps.

Download and run CORETEMP (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) - that'll monitor your CPU and let you see if that's overheating.

What resolution are you running at?

Try bumping your resolution down a notch and see if the game still locks up (i.e. if you're running 1280 x 1024, knock it down to 1024 x 768).

Are you overclocking your system? If so, the problem could be in the North Bridge or South Bridge chipsets - on most motherboards, those do not have a cooling device on them and they tend to heat up during overclocking. If you're not overclocking, don't worry about them.

The downside to changing your GPU fan speed with ATITool is that you have to run ATITool on startup (just placing it in your startup folder will do, that's usually located at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).

You're shortening the life of your system if it's overheating.

There are some other possibilities, but heat it is the most likely.

Is your system locking up during any other game?

If not, you may have to reinstall your game if it always locks up at or about the same point.

Yourself (Dave)