Gaming First time multi monitor set-up

[Satangel]

2 problems at the moment:

• My desktop backgrounds change every 20 minutes, automatically. It's set to duplicate them on the other screen, but there are always black borders there. On my laptop it's shown perfectly, but on the other screen, there are borders. My laptop resolution is 1366x768, the external screen is 1280x1240 (can't go any higher)
• When I'm gaming with any game, when I go to high with my cursor (and sometimes also when I go to far to the right), it changes my cursor back in the normal Windows cursor, and if I click I'm sent back to my desktop.
  
  This is because I use ObjectDock , but before it didn't happen. So the real reason is definitely the other screen.
• Any tips on how to adjust the colours of the other monitor, because they look a bit weird compared to my laptop's colours.

Windows 7, 64bit

 

[Foxi4]

What OS are you using? Windows 7 has pretty neat built-in support for multiple monitors, there is some software out there to further enhance it though.

 

[Satangel]

Windows 7, 64bit.

 

[Foxi4]

Windows 7, 64bit.

Alright, if you're not looking for any fancy features then just right-clicking on the desktop, selecting resolution, then selecting the appropriet monitor and calibrating it (Advanced/Colour Management/Advanced/Calibrate) should do the trick as far as colours/brightness is concerned. When it comes to wallpapers though I am clueless as I never had any "border-from-nowhere" issues, really.

 

[Zetta_x]

I was working with a staff member with a higher resolution monitor than the resolution to the laptop screen it was connecting to. The picture on the laptop was not aligned properly, I forget how we fixed this. We played with the resolution, I think she checked "clone the desktop" then back to "extend the desktop".

Something weird but it has something to do with different size resolutions.

 

[Foxi4]

I was working with a staff member with a higher resolution monitor than the resolution to the laptop screen it was connecting to. The picture on the laptop was not aligned properly, I forget how we fixed this. We played with the resolution, I think she checked "clone the desktop" then back to "extend the desktop".

Something weird but it has something to do with different size resolutions.

Yeah, that kind of issues do pop up whenever a smaller screen connects to a much larger screen - it either gets pixelated or completely ape.

You need to make sure that the parent computer has all the resolutions on all the screens set correctly (especially important when connecting to TV's, as those usually have a limited range of "native" resolutions that won't stretch the screen beyond recognition ) and the wallpaper is set to "stretch to fit".

I'm pretty sure there is software out there that allows assigning multiple wallpapers to multiple screens, soving the stretching problem, but I for one never cared much for the wallpaper to be honest.

 

[Sicklyboy]

I've yet to find a solution to the wallpaper border problem, but it's caused by one monitor running at a higher resolution than the other.

 

[Originality]

It can also be caused by the aspect ratio of the wallpaper. It happens all the time on my monitors, whether I connect a smaller or larger monitor as the secondary. I never worry about of, AMD you can easily set that background colour not to be black.

 

[Satangel]

Okay, the thing that is most irritating me at the moment is that I get thrown back to Windows all the time when I click too high in a game. Any solution, next to closing ObjectDock before I game?

 

[Hielkenator]

When using dual monitor setups, keep in mind that depending from what video adapter you are using, set resolutions can be limited.
This is mostly due to GPU limitations. ( it needs to drive 2 monitors at once.. )

A work around for this is to set ONE of both monitors ( especially for gaming for instance ) . This will allow you to use the native resolution ( highest ) of the monitor you chose.
Drawback is that the other monitor goes black during this setup, but it will allow you to drive the other monitor fullscreen.
Note: make sure the set resolution is native and make sure the setting 1:1 pixel, full screen etc and similar is set properly ( if present or applicable )

In order to use your extended desktop properly, a dual monitor setup with similar monitortype specs is strongly recommended!

 

[Jamstruth]

To fix the black borders issue you'll want tO change your wallpaper settings to Stretch or Fill or similar. You're using a 16:9 wallpaper on a 4:3 screen so there's going to be an aspect ratio change.

 

[exangel]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dualmonitortool/

There's a LOT of third party tools out there for multimonitor systems that have a price too
Right now I'm having a problem getting 3 monitors running but I'm pretty sure it's a driver/output limitation and I need to get a DisplayPort output to use a third display on the single card. (the HDMI output seems to count for the second DVI as well on the Radeon HD6950 I have)

 

[Costello]

had the same problems a while ago, all was solved by THIS: http://www.displayfusion.com/
excellent tool !

 

[exangel]

had the same problems a while ago, all was solved by THIS: http://www.displayfusion.com/
excellent tool !

Is it possible to have a screensaver run on one monitor while actively using other desktops, with this tool? That's one I still haven't found. Until I find such a thing I have to manually turn off my Plasma display because it already has some burn-in.

edit: http://www.softpedia.../Blackout.shtml is a nice tool that may suffice for me. Still reading about displayfusion though. it's a more reasonable price compared to other things i've looked into.
edit2: blackout only works on the monitor that is set as the main display, if you don't have a third party tool to move applications to other screens

 

[qlum]

I solved the problem in two ways although the first way is not something most of you would want.
1: use a black background
2: use sharpenviro to replace the windows desktop and task bars.

 

[DarkStriker]

Im using DisplayFusion Pro for this. The easily fix black borders. Or actually the quickly make a wallpaper that fits both screen so black borders doesnt show up. Do mind that when you enter some game with different resolution, the wallpaper will be moved becasue of differeent resolution. Oh well thats something that cannot be fixed anyways. The normal free DisplayFusion can also do this, but you aren to able to do some thing, but that doesnt matter that much.

 

[Sicklyboy]

had the same problems a while ago, all was solved by THIS: http://www.displayfusion.com/
excellent tool !

Is it possible to have a screensaver run on one monitor while actively using other desktops, with this tool? That's one I still haven't found. Until I find such a thing I have to manually turn off my Plasma display because it already has some burn-in.

edit: http://www.softpedia.../Blackout.shtml is a nice tool that may suffice for me. Still reading about displayfusion though. it's a more reasonable price compared to other things i've looked into.
edit2: blackout only works on the monitor that is set as the main display, if you don't have a third party tool to move applications to other screens

Heard a few years ago that you can supposedly fix (to some extent, at least) burn-in on a plasma display with a stuck pixel fixer video for a few hours. I would research it before doing it, but a guy at Best Buy (who, a few years ago, seemed to know pretty well what he was talking about) had said that to my and my dad.

 

[exangel]

Heard a few years ago that you can supposedly fix (to some extent, at least) burn-in on a plasma display with a stuck pixel fixer video for a few hours. I would research it before doing it, but a guy at Best Buy (who, a few years ago, seemed to know pretty well what he was talking about) had said that to my and my dad.

I ran the plasma's internal "unburn" thing (it's a repeating gradient, not the same as a stuck pixel fixer) for 24 hours straight (at max contrast/brightness) and it only helped lessen the damage. This kind of sucked because it's in my room. A stuck pixel fixer for that long would probably make me physically ill, and the thing's too heavy for me to make it face a wall XD
You can still see where my start menu button and system tray icons burned the screen when I used it as my main display for a couple days.

 

[Satangel]

Okay, the thing that is most irritating me at the moment is that I get thrown back to Windows all the time when I click too high in a game. Any solution, next to closing ObjectDock before I game?

This still isn't fixed, and it's by far my greatest annoyance so far
Thanks for the other tips, helped a lot!

 

[Jamstruth]

Problem will be with ObjectDock. Not much we can do about it.