Dual Screen setup for home-pc overkill?

Pho3nix

Pho3nix

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Hi all :)

Need to do some work this weekend :( but need a dual monitor setup to be a tad more productive. Old monitor broke so been using one for the interim.
Now I have only ever used dual monitors for coding but since I'll be using my personal pc which plays my games :D I wanted to find out what I can expect to work and what will not work.

Can I turn off the secondary display when I'm busy with a game?
Advice would be appreciated.
 
What are you wanting? What did you have? Why do you turn off secondary display whilst gaming?

Yes displays can be turned off, either by the power button or by disabling it in your monitor setup.
 
Game on one and movie on the other. No need to turn off the other monitor.
 
:D thanks guys. Getting my monitor tomorrow if everything goes well. Any word on where to find hdmi to mini display port adaptors?
 
Pho3nix said:
Just after I cancel my cheque card. Lol. Will show this to HDcabling and hope they have one. Apparently it has to be a active converter to work correctly?
Click to expand...

HDMI and Displayport are both digital, packet-based protocols, so you don't need an active adapter for them. Something like this will work just fine. You'll need to buy the adapter and a HDMI cable as well, because the HDMI Organisation banned any adapters with a male HDMI port on the other end.

I use two screens for work and for running Outlook and chat programs when I'm gaming on my main 22". I don't think you'll run into very many issues.
 
You will only need an active DP to HDMI adapter once you want to go for 3 screens... unless you have a Sapphire graphics card with Flex support, in which case you won't need that active adapter either for 3 screens.
 
Ok, possibly my last question. Do all the displays need to be on the same? All the monitors connected via mini-DP or can one be HDMI and the other mini-DP?

Web comes up with a ton of different theories.
 
I would recommend that you get 2 of the identical size monitors (with digital inputs: DVI/HDMI/DP) with the same resolution (eg. 2x 23" @ 1920x1080).
This is purely so that when you move your cursor from the 1 screen to the other, that it goes over at the same height and that it doesn't get stuck like when the resolutions' height differ.

What brand & model graphics card do you have - and what motherboard+CPU do you have?
If it has 2x DVI or 1x DVI + 1x HDMI and your screens have DVI/HDMI inputs, then you won't need any fancy adapters, except for the correct cables to connect the screens ofcourse.

Quite a few people at my office are running at least 4 screens off their desktops, either with 2x from dedicated graphics + 2x from motherboard, or 2x from dedicated graphics and another 2x via USB.
None of our desktop graphics cards are beefy enough to have DisplayPorts to allow a 3rd monitor though.
 
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Pada said:
I would recommend that you get 2 of the identical size monitors (with digital inputs: DVI/HDMI/DP) with the same resolution (eg. 2x 23" @ 1920x1080).
This is purely so that when you move your cursor from the 1 screen to the other, that it goes over at the same height and that it doesn't get stuck like when the resolutions' height differ.

What brand & model graphics card do you have - and what motherboard+CPU do you have?
If it has 2x DVI or 1x DVI + 1x HDMI and your screens have DVI/HDMI inputs, then you won't need any fancy adapters, except for the correct cables to connect the screens ofcourse.

Quite a few people at my office are running at least 4 screens off their desktops, either with 2x from dedicated graphics + 2x from motherboard, or 2x from dedicated graphics and another 2x via USB.
None of our desktop graphics cards are beefy enough to have DisplayPorts to allow a 3rd monitor though.
Click to expand...

Currently have a Dell S2340L currently and was planning on getting another but Incredible didn't have any stock this afternoon..
Graphics card is a Powercolor 280x TurboDuo..
CPU is a i5 750 and the motherboard is a MSI-P55A-G55. (I know, I know.. I am upgrading soon :o)
 
With that graphics card you won't need a DisplayAdapter to DVI/HDMI adapter, because it has DVI + HDMI outputs already!

All you'll need now is another screen like that and a DVI to HDMI cable or DVI to HDMI adapter so that you can use an HDMI male-male cable.
You can ask places like Wootware when they'll get stock of that screen, but its not that cheap @ ~R2400.
 
I am currently running two 21.5" screens at home. The one screen is a Packard Bell and the other LG, the one screen has a cold look and the other warm. I run both off of one screen, one uses DVI and the other HDMI. You can mix the adapters you use, it will be fine.
When it comes to buying two of the same screens, that is a must, I have been living with these two different screens for a while and the slight height difference, bezel difference, the panel itself being different, all irritate me from time to time.

As far as I know, the new nVidia graphics cards support more than two screens on one GPU now. AMD has been like this for a while now though.
So unless you have a problem with adapters on the back of your GPU/screens not matching up, I'd say mix and match adapters.

With 2 screens, games only use one screen, usually the first screen(most left), the second is unused, so you can throw some widgets showing cpu/gpu usage, or your music player, or watch a show/movie while you game :D

When it comes to gaming, most games lock the cursor inside the first screen(Some games you can choose which screen to play on, others like AoE II can span both screens, this is very rare though). Some games have the problem where if you move your cursor outside the game's boundaries and click, it will basically minimize as you clicked on the desktop(rare as well, but it happens). When this happens I a program (I think it is called lock cursor, it locks your cursor on a screen while a certain .exe is active).
 
Pho3nix said:
Ok, possibly my last question. Do all the displays need to be on the same? All the monitors connected via mini-DP or can one be HDMI and the other mini-DP?

Web comes up with a ton of different theories.
Click to expand...

Sometimes it is preferable and necessary (e.g. multi-monitor surround setups), but for work purposes or casual use you can mix and match without issue. I only use my two DVI ports on my Radeon HD6870 because none of my monitors support HDMI (something I'm planning for in my next upgrade).

Pho3nix said:
Graphics card is a Powercolor 280x TurboDuo..
CPU is a i5 750 and the motherboard is a MSI-P55A-G55. (I know, I know.. I am upgrading soon :o)
Click to expand...

As others have mentioned, you can use the DVI and HDMI ports on that card, simplifying your monitor and cable choices. Also, a Core i5-750 isn't going to bottleneck that GPU so you're going to be fine performance-wise for another year or so.

Armgame said:
When it comes to buying two of the same screens, that is a must, I have been living with these two different screens for a while and the slight height difference, bezel difference, the panel itself being different, all irritate me from time to time.
Click to expand...

Getting a multi-monitor stand helps a lot with this, BTW. Raising the monitors to eye level makes all the difference.

Armgame said:
As far as I know, the new nVidia graphics cards support more than two screens on one GPU now. AMD has been like this for a while now though.
Click to expand...

Nvidia supports mixing and matching of monitors because their solution on the Kepler and Maxwell graphics cards no longer requires the use of a second card in SLI. Its possible to run four monitors off of one Nvidia GPU now and they don't all have to be the same.

AMD's a bit different. The HD7000 and earlier families can run three monitors on one card, but you need a mixture of Displayport, DVI and HDMI to do it (and DP always has to be used, except for Sapphire Flex cards). On the newer R-series GPUs (not ones that have been rebranded) you can use just DVI and HDMI, but the monitors have to be identical for it to work because the DVI clock generator is shared. However, using a Displayport MST hub, it's possible to run up to six monitors off any AMD HD7000 and newer card that has two Displayport 1.2 ports.

Confusing, but at least it's not a train smash for most people. Active DP-DVI/HDMI converters are coming down in price now.

Armgame said:
With 2 screens, games only use one screen, usually the first screen(most left), the second is unused, so you can throw some widgets showing cpu/gpu usage, or your music player, or watch a show/movie while you game :D.
Click to expand...

Games are only shown on the monitor that you select as the main monitor (Desktop, right-click > Screen Resolution > Tick "Make this my main display" and click apply). In Geforce Experience and AMD Catalyst there are hotkeys that you can customise to do this on the fly based on which monitor you prefer for certain applications or games.
 
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