Multidisplay setup

[swordfish1]

hi,

I have 3 displays on two VGA cards and I was wondering if it is possible to switch between independent display mode (the dual view option in the nvidia driver settings, where maximizing a windows maximizes it only on single display) and one big display mode, spaning across all 3 displays (for gaming purposes, where all 3 displays appear like a single high resolution one to the application, and maximizing something maximizes it across all 3 of them).

It will also be great if switching is possible without restart, but if not, still fine as long as it is not too complicated in regards with reconfiguring the drivers.

one thing that worries me, I am not sure if I can span displays across multiple VGA cards.

any suggestions?

 

[Franna]

Have a look at the Ultramon utility:
www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

 

[swordfish1]

Have a look at the Ultramon utility:
www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

thanks, I have this installed already, and it is really great program but it doesn't do that particular thing that I want. Problem is that when you want to span a normal application window, this program just resizes the window to the appropriate size making it appear on all monitors, doesn't work for full screen applications like games and video playback

 

[Griffin]

Hi Swordfish,

I haven't done much gaming with multiple monitor setups, but have had my fair share of problems configuring work environments with them. Usually I find that it's the software package (in your case the game) that doesn't support the resizing and split screen feature of your video cards.

Since I don't really know your setup, I can only speculate as to what I think you have, so don't sue me if I get this wrong. I'm guessing you have 1 AGP card and another PCI card, as you never mentioned SLi.

My suggestion would be to try testing your current setup with one of the following games:

Star Wars Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast
or
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002

These games are multi-screen 'ready' and this will eliminate at least one of the variables in the equation. Once the game is up and running, disable one card and then first try to get only two monitors to work.

Another variable could occur when you have a feature enabled on one card that the other doesn't support. The chances are the software driver won't activate the second card since it the same feature is not supported by second card. Most windows based apps wouldn't require any advanced features, maybe thats why your setup works fine with normal windows applications, but not with games. Try to get the cards setup as standard as possible. Disable AA/AF etc or set them to Application default.

Also checkout the following websites: (they'll probably be more help to you than I was)

http://www.pcmech.com/show/video/796/
http://www.planetquake.com/mhg/
http://www.multiplemonitors.org/Pages - software/Software - Gaming.html

Good luck!

 

[swordfish1]

thanks Griffin,

in fact I have 2 pci express cards, but they are not connected in SLI mode and they are slightly different, one is GF6600LE the other GF6600GT

I am mostly interested in playing games like Empire Earth in multidisplay configuration. I am not even sure if it is a good idea, but I would like to try.

I don't have the abovementioned games, although I can probably download demos to try them

I will do some experiments and will post results soon

thanks