dual screens while gaming

Discussion in 'Windows - Games' started by tings00, Apr 10, 2009.

  1. tings00

    tings00 Member

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    I am on a laptop and have it in 2 screen mode. When I try and play a video game it completely takes over the screen so you cant access anything else while playing. My other screen just goes dark. Is there any way to play the game on one screen and still be able to access my computer on the other. And also select which screen I want it to display on. Or just be able to pause the game and use my computer without exiting the game.
     
  2. keith1993

    keith1993 Regular member

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    You can set the game to window mode and drag it between windows to your hearts content (you won't be able to get the mouse out of the game window though). The way of getting out of games is using alt+tab
     
  3. tings00

    tings00 Member

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    where do you set the mode. Is it in the game settings or the display preferences for the computer?
     
  4. keith1993

    keith1993 Regular member

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    To set the game to windowed mode the option will be in the game options sometimes the graphics options will be separate to the game.
    Please note not all games have a windowed mode.
     
  5. rapekit

    rapekit Member

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    I have 4 monitors and I game on one while using my other 3. You have to alt + tab to access the other monitors, but they still display information (new emails, IMs) or play videos while I game. For me, all I do is setup the additional monitors as extended desktop, then launch the game.
     
  6. Kungfujoe

    Kungfujoe Member

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    Yeah, rather unfortunately, Multi-Monitor support for just about any full screen app is still garbage. Alt-tab really is your best bet, and windowed mode could work, however, changing the focus (ie, clicking on your web browser in the other window) may cause problems.

    Furthermore, windowed mode is fine, but when you resize the window, the game has to constantly resize what it's trying to draw, and that can cause performance issues (I'm a programmer, this sort of thing happens), so if you're gonna do window mode, try to set the game to a resolution you like and don't fiddle with it (if you're like me, you could set your game to windowed mode with a 1440x900 res, and basically have full screen).

    Generally though, I just have rainmeter and a clock on the other window so I can see PC performance and the time while I'm playing.
     

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