Dual Monitor Setup Issues

[Skrying]

Okay, so I finally set up dual monitors on my at home desktop again. So far its been an okay experience, but I'm running into one issue that is almost enough of a problem to make me go back to one display.

Right now my second display is on the left side of the monitor, but nView is not wanting me to have it on the left or I cant find where to place it on the left. Right now its acting as if its on the right, so when I move my cursor to the far right it will go to the left monitor. This is very distracting, and sometimes can be a pain getting it repositioned.

Am I missing something here? Or does nView just not let you have your second monitor be on the left side? Is there some dual monitor software that would let me do this?

Thanks.

 

[Ali]

Use the standard Windows display properties. You should have two pictures of monitors. Click-drag them to where you want them.

Easy peasy!

 

[Ali]

Just so you understand what I mean, you do this:
right click on your desktop
Pick 'Properties'
click on the 'Settings' tab
You will have two screens on the top bit of the window.
drag them to where you want them.

Hope Im not being too obvious

Ali (again)

 

[MatiasZ]

Can't you just change the cables on the video card? That will act as a swap between both monitors.

 

[Skrying]

Use the standard Windows display properties. You should have two pictures of monitors. Click-drag them to where you want them.

Easy peasy!

Have you ever used a Nvidia card? That disappears on ALL of my Nvidia cards. Its a true pain in the ass. Check another mark for reasons I regret my 6800GS, and I got it for free!

Also, swapping cables would simply make the left one primary, which is not what I want, I want the left one secondary.

Oh well, I'll just wait till my next video card, probably ATi just for the pure fact that their dual monitor is much more simple or at least looks this way, but magically does everything I want it to without billions of hidden drop down menu's to options that dont help, or do next to nothing.

 

[Ali]

Well, the only nvida card I have is on my old Dell laptop with a Geforce2go. Bit old now.

Anyway, what Im talking about is like that shown here:
http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q4/multimon/index.x?pg=5

Have they changed it since then?

To be honest, the built in windows multi monitor support for standard cards is fine for most things. if nview is a seperate download, then just dont bother with it.

Better yet, get a Matrox card. They are the only people who have it all sorted out!

Actually, many many years ago I use to use 'Ultra Mon' found here:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/

Good luck. Once you have multi monitors, its very very hard to go back.

Ali

 

[epicstruggle]

Good luck. Once you have multi monitors, its very very hard to go back.

Ali

Completly agree. I currently have 3200x1200 going, for a few weeks i had 4800x1200, but it was just abit too much. lol

epic

 

[Skrying]

I did know what you're talking about, and I'm telling you its not an option, at least not for me. Even with it knowing there are two monitors detected it doesnt let you change it the way I want. Very limiting.

 

[Ali]

Do you mean the nVidia drivers kill off the standard display properties in Windows? Neither ATI or Matrox do that. Actually, neither do any of the Intel graphics machines Ive setup have either. I must be way behind the curve on nVidia stuff!

How about if you boot into safe mode? Do you get standard settings back then? I would start wondering if you dont have a buggered up driver install if there is no way to move monitors around.

I might be labouring the point, but the third picture down here:
http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q4/multimon/index.x?pg=5
is what Im talking about. Not the advanced settings or anything. I would link to the picture itsef, but it wont let me.

Im really curious about this. Please let us know if you sort it out.

Ali

 

[Florin]

With Nvidia you can choose whether you want the native behaviour or not. This is done either by running the nview wizard as shown on this screenshot or by changing between spanning and dual view mode in the Nvidia tab of your advanced display preferences.

Note that dual monitor behaviour has changed fundamentally between Windows 2000 and XP. Windows 2000 normally only allows spanning mode, and not dual view, but Nvidia's drivers can emulate it. XP native behaviour is dual view mode, but you can opt for spanning mode - which is great for dual head gaming btw.

No reason to regret your card. Nvidia's dual monitor settings are very flexible and can do whatever you need.

 

[Ali]

Well, Ive just started a new job, and we have nVidia cards now.

The multi monitor setup bit is quite well hidden. You go to the advanced adapter properties, click the little green arrow thing on the left of the window, and go down the ugly tree structure to something like 'clearview' or something like that. About 2/3 of the way down (not at work now).

Then you can move your monitors around. This is on a Quadro, but I guess normal cards are the same.

Took me a while to find. I see why you couldnt find it!

Ali

 

[skazz]

Um, well..... A few extra answers and confirmations from another satisfied dual monitor NVidia user:

- NVidia cards define primary and secondary monitor in a seemingly random way, however it is easily solved by booting with just one monitor attached, then adding the second one and rebooting. You really can force display 1 to be the monitor of your choice doing that. The only time it might change is when you update display drivers, so you might have to redo it again at that point.
- Nvidia doesn't stop you from moving the monitors around relative to each other in display properties. Just go to display properties \ settings and drag the two monitor icons relative to each other. You don't need to enter nvidia forceware menus to do this.
- In order to set 2 monitors you can actually just use Windows XP display properties and use the "extend my windows desktop onto this monitor" button, along with the "use this monitor as my primary monitor". I think this is actually independent of the NVidia-defined "display 1 / display 2" setting, but it has been quite a while since I last reconfigured so I'm not 100% certain on that.
- Make sure that you have the forceware dual display mode set right (I think it is indeed dual view but I can't check right now because my girlfriend is using the Nvidia-powered PC).

 

[Ali]

As Skrying said above, and Ive since found out, nVidia for some retarded reason hides the nice easy to use standard windows setting for moving screens around. They replace it with a stupid ASCII style tree view where you have to find the right menu out of about 20, and then move things around.

I know, sounds weird, but its true! I didnt beleive it myself 2 weeks ago (sorry Skrying).

Ali

 

[skazz]

..confused... I installed new nvidia drivers on my dual monitor PC yesterday, and display properties \ settings showed two monitors which I was able to drag around as I liked (yay, new driver version meant it redetected my monitors the wrong way round).

If you only have 1 monitor connected it hides the view, unlike ATI, but if you simply connect a second monitor and boot you really can alter position of monitors in the normal display settings.

This is Windows XP 32-bit, normal forceware drivers, Geforce 6800LE.