Possible to run dual displays at different res?

[Guden Oden]

Suppose I have one LCD with one native res, and another LCD with another, smaller native res. I don't want to drop down the res on the first screen to match the second because I lose valuable desktop real-estate and the image becomes blurry, and I can't force the second screen to accept the same res as the first because it'll just complain about the res being too high.

Windows, of course, doesn't seem to accept extended desktops at all unless the screen res is the same on both monitors... BLEHHHHHH! I thought they would have fixed that by now. What's the point of having an "nview" trademark name on your multimonitor support if it doesn't even support different res's on different monitors?!

Having multiple screens with different reses has been supported in AmigaOS and X windows since the mid 80s, but here we are, some twenty years later, and microsoft still hasn't got it right. Whoda thunkit!

What's a person to do, huh?

 

[MPI]

What the hell are you on about? :? Having multiple displays with different resolutions has worked for years. The taskbar doesn't extend, but that's it.

 

[RussSchultz]

Yeah, its supported this since at least 95.

 

[BRiT]

Yes. It works perfectly fine in WinXP. Works fine for me at 1920x1200 and 1280x1024. Otherwise it would suck to have to run my Dell 24" at the same res as my Planar 19".

 

[Guden Oden]

HOW???

Nview won't extend the desktop unless I set both screens to the same res, and it greys out the screen resolution change options for the 2nd screen too. When I instead change the res on the first screen, the other follows automatically!

I'm at my wits' (and patience's) end here.

 

[BRiT]

Dont use nView, use the built in native WinXP desktop support. In display Properties / Settings tab, select the second lcd and check "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor". Once that's enabled, then set your custom resolutions by selecting the monitor in the picture and moving the Screen Resolution slider.

 

[kyleb]

Nview should work too, it even has a configuration ultiity where you can pick such a setup; but yeah, windows display properties has the options right there as well.

 

[Guden Oden]

Ok, I dumped nview and did it through the normal windows interface instead, but now 3D acceleration on the second screen seems to be partly non-accelerated.

Actual rendering is clearly still done by the 6800, but all vertex processing seems to be handled by the CPU because CPU load skyrockets if any part of the 3D window touces the second screen! Also, graphics processing on both screens suffer tremendously, including jerky mousepointer and laggy screen updates (when shuffling around or scrolling windows).

Is this just a sign of the need for a reformat, or does anyone else recognize these problems?

 

[RussSchultz]

I think that's a typical problem.

DirectX doesn't support acceleration with a single surface across two device contexts.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

HOW???

Nview won't extend the desktop unless I set both screens to the same res, and it greys out the screen resolution change options for the 2nd screen too. When I instead change the res on the first screen, the other follows automatically!

I'm at my wits' (and patience's) end here.

Theres your problem its Nvidia fault. It looks like they need to add that to there nView.

I been able to do duel monitor with different res in windows with a Radeon 7500, 9700,9600,9800 without problems. I would email Nvidia about this and mabe they will add that support.

 

[Dooby]

You can only get acceleration on one screen. Its been that way for years. Ive had dual screens since the GF3 -> GF4 -> 9700 -> 9800.

Now on quad 20" TFT monitors on two 7800GTX and still only the primary monitor is accelerated.

 

[Guden Oden]

DirectX doesn't support acceleration with a single surface across two device contexts.

Well that's silly!

However, thanks a lot for straightening this out for me so I don't have to yank my hair out over this issue.

To anyone that knows:
Can I set up nview/multiscreen so that the second screen isn't used at all, other than to act as fullscreen video overlay when I play movies (through mediaplayer, etc)?