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Dual screens - how to turn one off JUST for gaming?

post #1 of 9
8/5/05 at 2:24pm
Thread Starter 
I'm using an external LCD via DVI for my main monitor - and I keep the XPS screen open as second display so that I've got two 1920x1200 screens going simultaneously.

This is great for my normal workday. But when I want to game - I notice that only my main screen (the DVI connected LCD) plays the game and my second screen stays on. I don't want this because I want my GeForce dedicated to one display for games.

At least on my PowerBook, when gaming, it'll automatically turn off the second screen.

I'm running XP SP 2 with the Dell NVidia drivers. So, how do I make the system automatically turn off the second display for games? I can do it manually but #1 its a pain, and #2 it messes with my settings for this.
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post #2 of 9
8/6/05 at 1:33am
Direct3D only supports 3D acceleration on the primary display; it won't show on the secondary display at all (though OpenGL is supposedly capable of this).


Pat
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post #3 of 9
8/6/05 at 1:36am
Thread Starter 
OK - but that doesn't really answer the question. For example, when I run Half Life 2 the main screen shows HL2, but the laptop LCD still has my desktop on it. The problem here is that I'm not focusing my full 256MB of video RAM to the game.

What I'd like to happen is when I start a game, the laptop LCD turns off automatically and the main screen has the full attention of the GPU. Then when the game ends - I get both my LCDs back.

My Mac can do this with no problems. There has GOT to be a way for Windows to do it too.
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post #4 of 9
8/6/05 at 3:09am
I don't see how you're going to get much or any performance decrease if one's showing the desktop and one's running the game. That's just like running in a window, which has no noticable performance impact.
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post #5 of 9
8/7/05 at 9:59pm
press the off button on the other screen if it distracts

don't worry about performance - zero dif
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post #6 of 9
8/7/05 at 10:29pm
I use fn + F8 to switch between screen modes...
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post #7 of 9
8/8/05 at 10:56am
The genius is right, listen to his wisdom. All hail the genius.
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post #8 of 9
8/9/05 at 8:00pm
Wow, the first positive thing ever said about me in public. I'm down to zero points, hit me with a rep (I'm so subtle).
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post #9 of 9
8/9/05 at 8:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevineugenius
I use fn + F8 to switch between screen modes...
that's some cool *BEEP*...thanks dude

3dcomp
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