Dual monitor question

2007-01-29 06:28:19

#1

crimson_grunt: Shitty Disposition (apparently); +214|6917|Teesside, UK

I recently obtained a second monitor for free and have decided to set up a dual monitor configuration.

Now I've set it up and every things working fine but I've found an annoyance. If i run BF2 in full screen then anything i do in the second window causes the game to minimize. I've got around that by having the game windowed but i wondered if there is a better solution, or even anyway to make the window virtually full screen.

Edit: oh yeah i just want web pages/email etc on the 2nd screen not trying to make the game appear on both or anything.

Any tips?

p.s. I searched but couldn't find anything so if this has been answered could you show me the links please? thanks

Last edited by crimson_grunt (2007-01-29 06:30:21)

2007-01-29 08:00:58

#2

MagikTrik: yes.....but your still gay; +138|6633|Pittsburgh, PA USA

I have dual monitors & as far as i know there isn't a way to set it up like that, it bothered the hell out of me for awhile but I just got used to it. Searched for about a week then gave up

It seems like a reasonable "request" & it shouldn't be that hard but I haven't figured it out yet, if you do though be sure to lemme know.

2007-01-29 08:12:29

#3

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

I don't want to hijack the thread but it seems pointless opening a new thread to ask a related question.

Does having two monitors impact on BF2's performance? I mean, with the windows desktop so much bigger does it slow the PC down at all?

2007-01-29 09:00:15

#4

crimson_grunt: Shitty Disposition (apparently); +214|6917|Teesside, UK

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread but it seems pointless opening a new thread to ask a related question.

Does having two monitors impact on BF2's performance? I mean, with the windows desktop so much bigger does it slow the PC down at all?

No problem you may ask away.

I've only tried it single player mode for about 5-10 mins and i didn't notice any slow down but I have no idea how it would cope with a prolonged Internet session. Will let you know how it goes next time I'm playing.

2007-01-29 09:03:00

#5

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.

2007-01-29 09:04:33

#6

syndicat111: Member; +39|6941|UK

Talking of monitors, im gonna get a widescreen one soon - Does BF2 run ok on a widescreen, or does it box in the screen, affect performance etc?

Last edited by syndicat111 (2007-01-29 09:08:45)

2007-01-29 09:07:32

#7

swedge: Member; +23|6722|haggis hill

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.

get a logitech g15 keybaord and you can do that on the lcd which is what i do

2007-01-29 09:12:12

#8

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

swedge wrote:
DoctorFruitloop wrote:
Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.
get a logitech g15 keybaord and you can do that on the lcd which is what i do

I'm tempted but in the last G15 discussion someone said that they experienced a fps drop because of the G15 and I can't afford to lose any fps.

That's enough off-topic, don't wanna derail the thread.

2007-01-29 09:15:15

#9

chittydog: less busy; +586|7098|Kubra, Damn it!

swedge wrote:
DoctorFruitloop wrote:
Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.
get a logitech g15 keybaord and you can do that on the lcd which is what i do

How'd you do that? I can't get anything to show on the G15.

2007-01-29 09:28:19

#10

ReTox: Member; +100|6762|State of RETOXification

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
I don't want to hijack the thread but it seems pointless opening a new thread to ask a related question.

Does having two monitors impact on BF2's performance? I mean, with the windows desktop so much bigger does it slow the PC down at all?

There is always a performance hit when dealing with large resolutions, although cards in the last year and a half have really stepped up their performance for HD resolutions. Spanning the game to a dual desktop (depending on size) could bring a game to a crawl unless you have a serious card. BF2 doesn't do HD very well though. I don't know about 2142.

2007-01-29 14:41:22

#11

swedge: Member; +23|6722|haggis hill

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
swedge wrote:
DoctorFruitloop wrote:
Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.
get a logitech g15 keybaord and you can do that on the lcd which is what i do
I'm tempted but in the last G15 discussion someone said that they experienced a fps drop because of the G15 and I can't afford to lose any fps.

That's enough off-topic, don't wanna derail the thread.

having to monitors would decrease ure fps more than having a g15 keyboard

2007-01-29 14:43:05

#12

swedge: Member; +23|6722|haggis hill

chittydog wrote:
swedge wrote:
DoctorFruitloop wrote:
Cheers buddy, I've been looking into getting a second monitor so that I can have the TS console open on the other screen to see who's talking.

Let me know how you get on.
get a logitech g15 keybaord and you can do that on the lcd which is what i do
How'd you do that? I can't get anything to show on the G15.

http://www.g15forums.com/

they have lots of things for ure g15 including bf2 addons which show the server ip how many kills u got and nades etc i use a program called miranda which allows me to use my msn and yahoo or aim whilst in-game so i dont need to alt-tab out

2007-01-29 14:59:26

#13

Sydney: 2λчиэλ; +783|7106|Reykjavík, Iceland.

Back to topic? I would like a solution, since I too have this problem.

2007-01-29 15:52:12

#14

MagikTrik: yes.....but your still gay; +138|6633|Pittsburgh, PA USA

For the record I've run 3DMark06 in every way, shape & form with every kind of setting you can imagine & although I thought it would (it makes sense that it would at least) I didn't lose a single point when having my second monitor active.
I still don't think you can do what your tryin to do though, having applications open is one thing but using them is where it gets tricky, will have a look around the Microsoft website again though, see if I can find anything.

Maybe if you can set the window on your second monitor to "always on top" it would trick BF2 into thinking it's already on top anyway so it doesn't need to minimize...

2007-01-30 05:27:43

#15

Sydney: 2λчиэλ; +783|7106|Reykjavík, Iceland.

MagikTrik wrote:
For the record I've run 3DMark06 in every way, shape & form with every kind of setting you can imagine & although I thought it would (it makes sense that it would at least) I didn't lose a single point when having my second monitor active.
I still don't think you can do what your tryin to do though, having applications open is one thing but using them is where it gets tricky, will have a look around the Microsoft website again though, see if I can find anything.

Maybe if you can set the window on your second monitor to "always on top" it would trick BF2 into thinking it's already on top anyway so it doesn't need to minimize...

Nope, doesn't work.

2007-01-30 08:29:24

#16

XxOiLsP1lLxX: Putting the "I" back in TEAM; +48|6683|Kent UK

I have two monitors (Viewsonic VX922 (2ms response 4tw)) and for a test I set it to clone so both monitors displayed Bf2 at the same time.

I managed an average of 88FPS on an AMD 64 X2 4800+ With 2 gig ram and a Nvidia7800GTX

So I doubt having TS on another window would drag your FPS down a lot.

~!~Richard~!~

Last edited by XxOiLsP1lLxX (2007-01-30 08:29:56)

2007-01-30 08:35:02

#17

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

Surely that's not necessarily true.

If it's set to clone then the graphics card is only dealing with whatever is happening in BF2, just split to two screens. If you have stretched your desktop to two screens and one of them is still active within windows surely it will take up more resources.

In other words, if you stretch your desktop across two screens, your windows resolution is (for arguments sake) 2560x1024, whereas if you're cloning, you only have 1280x1024 just displayed twice.

2007-01-30 08:36:13

#18

Tjasso: the "Commander"; +102|6786|the Netherlands

I was thinking about that yesterday buddy ... at a friend s house who has dual monitors ... i thought dual monitors for the Commander would be COOL!! but i think impossible (for now)

2007-01-30 08:38:02

#19

crimson_grunt: Shitty Disposition (apparently); +214|6917|Teesside, UK

MagikTrik wrote:
For the record I've run 3DMark06 in every way, shape & form with every kind of setting you can imagine & although I thought it would (it makes sense that it would at least) I didn't lose a single point when having my second monitor active.
I still don't think you can do what your tryin to do though, having applications open is one thing but using them is where it gets tricky, will have a look around the Microsoft website again though, see if I can find anything.

Maybe if you can set the window on your second monitor to "always on top" it would trick BF2 into thinking it's already on top anyway so it doesn't need to minimize...

a friend was saying he thought it could be done using the nvidia nview application to try and give the game the highest priority but so far I haven't managed to get any results.

2007-01-30 08:40:37

#20

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

This is something I've mentioned a lot in the past. It would be great if dual monitor support were built into the engine so that one monitor could display the regular the view, and the other could permanently have the map open.

However, seeing as EA have cited "unfair advantage" as the reason for not implimenting widescreen support, I can't see something like this being added to the games at any point in the future.

It would be cool though to have you're regular view from a gunship or plane on screen 1 and an extrenal rear facing view on 2 looking out for a tail.

2007-01-30 08:47:35

#21

SGT_Squirtle: Member; +13|6979

syndicat111 wrote:
Talking of monitors, im gonna get a widescreen one soon - Does BF2 run ok on a widescreen, or does it box in the screen, affect performance etc?

I have a 20 inch widescreen monitor and both BF2 and BF2142 look fine on it. But since neither game supports wide screen resolutions you do end up with some aspect stretching on the edges. Or you can set the monitor to not alter the aspect ratio and you end up with black bars on the left and right.

2007-01-30 08:48:50

#22

SGT_Squirtle: Member; +13|6979

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
This is something I've mentioned a lot in the past. It would be great if dual monitor support were built into the engine so that one monitor could display the regular the view, and the other could permanently have the map open.

However, seeing as EA have cited "unfair advantage" as the reason for not implimenting widescreen support, I can't see something like this being added to the games at any point in the future.

It would be cool though to have you're regular view from a gunship or plane on screen 1 and an extrenal rear facing view on 2 looking out for a tail.

First game to support dual monitors will be Supreme Commander (due out in a month or so) and I'm sure everyone else will follow suit rather quickly.

2007-01-30 08:50:57

#23

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

There is an addition to the command line to force BF2 and BF2142 into a widescreen resolution. Have a look on tweakguides.com. It's something like -szy xxxx -szx xxxx (where xxxx is the required res), unforutnately because there is no native support for widescreen this does 2 things.

1. It stretches the HUD so the minmap looks out fo shape.

2. It reduces the vertical field of view so that it doesn't stretch it horizontally.

2007-01-30 09:19:14

#24

crimson_grunt: Shitty Disposition (apparently); +214|6917|Teesside, UK

DoctorFruitloop wrote:
There is an addition to the command line to force BF2 and BF2142 into a widescreen resolution. Have a look on tweakguides.com. It's something like -szy xxxx -szx xxxx (where xxxx is the required res), unforutnately because there is no native support for widescreen this does 2 things.

1. It stretches the HUD so the minmap looks out fo shape.

2. It reduces the vertical field of view so that it doesn't stretch it horizontally.

I tried that for what i was trying to do but everything still minimized at fullscreen and when i used it to create a window at 1280 * 1024 it made the system chug like a bitch.

Last edited by crimson_grunt (2007-01-30 09:20:05)

2007-01-30 09:22:19

#25

DoctorFruitloop: Level 13 Wrongdoer; +515|6809|Doncaster, UK

Have you tried manually setting the priority of the BF2 process to the highest and seeing whether that helps. I know there's a way to do it. Again, try having a look on tweakguides.com or search for the thread about tweaking BF2 to get the most out of it.

BF2S Forums Dual monitor question

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

swedge wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

swedge wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

swedge wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

chittydog wrote:

swedge wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

MagikTrik wrote:

MagikTrik wrote:

syndicat111 wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

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