Dual Monitors

[Guest]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question (there's a billion
discussion groups) but here it goes (If you think I would have better luck
posting to a different discussion group then could you please point me to the
right one?). I recently bought a second monitor because it was a good
monitor, used, and cheap as hell. So now I have two 19 inch monitors and
currently I have it setup so that I can either span the desktop or clone it.
I had a friend help a long time ago when I first got this video card and we,
as a team, got it to work right but now for some reason I can't figure this
out.

Here's my system specs:
AMD CPU 2800+
1 Gig RAM
Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB

What I want to do is enable a second desktop on the second monitor and if
all possible, I want them to work together when I play games. I think by just
setting it up to span to the other monitor then games like Red Alert 2 and
such will work just fine for that setting, but for FPS, like Halo, I want the
second monitor to be able to look behind me (or up, or down, etc). Right now
I'm stuck at the point of not being able to figure out how to get the second
monitor to have a desktop of it's own. When I set this up before it seemed
pretty simple after we were done, but now it seems that I can't find the
right options. I have already created the second desktop and saved it under
my profile in the Nvidia Desktop Manager. Also while searching for my answer
here I came across that in my display properties under the setting tab should
have my other monitor, it doesn't. I think it might have something to do with
installing a second display adapter but my card supports dual monitors so I'm
not sure if I have to do that or not.

Any help that anyone can give me on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
I've come here before for other issues and you guys always do a great job so
thank you in advance.

Josh

 

[pjp]

Short and simple, it ain't gonna happen (e.g. alternate view on 2nd
display). Even having games use your entire desktop is far from common yet
and suspect many would have trouble just from the odd resolution(s), e.g.
1280x1024 + 1280x1024 = 2560x1024 is something I'd not expect a game to
support.

You'll find nVidia's "dualview" to probably be a more desirable option
rather than "span" and/or "clone".

Regarding settings tab ...

Insure when you turn the pc on that the 2nd display is actually connected.
Might help to also have both displays turned on. The card should then detect
both displays (as it boots) and give you the option of extending the desktop
onto the 2nd display under Settings, assuming the 2nd display is shown
there. After that, go into Advanced and then the nVidia tab and setup your
preferred mode.

In my case (TI4800SE) I use dualview mode and experience as I state above.
In fact I also keep an old TV attached also and can easily and freely switch
between any two of the three devices being active display(s), along with
choosing which is primary.

I'd expect clone mode to not display the 2nd monitor under settings (in
essence there is no 2nd display) and perhaps it also only displays one
monitor when in span mode (e.g. one monitor just bigger?).