Widescreen Gaming Forum

So I've got an issue, but it only happens with a few games so far....Civ5, Sniper Elite v2, Avatar, a few others I can't recall....Basically, I'll start up the game, it's in fullscreen....and it looks like this http://imgur.com/vSjaLKY

Full disclosure: I run two monitors. A 1680 x 1050 as my main n what I game on, and a 1440 x 900 as a secondary desktop extension to my right (that I DON'T game on). I used to run 1440 x 900. I can't recall exactly when this issue started, it might've been when I started using the 1680 2 or 3 years ago.

My question is...why? I tried asking steam forums a few times, but none of them were able to give me concrete/good answers and/or fixes. I'm hoping maybe you guys can. I can play civ5 in windowed mode, sure. What I've been doing. I got SEV2 to work somehow (Forget how). And today, after a fresh install of avatar for the first time in almost a year...I booted it up n ran it. No crashes like a year ago without error, nothing. Played a few hours, got off.

However...now if I try to boot it up, both my monitors go black, then my game is shifted. If I get it to fit fully on my monitor, then my 2nd monitor goes black*. And don't suggest auto adjust monitor, I tried that. And manual. For Avatar, it doesn't fix the issue. But for other games, it'd realign it...but then after I'm done playing, I'd have to adjust again because its misaligned towards other direction while on my desktop.

Why these games? Why not others? What's the cause? I'd be willing to say its GPU or monitor but...why only those games? Why not any of the ones I run that don't have borderless fullscreen? (I'd run it if I could trust me). And in this case...why didn't it happen the first time I ran avatar?

I'm just honestly left very confused n wondering how do I fix/avoid/identify the issue(s)....I've got hundreds of pc games I play/played, both fullscreen and full screen borderless....theres maybe 5 or 6 top that give me this issue, and I have no idea why Especially since some of the games are massively popular, and never gave me issue in the past.

* = Tried replicating that for avatar, but now every time I do it just goes windowed. The only time it worked, it was quickly stopped/alt tabbed by a windows aero message saying I was out of memory (I get same message for civ5 n 1 or 2 other games if I run them fullscreen. I got it when I used 4 gb of ram, and I have it when I use 8 gb. And my virtual memory has always been appropriately ratio'd so....)

EDIT - Forgot to mention, the display issue is purely to me. If I screenshot or record directly, it comes out looking normal. The black border is treated as if it doesn't even exist and the point where border and video screen meet is the new "edge" of the monitor.

Here's a number of things you can try:
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First, check to ensure you are running the latest drivers for your video card. Make SURE that any/all older drivers are COMPLETELY removed. There may be a dedicated video driver cleaner application available on your video card manufacturers website. Otherwise, try googling for "video driver cleaner (video card type)". Sometimes (though rarely) obsolete dlls, etc. can be left behind when older drivers get updated and they can cause strange, hard to diagnose video behaviors. You may need to boot Windows into "safe mode" and run the driver cleaner from there to be 100% sure all the old driver files are properly removed.

NOTE: Don't worry about deleting your existing video card drivers causing the system to have no video. Windows has a minimal, default video driver that should always allow the system to start using any video card in a very basic mode. This allows booting up with any new, unknown video cards so that you can then install the dedicated manufacturers drivers easily.

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When you installed the new, larger primary monitor, did you update the in-game video settings to the new monitors' resolution? If it's still set to the original, smaller (previous primary) monitor size, that setting might just stretch to fit the larger full screen for some games but also just might potentially cause some weird screen shifting/black border issues as well depending on how the game engine handles the resolution mismatch.

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Have you tried going into the Windows "Screen resolution" menu, selecting the 2nd monitor and under "multiple displays" pull-down click "disconnect this display" so you are only running on the Primary, new, larger screen? This will at least help to avoid any confusion in the game drivers as to where it's supposed to display the output and may give you more clues to help diagnose the issue if it does not.

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When you power on the PC, which monitor does the BIOS scroll on? If it's the 2nd, smaller one, try swapping the cables between them. You will likely need to "detect" and then update the screen positions in the "screen resolution" menu after doing this. Also may have to reselect which monitor is primary while in the "screen resolution" menu. This should make the primary monitor #1 and the smaller one #2. You can always verify which is which with the "identify" button.