Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey Community,

I searched for time for my question but i haven't found anything.
Hopefully someone could help me with my question :)

I want to buy a 2nd Monitor for my ATI Radeon HD 5770 and i googled some time for Eyefinity and Hydravision. So my Question is, if it is possible to mix these two features. I want to have one desktop one the 1st monitor and another desktop on the 2nd monitor. Background for this is, that i want to play games with my first Monitor and have windows desktop/browser/icq on the 2nd monitor. It would be really nice if i don't have to use window mode for the games.

I hope anyone has some experiences with this or can say that this is feature is possible, or not.


Thanks for your support!

Just use 1 as main (for games) and use the second in extended mode. Don't use eyefinity mode at all.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

That's right. Simply designate your gaming monitor as the primary, and extened the second. I have that setup whenever I'm not gaming in Eyefintiy (well, i extend the third as well).

Couple tips: if you stagger the display arrangement, it'll be easier to access features that require a click of the screen edge, like un-hiding the taskbar. It may depend on your particular setup, but if you wish to do full-screen gaming on one monitor and want to keep the other display active - say, to eyeball some sort of status or watch videos - your displays have to be running the same resolution. But if you'd want to do something on your extended display then you'll have to stop your full-screen game. Luckily, most games tolerate alt-tabbing

But look out! You're on your way to Eyefinitytown. I mean, you already have a card that can do it, and having a second display just gets you that much closer...

you will be able to see icq and stuff on the second monitor while you play on your main.
however, you will need to taskswitch out of most games so you can access the other applications.
most games will minimize, and some can take a while to perform the taskswitch.
games that allow borderless window-mode are awesome for this, taskswitches take milliseconds and the game doesn't minimize.

some games also have crappy mouse capturing inside one monitor, so if you manage to click on the second monitor by accident, your game will minimize, which is pretty annoying.

like the previous poster said, you dont need eyefinity for this, just extended desktop.

but if you wish to do full-screen gaming on one monitor and want to keep the other display active - say, to eyeball some sort of status or watch videos - your displays have to be running the same resolution.

is this a newly introduced limitation of the new ati cards?
I was playing WoW in 1440*900 and had an extended desktop in 1024*768 since radeon 9700 times.
and also have no problems running a 1920*1080 HDTV in extended desktop additionaly to my triple setup 4320*900 on a 4850.

It's been the case for every card I've had since my ATI 9000. Both Nvidia and ATi card have that. A different resolution will still display content on the extended screen, but movies (when in full-screen) havwe always been blank for me.

Thanks for your answers!

Ok i hoped that it is possible somehow to have this extended desktop active without alt+tabbing, but if this isn't possible i have to live with this.

But look out! You're on your way to Eyefinitytown. I mean, you already have a card that can do it, and having a second display just gets you that much closer...

Yeah :D I am already thinking about this :)

Some games have the "Play in window" mode. All you have to do is maximize it. WoW does that quite well.