Widescreen Gaming Forum

For those who have tried both what do you think is the better program?

I am using the trial of Ultramon right now and like it, its clean, fast, seems light on resources, and it has a lot of options.

DisplayFusion seems to do less but it does one thing that I thought Ultramon did, it gives you full taskbars on each monitor (including start button & menu) rather than just a bar to hold applications, if Ultramon does this I have not figured out how.

The largest issues with Ultramon is cost its $40 and thats too much for me to spend on a little application. DisplayFusion is $24.00 and that is much more reasonable and I would be willing to play that should it prove to work as good and smooth as Ultramon does and have all the features I want.

Edit: Hmm just read DF also does bezel management for wallpapers! I think thats another big + for DisplayFusion and I didnt see an option like that on Ultramon.

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you can read about it here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/6087-ultramon-replacement-3.html
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1411548
I don't really trust those two links since those seems to be outdated and newer version of UM and DF came out. It seems like most of the problems that people were complaining about UM is that it doesn't work too well/properly with Vista and or Windows 7. but since then v3.0.7 beta have came out and it seems to work fine and fixed the problems people are describing

But from my personal experience:

I've been using UltraMon for the past 3 or 4 years (maybe more) ever since I first have a dual display setup.

I have 3 systems with the following display configuration
1) Dual display side by side
2) triple display Eyefinity
http://www.geniv.com/download/Eyefinity/IMG_1130.JPG

3) and this 6 display capable monster here
http://www.geniv.com/download/Eyefinity/quad1.JPG

I reinstalled Win 7 ultimate today and figure I give DisplayFusion a try.
I installed both the latest version of Ultramon and DisplayFusion.

I perfer UltraMon more here's why:
1) it let you have different screensaver for each monitor. and I'm able to do this with the "matrix Screen saver"
http://www.geniv.com/download/Eyefinity/quad2.JPG
2) better "moving of application between different monitors" when you have more than 2 monitors or monitors in funky positions besides directly L or R of each other. with DF and UM you can have extra title icons on the top right (next to the min,max/close buttons). with UM I get a "span all monitor" button and a "Move to monitor". "Span all monitor" seems to work the same on both. but the "Move to monitor" is done diferently on DF and UM.

with DF you can add a button to (move to R monitor, move to L monitor, move to Next monitor etc... ). but with UM there's only one button and when u click on it it shows a visual display of the monitor layout (similiar to how it is shown when u goto to display properties) and u just click on the monitor u want the window/application moved to. this alone makes it more useful/productive when u have 3 or more monitors. (if u only have 2 monitor it automatically move it to the other monitor instead of showing the visual monitor layout)

3) with the lasted version (even if it's beta) it seems to work fine and works like how it should so I'm use to it. and also all my other setups have UM on it anyway and I want to keep a uniformed app setting on my various systems

that's just my opinion. I uninstalled DF and put UM back on.

You should really try both yourself to see what works for me. I won't comment too much on DF as it seems to have alot more configuration and options that I didn't test out yet (I only used it for 5 minutes)

I never did try it today was too busy but I will try both.

I guess it seems your uniqe setup may fit better with ultramon but a standard setup like mine my integrate more smoothly with DF and I get those added benefits.

I am most positive DF also does the screensaver on each screen function but I could be wrong.

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Screensavers waste energy, anyway. Monitors should be set to turn off after a few minutes of inactivity.

Screensavers waste energy, anyway. Monitors should be set to turn off after a few minutes of inactivity.

I totally agree, have not used on since about 5 years ago.

I have my power mode set to put the monitors to sleep after 10 minutes of no use/input. Still its cool to look at :D


I tried Display Fusion today to compare.

First of all the free DF does not have the smart taskbar or the wallpaper managment, so for the free vs free versions Ultramon wins hands down.

I am taking a trial on the paid version of DF right now via help of a friend to unlock those features.

> The taskbar does not give you a full taskbar on each monitor like I thought it did for DF it works exactly like Ultramon but it does have a few extra options like autohide, always ontop, and icon behavior.

Here are the cool things DF can do that Ultramon can not do as far as I know.

> It can update your wallpaper for you and cycle through ones you pick on your computer or it can also get them from online from places like Flickr.

> It has wallpaper managment so I was easily able to offset the two outside monitors wallpaper alignment to compensate for the bezels. Pretty cool and one of the features I was looking forward too. However you of course get the black line at the far sides where the image was moved away, so I prefer to just photoshop my own backgrounds that use a fade on the edge to make it less noticable.

> It has the buttons like Ultramon that add to the normal windows buttons for min/max/close but they are not there by default you pick what you want to add. I added move to previous monitor, move to next monitor, and fullscreen across all monitors.

So its better than Ultramon in the fact you have about 15 of them you can add and you can set hotkeys for them as well, but its worse than ultramon when it comes to how ultramon just lets you pick a monitor to move to instead of just a generic "next" "previous"

> It has a windows snap and you can set how many pixels near the edge of the screen you want so that if you drag a window near a monitor edge it will snap to the edge. I like this feature

> It lets you move fullscreen windows

So I say in conclusion that DisplayFuision probably comes out on top because it can do everything Ultramon can + more, there seems to be only one thing Ultramon does "better" and thats the monitor selection method and how they intergrate there windows buttons.

Plus the cost, Ultramon cost almost 2x that of DisplayFusion.

But I feel for the free trial Ultramon is the better one still because almost all the good features of DisplayFusion are locked in there free version.

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IMHO I couldn't care less about wall papers :P 90% of the time it's covered by an application anyway.

in windows 7 it also does wall paper changing built in.

Anyway. I personally like the way Ultramon does the windows moving where u have a single button to move the app to any screen u want by showing you the monitor layout. instead of bunch of buttons for say L/R next/previous. nice and clean and easy. but that's a matter of opinion.

btw: UM also let you move full screen windows/applications.

when u have a fullscreen/fullsize application opened, just click on the top title bar and drag it to a different monitor.

the app will goto that monitor and get fullsized/screened to that monitor. works even if the resolution is different.

ultramon is freeware now ?
http://downloads.guru3d.com/UltraMon-3.0.2-%283.0-Beta-2.1%29-download-1830.html