Multiple monitor question NOT directly civ I guess.

[SammyKhalifa]

But playing Civ has made me start thinking about this again. I think I want to set up my old monitor in portrait orientation alongside my new 1440p screen (I tell myself it's for better productivity using Lightroom, etc.). What I'd like to do is run the main screen playing Civ in full screen, with monitor #2 acting alone so I can go back to the desktop to browse, etc. without minimizing or alt/tabbing out of the game. I don't have a lot of experience with multiple screen setups (as you probably can tell), but from what I gather what would nomally happen is that it would stretch the desktop across both displays.

This is probably a question an idiot would ask, but what would be the best way to do this?

 

[n00buk]

Just plug and try. Should work out of the box. The only problem I have with this, is that when I switch to second monitor (either by point and click or by alt-tab) the main monitor (with CIV) flickers. In Civ V I didn't have that problem. Probably can be fixed by setting windowed mode instead of full screen.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Oh that's good to hear. I thought it would try to play across both screens whenever I fired it up. Of course it'll take some messing around I guess. Good point about windowed mode. I just need the cable to get here in the mail . . .

Just plug and try. Should work out of the box. The only problem I have with this, is that when I switch to second monitor (either by point and click or by alt-tab) the main monitor (with CIV) flickers. In Civ V I didn't have that problem. Probably can be fixed by setting windowed mode instead of full screen.

 

[Markus5]

Are your monitors on the same adapter or will you have two adapters?
I'm planning to try two adapters. One newer one, capable of playing Civ6, and one older one which Civ6 does not like, but sufficient for other tasks.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

My new monitor has a displayport out port on the back, so I had to get a DP to DVI cord, as that's way too newfangled kind of plug for the old one.

Won't have time to try it out until later in the weekend, so we'll see.

 

[n00buk]

@Markus5 I'm using one card for both monitors.

 

[callan]

Sammy: Couple of things to watch out for here.

1) Windows should set up your display correctly when you plug it in and power it on. If not enter Display Properties and fiddle there until it's on the right side, at the right height, is spanning (or extended depending on windows version) correctly and so on. The controls here should be obvious enough and Civ will always display on "Primary".

2) Civ VI (incorrectly - as per best practice) resets DirectX everytime it regains "active window" status while playing in Fullscreen. This will cause any other app using DirectX (such as vlc) to crash. The workaround for this is to select Borderless Window mode from Graphics settings. There is a slight performance hit for this, but nothing a modern rig can't handle easily. Older hardware users may have to move graphics down one notch to compensate though.

Other than that you should be fine!

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Got it (mostly) working on Saturday. It's fantastic. Wish I had done it a long time ago considering this monitor was just sitting in the closet anyhow.

Something happening so I couldn't daisy chain it from the back of my "big" monitor, but no big deal. Just plugged it directly into the video card with the original DVI cable. Calibrated them to match, and it looks like we're ready to go. The game played on Monitor 1 only with no issues. No problems keeping up from my video card (R9 285), though I suppose if I were doing more demanding games or looking for high frame rates or whatever it might.

But thanks everyone! I highly recommend doing this upgrade (especially if you have all of the parts lying around anyhow, heh).