Thinking of dual monitor setup. Can I use full screen on one monitor only and do something else like browsing on the second?

[Zethex]

Hi all linustechtips.com users,

 

I have this old monitor that I would like to use as a second monitor. I don't want to use full screen on both at the same time because they are both pretty different (different refresh rate, bezels are thicker) so I only want to use 1 monitor full screen at a time. Is it possible to have one monitor on full screen (such as a game or video) and the other at the desktop where I can browse the web or look in file explorer? I use both Windows and Linux so if someone could tell me if it's possible for that to happen on both OSes that would be great. Thanks

[Ashleyyyy]

yep. 

 

you can do that with games as long as they are set to borderless windowed instead of fullscreen. 

 

video's and stuff you don't need to do anything. you can have. fullscreen video playing on one display and do something else on the other. 

[mxk]

Games have to be windowed borderless so you can move your mouse around without it being locked to the first display.

[lmeneses]

^^ that will affect refresh rate though, at least in certain games. Like in Rainbow Six Siege, if you choose anything other than full screen, it will display it at 60Hz

[FUR1AN]

You can definitely do that, as its a very common multi-display setup. Contrary to what some other folks are saying, you can still play games in full screen mode on one display, and still see whatever you have open on the other display. However, if you want to bring your mouse over and interact with whats open on the other display, you'll have to ALT + Tab out of the game. For some games this is no prob and it only takes a second, for others it can be a little laggy.