Can I set different games to run on different monitors?

[AncientPistol]

I have a 1080p 240Hz monitor for my PC. I am thinking about buying a 4K HDR monitor for media consumption and playing non-competitive games, but I want to keep playing games like CSGO on the old monitor. Is it possible to configure different games on different monitors?

 

Also, how does HDR work if only one monitor supports it? Can I keep one monitor in HDR mode and other in SDR?

[mariushm]

Depends on the game mostly. 

You can start the game in Window mode, then drag the window on the other monitor 

You can run game in window full screen borderless and from game settings, tell it to move itself on the other monitor (if the game has such option)

Some games will allow you from settings to choose the monitor. 

 

At least with AMD, the drive creates multiple virtual video cards, one for each monitor. So from some games, you can choose the video card you want and then a game that only runs full screen will launch on that monitor connected to that virtual video card.

 

There may be profiles you can create in the video card driver's control center / settings tool where you may be able to force an application to launch on a particular display.

 

There's also software tools like Dual Monitor Tools - http://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.net/ - that let you configure specific applications/games to be moved / snapped to a specific monitor at launch - you select the game executable and as soon as the background running application detects the executable running, it looks for it's window and moves it to the screen you want. 

As an example, I've used this tool a lot with the original Bloodrayne games to lock the mouse to first monitor, because game ran in full screen and mouse was used to rotate character and to use the character's sword .. so was rotating the character and mouse went outside the game on 2nd monitor and then clicked to attack with sword, but the click made the game minimize because mouse pointer was outside the game's window on 2nd monitor.

 

Another tool that's great (especially for older games) is dxwnd : https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/ - though it's harder to configure and use with individual games. But basically, it can hook itself to an old game that only wants to run full screen and changes the commands sent to the video card and direct x / open gl on the fly ... if the game says go full screen, the application changes it to window mode, or borderless window mode,  or change resolution and other things. 

 

last but not least the easiest method of all, before launching the game you can select display properties and change the order of displays so that your high fps one is the primary (default) one and game would launch on that monitor. 

 

 

[IPD]

Most games I've played have "windowed", "full-screen" and "windowed full screen".  I'd try "windowed full screen" as suggested above.  Drag it to the 1080p monitor first in "windowed" mode, and then click the "maximize" icon.