Adding a second monitor

[Kapture]

So I'm thinking about adding a second monitor to my computer just so I don't have to keep alt tabbing out of my games, but will it slow my FPS, I'll still play at the Same res. so will adding a second monitor lower my Video card performance?

[Coombzy]

what's your video card firstly

[sabot]

If you run it off of the integrated graphics, no it will not effect performance.

[Samdb]

It depends on you GPU.

[IronSoldier]

Off topic. In lots of games the second monitor goes black so you will still have to alt tab.

[sonarctica]

Off topic. In lots of games the second monitor goes black so you will still have to alt tab.

You can easily turn that off though

[Jamdude]

I get lower fps when playing most games with multiple monitors active.  Your GPU will be running all monitors that are active while playing games so if you want slightly better fps then disable monitors you aren't gaming on.

[tobben]

You can easily turn that off though

how? i was just going to post a topic aswell about getting a second monitor .. and it isn't about eyefinity to say the least .. it's just for practical purposes so that kinda sounds like a gamebreaker for me :p

[tobben]

I get lower fps when playing most games with multiple monitors active.  Your GPU will be running all monitors that are active while playing games so if you want slightly better fps then disable monitors you aren't gaming on.

any idea on what kind of impact adding a second monitor would actually have on the performance? ofcourse it varies but don't need any exact numbers, just a vague idea.

[tobben]

If you run it off of the integrated graphics, no it will not effect performance.

that actually sounds like a pretty good idea, but is it really that easy? and your cpu would probably kick out abit more heat?

[Jamdude]

any idea on what kind of impact adding a second monitor would actually have on the performance? ofcourse it varies but don't need any exact numbers, just a vague idea.

It depends on your GPU and what game you are running.  If the game isn't stressing your GPU and you are getting high frame rates then you won't even notice the decrease in fps if they don't fall below your monitor's refresh rate.  But if it's a graphically intense game that your GPU is struggling to run then disabling excess monitors could make the difference between playing at medium settings with your monitors enabled and playing at high settings with them disabled. 

 

 

My 560ti runs two screens perfectly fine. No difference in terms of performance. 

 

What resolutions are the screens and what applications are you running on them both?

[sabot]

that actually sounds like a pretty good idea, but is it really that easy? and your cpu would probably kick out abit more heat?

It would not have issues becuase the cpu's are designed to have a monitor running off of it. All you do is plug in dvi/vga/hdmi to the back of mobo and you are set!

[Blackterror25]

YES, it will lower your framerate

 

It won't lower it by half but it will still be a lot, if you have integrated graphics you should use that for your secondary monitor as long as you don't want to use that second monitor for gaming.

[Legend932]

how? i was just going to post a topic aswell about getting a second monitor .. and it isn't about eyefinity to say the least .. it's just for practical purposes so that kinda sounds like a gamebreaker for me :P

There are borderless fullscreen or (''fake fullscreen'' as some people call it), fixes that can fix that, check out http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

for more info,

i run all of my games in borderless fullscreen (where possible, if not natively supported there are fixes for it, again check out pcgamingwiki for more info, search by game), im a compulsive alt tabber i alt tab a lot ;p running in regular fullscreen can cause some games to slow down, saves to corrupt or even crashes.

 

theres really no reason not to use borderless fullscreen some people experience a performance gain from it, i did not notice that, but what i know is nobody has suffered any loss in performance using it.

[tobben]

There are borderless fullscreen or (''fake fullscreen'' as some people call it), fixes that can fix that, check out http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

for more info,

i run all of my games in borderless fullscreen (where possible, if not natively supported there are fixes for it, again check out pcgamingwiki for more info, search by game), im a compulsive alt tabber i alt tab a lot ;p running in regular fullscreen can cause some games to slow down, saves to corrupt or even crashes.

 

theres really no reason not to use borderless fullscreen some people experience a performance gain from it, i did not notice that, but what i know is nobody has suffered any loss in performance using it.

that actually seems pretty cool and practical, but as i play alot of rpg/adventure games meaning i don't sit and play the same game online hours and hours for weeks on weeks(also alot smaller titles) :p. Basicly i play alot of different games .. so i can't fiddle around with every single game i want to play to make it work, just got to set it up and have it work as often as possible .

[Legend932]

that actually seems pretty cool and practical, but as i play alot of rpg/adventure games meaning i don't sit and play the same game online hours and hours for weeks on weeks(also alot smaller titles) :P. Basicly i play alot of different games .. so i can't fiddle around with every single game i want to play to make it work, just got to set it up and have it work as often as possible .

Every game is different, overall its simple, easy and doesn't take long, I had no problems applying the borderless fullscreen fix to Fallout 3, in that particular case it was a separate executable, you just throw it where your fo3 .exe file is, and you launch the game from it, required time: took me no more than 5 minutes to find it and apply it, effort and knowledge requirement: if you know how to navigate windows, you will know how to do that.

Also most games work just fine with a second monitor, very few of them actually black out the second monitor.

[tobben]

Every game is different, overall its simple, easy and doesn't take long, I had no problems applying the borderless fullscreen fix to Fallout 3, in that particular case it was a separate executable, you just throw it where your fo3 .exe file is, and you launch the game from it, required time: took me no more than 5 minutes to find it and apply it, effort and knowledge requirement: if you know how to navigate windows, you will know how to do that.

Also most games work just fine with a second monitor, very few of them actually black out the second monitor.

nice, good to know. Thanks

[tobben]

It would not have issues becuase the cpu's are designed to have a monitor running off of it. All you do is plug in dvi/vga/hdmi to the back of mobo and you are set!

well no it didn't really work that way :p

are you sure there isn't something i have to enable in the bios ?

having some trouble getting my second monitor to run off of the integrated gpu

[sabot]

There probably is something to turn on in the bios.