Finally joined the dual monitor club :)

[Winter_Wolf]

For the first time I both had the idea AND the means to hook up two monitors to my PC. So I did. I've been cannibalizing a family member's old computer parts ("someone" didn't bring their box back from the PC store a couple years ago or I'd have more stuff I could "recycle" :smallannoyed:), and luckily the monitor is still in our home.

I know it's no great feat to dual monitor, but I'm thrilled that I can let my offspring watch videos in "full screen" and still do something else while she's getting her fix.

The only thing I'm having any trouble with is nailing the correct resolution on monitor 2. None of them look quite right, even though I vaguely recall it has an odd aspect ratio; it's not 4:3 and it's certainly not widescreen. Maybe it's 8:5 5:4? It's "close enough" for a little kid though, whatever it is.

[angrymudcrab]

I'm sad to hear you have such quarrelsome electronics. If they cannot be reconciled I suppose it is inevitable. Is it pistols or swords?:smallfrown:

Sorry, I just watched Barry Lyndon, dueling is on my mind.:smallwink:

I don't know anything about your setup and I haven't done anything with dual monitors outside of work(I'm still in the cannibalizing parts stage for my personal computer), but iirc, you should be able to mess with the resolution from the graphics card control. You might also be having oddness if you have it stretching your background across two monitors. This is all pure speculation, so your best bet is to screw around with your graphics card controls, or your display controls till you get it the way you want. Congrats on your haul!:smallsmile:

[SaintRidley]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

[Winter_Wolf]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

Moar space! (Kind of) Getting past the hard limits on maximum screen resolution without upgrading monitors is pretty handy, too.:smallsmile:

Mostly you see multiple monitors in either hardcore gaming (I don't) or in settings where you'd want to have an Excel spreadsheet visible all the time and be able to do other things like emailing, contact lists, pretty much everything else. The loan coordinators at my last couple of temp jobs all had two monitors set up. I also see it being handy in graphic design jobs. I plan on busting it out for my inventory spreadsheets in the future. Also it's handy when doing document translation, come to think of it. I'd have really benefited from it about four years ago.

I just like it because it means I can let my kid watch youtube music videos on #2 and still do something interesting to me on #1. There's only so much Duck Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtN1YnoL46Q) or Gummy Bear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_hF31z130) one can take.

[factotum]

I ran two monitors for a while after Windows 98 came out, but don't usually bother these days--not only do I find it annoying to have to keep switching my view between the two screens, modern monitors are so wide that two monitors would pretty much fill a desk!

[Arutema]

The only thing I'm having any trouble with is nailing the correct resolution on monitor 2. None of them look quite right, even though I vaguely recall it has an odd aspect ratio; it's not 4:3 and it's certainly not widescreen. Maybe it's 8:5 5:4? It's "close enough" for a little kid though, whatever it is.

It's not 16:10? Is it?

[Whoracle]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

Anecdotal evidence for multiple (in this case, three) monitors.

Warning, huge image! (http://i.imgur.com/tOYfphy.jpg)

This is my average workday desktop. While I usually don't have the twitter client on the far left open, this tends to be "normal" for me. Sometimes there's another browser window open that I need (system monitoring or coding guidelines or something like that), sometimes theres 1 to N ssh sessions open, sometimes theres remote desktop sessions to different servers open. While 3 Displays are overkill for most people, 2 tend to unclutter our workflows like nothing. I know noone who wanted to go back to one display after using two for a week.

[Emmerask]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

For work it saves a lot of time,

I can have a number of screenshots of the app open while having the ide (editor) on another screen, or have the db open on one screen while working on the other etc...
Yes this could be done with one monitor too and switching between tasks, but that is considerably slower and just annoying to switch between tasks :-)

I could even use three monitors from time to time, though that would start to get complicated with my desk ^^

[Xefas]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

I got a second monitor donated to me a few months ago. And, well, I have a lot of media I want to consume, and not enough free time to consume it in. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Having the dual monitors means I can do two (or occasionally three) things at once. It's doubling my leisure efficiency!

Heck, I'm watching a Let's Play while I write this. Just yesterday I was writing homebrew for these forums, while also watching Ducktales and also listening to a Pandora station. The day before that I was catching up on some post-Heart of the Swarm Starcraft 2 pro games on one monitor while playing Starcraft 2 on the other.

There're probably more hours of media out there right now that I want to consume than there are hours left in my life. There's only one sane solution! Blow it all up! Double/triple feeding tube!

[factotum]

This is my average workday desktop.

Off topic...you appear to be running a Linux variant, but you have Outlook as your mail client? Are you running that via WINE, or something?

[Socratov]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

Well, when I'm studying or writing reports it's great to have one window of source/browser open, while the other shows your document/something else relevant. That way you won't have to switch windows as often. Another benefit is browsing on the one while watching a movie/series/skype conversation on the other. It broadens options for the lazy guy :smallamused:

[Whoracle]

Off topic...you appear to be running a Linux variant, but you have Outlook as your mail client? Are you running that via WINE, or something?

Running Archlinux here. I'm currently evaluating the feasibility of moving the whole company to linux desktops, and have to test outlook for that. Didn't get it to run on 4 different linux flavours with WINE (openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch), but CrossOver (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/) seems to work. It has a 14-day trial if you want to try some different programs.

For Outlook, I have to say it works well enough on Arch and more stable/faster than under Windows on openSUSE. Most likely because some "features" that we don't use haven't been implemented in WINE/CrossOver yet, and thus can't crash the darn thing :smallbiggrin:

Just the usual WINE issues like ugly fonts and not honoring XWINDOW_HINTs and the like.

[factotum]

Hmmm. I'd always heard CrossOver was just a convenient front-end for WINE, so never really looked at it...may have to at some point.

Anyway, enough derailment, we now return you to your regularly scheduled topic! :smallwink:

[Winter_Wolf]

While I'd like to have three monitors, it's way too much overkill in my case. Also I'm far too crowded on my desk. Two does wonders, since it keeps my offspring occupied instead of trying to "help" my type. She's entirely too good at taking keys off keyboards.

Btw, I figured out #2's resolution is optimal at 1280x1024 (native res), so it's 5:4. The monitor predates common usage of widescreen by about five years. Interestingly (to me anyway), just having the second monitor attached to the Radeon causes start-up to be even slower. Despite monitor being off and extended/second monitor disabled. No real problem for me, if I desperately needed to get things done ASAP I'd be using the i5 laptop instead of ye olde dual core box.

[Whoracle]

Yeah, 3 at home is overkill. At work it's great, but at home I "only" have two 24"ers, and they hardly fit on my desk as is. but never less than two. Never again.

[snoopy13a]

Out of curiosity, because I've never really understood, what exactly does having two monitors actually allow you to do? In short, what's the point?

They are great for legal work. You put Westlaw/Lexis on one monitor and your word processor on the other. It really helps not having to switch windows all the time.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I moved a few weeks ago and so rearranged my stuff (including my desk) so I now have space for a second monitor... and end up turning it on and not using it again. It just feels really clunky, and I hate having to drag stuff across the screen. About the only use I could think of is to have some video playing at the same time.

[Mauve Shirt]

I have two monitors at work, it's awesome. Work on one side, email on the other side. I don't know if I have a need for one at home though.
I'm looking forward to moving into my new place. My roommate has a TV, so I'm going to mount my giant TV on the wall in my bedroom and use it as a monitor for gaming.

[Xefas]

Wait! I just thought of another thing you can do with two monitors. You can cheat at some online multiplayer games by finding a person who's live streaming their playing of that game, putting their stream up on one monitor, while you use the other one to load up the game, find where they're playing, and join as their opponent (aka stream sniping). That way, you know everything the opposing person/team is doing.

That's something you can't do very effectively with a single monitor.

I don't know what I'd do with three monitors (my work does not involve computers), but I kinda want another one just so I can whip stuff around really dramatically like in Minority Report.

[JoshL]

I use two at home, and would really like two. I do film scores. In one monitor I have the film, and the other the MIDI data/timeline. When I'm mixing I replace the film with the mixer. If I had three I could have the mixer and MIDI always up, and alternate the film with the timeline. No such thing as too much information at one time!

[Hyde]

Wait! I just thought of another thing you can do with two monitors. You can cheat at some online multiplayer games by finding a person who's live streaming their playing of that game, putting their stream up on one monitor, while you use the other one to load up the game, find where they're playing, and join as their opponent (aka stream sniping). That way, you know everything the opposing person/team is doing.

That's something you can't do very effectively with a single monitor.

I don't know what I'd do with three monitors (my work does not involve computers), but I kinda want another one just so I can whip stuff around really dramatically like in Minority Report.
Most live streams are on a three to five minute delay for this reason.