23 replies to this topic

[Black0ut]

Hey guys! What's going on? I am new here on the forums, but I have been playing BF2 since Moongamers had a server on the Demo!

My question I have today is with Dual Monitors.

System Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.00 ghz
ATI Radeon HD3450
4gb of ram
Vista 32 bit
Monitor: Toshiba 19" HD [HDMI Cable], and an old Gateway 17" [DVI Cable] (both flat panel)

I play the games COD4 and BF2. On my Toshiba Monitor I have the games primarily running on it, and on my Gateway, I like to run teamspeak and the forums here on Moongamers.

My small problem, (which is getting annoying) is that when I start up the game. Sometimes I want to move over to teamspeak and mess around with the forums (in game). When I do that, it makes BF2 or COD4 minimize (because it is thinking that I want to mess with the desktop). Is there any way to mess with both monitors without one affecting the other?

Any help or things to better my experience will be great!

~See you in game!

[Luose]

I had the same issue and still do, I run All games on my LG HDMonitor and everything else like TS and xfire on my other one.

With most games there is nothing you can do, Steam games for instance I havent even tried to mess with but I have managed to sort out Bf1942 but it requires making it into a window, instead of having it full screen. It does take a while to get used to it and allows you to tab out without it minimizing or your desktop freezing. So if you can change the settings for your Bf2 or CoD4 so they open in a window then I think thats all you can do.

Thats all I know, hope thats of any help.

[Monkey]

Even if you were to run the game in a windowed mode you will still have issues. The mouse will still be locked to the game so the need to "alt-tab" will still be there. The games need to be the top most active application.

So in short your answer is, no not possible. Many have tried to make this work and all have failed. Short of buying a cheap PC to run secondary applications you will have to deal with the game in the background while using other applications.

[Black0ut]

ok. Yea, I see what you guys are saying!

Thanks for the Help! I will keep messing around with it. haha

[GunnerKicknIt]

BlackOut - Cannonfoddr and I use two monitors to Admin BF2142. The game itself is on my primary monitor and anything else I want open on the 2nd monitor. Yes you will have to make another icon of the game and change the properties to be smaller then the in game setting. I am not on my other computer right now and I can't find where cannonfoddr had posted how to change the settings. Hang tight one of us will post here again later. Also yes you will have to alt/tab to the other screen and there is no other way around it. At least the game screen will not be minimized and you will be able to see your second monitor.

[Black0ut]

Sweet! I will mess around with it!

[GunnerKicknIt]

the one i'm using is a 19" wide. I will post what i'm using in an hour or so

[Black0ut]

ok cool

[GunnerKicknIt]

Ok BlackOut... My 19" monitor is a widescreen.
What you need to do if you haven't already is make a new icon on your desktop and rename it. I renamed mine"Window" (simple enough).
You will need to know the resolution that your primary monitor runs. When you change the numbers for your window mode the numbers should be one step down from that. You may have to play with the numbers a little.
Right click on the "window" icon and go to properties, then go to the shortcut tab in properties. Where is says Target it should read something like this:

"C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\BF2142.exe" +playNow 1 +menu 1 +fullscreen 0 +szx 1360+szy 800

Hopefully the "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\BF2142.exe" is similar if not the exact same thing as mine.

click apply then ok. The only thing after this that you had to fiddle with is where mine says 1360 and 800.

I hope this helps you. Please post back and let me know.

[Black0ut]

Thanks! It is working perfectly.

Currently I have mine running at +szx 1280+szy 720

[Bullet-BS]

Monkey will this work with 1942?

[GunnerKicknIt]

BlackOut.... Awesome I'm glad everything is working out well for you and that I could help

Bullet... it should work with 1942 as well... All your doing is telling the window how big you want it to be. I suggest trying it with 1942 but write down what you have in the target window before you change it in case you have to change it back.

[Monkey]

Monkey will this work with 1942?

1942 will run in a windowed mode but its not as simple as the above. There is a post somewhere around here telling you how to set up just about all the games in a windowed mode. If I find it I will send the link to you.

1942 does not care what your desktop resolution is and will make it what ever size you have the in game settings at.

[Luose]

Monkey will this work with 1942?

1942 will run in a windowed mode but its not as simple as the above. There is a post somewhere around here telling you how to set up just about all the games in a windowed mode. If I find it I will send the link to you.

1942 does not care what your desktop resolution is and will make it what ever size you have the in game settings at.

Its not as simple as that and like TC said with 1942 you can change your settings so that it opens up in a window, however it may open up really small or in a window but losing a couple of inches of the side and bottom, effectivly losing your minimap and health etc, so once you have done that you need to then change your video settings in -game.

It will keep changing though, so when you load it up and go to choose your serverit will be small, but once the game is running ie your in a server then it will enlarge again. You really need to have a play around with it, but remember what your original settings were.

[Black0ut]

yea, it took a while to find what my settings were.

[spookyload]

There were beta programs that used to be out that would let you run two mice on dual monitor. Never went final and were very picky with what program you used it with. Too bad with so many of using dual monitors now.

[GunnerKicknIt]

A company I used to work for got me used to using 3 monitors and sometimes 2 mouses and 2 keyboards. Makes life interesting. lol

[mexican eskimo]

so what is the advantage of 2 monitors other than i dont have to alt-tab?

[Black0ut]

so what is the advantage of 2 monitors other than i dont have to alt-tab?

Personally, I can run my games on my primary monitor and have teamspeak, forums, sites, and etc. on the other one as I play. When I run the game in a window mode, but at a resolution of 1204 X 720 it looks full screen. The cool thing is that I can jump between windows with ease. When I talk on teamspeak I can see who is talking without jumping out of BF2

All of this summed up= AMAZING

[GunnerKicknIt]

Mexican Eskimo.... the only thing that BlackOut left out is that as Admins we can have our Teamspeak and CC on the other monitor so we dont have to alt/tab to minimize the game. By having the game in window mode and we alt/tab the game screen does not minimize it will stay up so we can see what's going on in the game while using CC or TS at the same time.