2nd monitor laggy?

[Bravo]

I have 2 monitors on an ATI x1650 with 512MB ram, if I play WoW on monitor 1 it runs fine, but on Monitor 2 it drops down to like 9 fps. this is windowed mode, I can't go full screen becuase it default to monitor 1...

I currently have
a intel quad core
4 gigs of ram
WD sata HDD

and I'm running Windows xp x64

any thoughts?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Many multiple monitor graphics cards will not run Direct3D surfaces on both primary and secondary monitors at the same time. So, you end up with a software renderer on the secondary. Thus, your FPS problems. :P

[jrox]

This has come up a few times on the boards.

The solution with an ATI card is to open up the catalyst control center, go to the "displays manager" and right click on your second monitor. Choose "Stretch Display onto second monitor"

This is equivalent to enabling Horizontal Span on an nvidia card.

Instead of 2 independent displays you will end up with effectively 1 display with a large resolution like 2560x1024. This will solve your fps drop on the second monitor problem

[Bravo]

Hey thanks for the help, it solved the problem. now I just need to set it to the correct resolution. Each monitor runs at 1440 x 900 but I can set it to 2880x 900, I've opened a ticket with AMD and have tried playing with powerstrip but haven't been able to find a proper solution

[Wilbur]

Try lowering the refresh rate of your monitors.

[Bravo]

my mistake! I meant to say I CAN'T get 2880 x 900... the only option I have is 2304x864 but every thing's blurry. ATI closed the ticket saying they can't offer every resolution under the sun. Is anyone out there a Powerstrip expert? I've tried making a custom resolution with that but can't seem to get the horizontal stretching to apply

[Mattx10x]

Does anyone use 2 monitors with WoW under Vista? If so how do you set it up? I don't think Vista supports horizontal span. New Vista dual monitoring is called "Dual View" but does this option take away from the 3D performace in WoW?

[mxracer050]

Does anyone use 2 monitors with WoW under Vista? If so how do you set it up? I don't think Vista supports horizontal span. New Vista dual monitoring is called "Dual View" but does this option take away from the 3D performace in WoW?

No. The goodie goodie about Vista, is the problem was actually solved. You are able to run Dual View in Vista without any FPS loss like XP.

[Djarid]

Is it solved for both ATI and Nvidia?

[mxracer050]

Is it solved for both ATI and Nvidia?

Honestly, I have no idea. I just heard it was fixed :)

[Mattx10x]

Does anyone use 2 monitors with WoW under Vista? If so how do you set it up? I don't think Vista supports horizontal span. New Vista dual monitoring is called "Dual View" but does this option take away from the 3D performace in WoW?

No. The goodie goodie about Vista, is the problem was actually solved. You are able to run Dual View in Vista without any FPS loss like XP.


Thanks. That helps a lot. I have tried the dual view and it does work.

[Fortis]

I strongly think they fixed it for every brand under Vista, because they now use hardware acceleration to draw the windows (Aero...) and it would suck if it only worked on one monitor :-)

At least i can confirm it fpr ATI....

[reallytired]

I'm running dual-view under Vista and it seems to perform roughly the same as horizontal span under XP. Overall Vista gaming < XP gaming, but I wanted to check out Vista.

[klous]

Im in the same boat, ATI Catylst control software wont stretch the desktop to (1440x900*2) 2880x900

It can get close 2560x1024 but this resolution isn't pretty. Does anyone have a solution to this?

[MortimerDuke]

Which drivers are you using? I found the actual ATI drivers allowed me to get up fairly high, above 2560, while the omega drivers wouldn't go higher than 2440 or some such.

[klous]

I am using the official ATI drivers
7-11_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_54435.exe
with an ATI x1900xtx

I have two monitors native resolution are 1440x900, side by side stretched this should be 2880x900 but that resolution isn't an option in stretched mode.

[Rigz]

Does keyclone maxamiser support two monitors?

[zanthor]

Does keyclone maxamiser support two monitors?

Not yet, however it's a feature he's actively working on. I'd expect it in the next release or two (guesswork on my part) as he put the UI widgets into the latest alpha.

[perseus]

Hello Everyone,

First post, just decided to give dual-boxing a try and picked up a second copy of WoW. However, I'm having an issue like the original OP with 2 monitors.

I currently have 2x 22" ACER LCDs side by side, with an Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 (brand spanking new). To use both monitors in Vista (64 bit for the 4gigRAM support) the only option available is Dual-View.

The issue that keeps occurring, is that when I do not have the WoW instance selected on SCREEN1, my frame rate drops to 8FPS. Kind of like when you alt-tab out of a game lose performance.

Similarly, when I try and open up a second instance of WoW (I copied a folder over to start a new .EXE) the frame rate becomes 8FPS on both copies.

Maybe I am missing something here. Dual view is selected and I have the latest Nvidia drivers. I'm running at each monitors native resolution of 1680x1050, but I'm still getting absolutely unplayable results.

The rest of my specs are:
q6600 INTEL
ASUS p5k-e
4gig G.SKILL
1T Baracuda 32MB Cache
EVGA 8800 GTS 512

Any help would be appreciated. I would really like to start dual-boxing soon :)

Thanks.

[perseus]

Well, after fiddling around with every setting I could imagine, I finally figured out what was causing the slow down. Vertical Sync! I turned that off on both copies and then set the exact native resolution to 1680x1050 in Maximizer and voila. It worked.

Trial and Error ftw. =p