Pros and Cons of multi display

[fahad619]

Guys i ask this just out of curiosity what is the pros and cons of more than one monitors.Does they have any uses than gaming?thanks

[EuroFight]

I use two monitors and I think it's great - I only use one for gaming, but it allows me to have things like CPU, GPU etc. temps on one screen, as well as some IM and Steam, which means I don't have to keep switching screens all the time.

 

You can also do things like play music on one screen and not have to switch applications etc. when you want to change songs/pause stuff etc. You can also have a web browser on one screen while typing something up on another screen if you need to take references from a webpage. Seriously, the possibilities are endless. 

 

It takes a tad of getting used to but once you do it's much better than using a single monitor.  

[IVIYTH0S]

^ what he said, I used to run a 19" as a secondary to my 22" WAY back when I had my 8800GTX and it was neat. I even played Supreme Commander since it was built to have the map and stuff on the one monitor while the action on the other.

 

I'd say the cons (for gaming anyway) is that you'd have to upgrade your graphics card far more often to keep things pretty/playable. And also initial investment of monitor, as well as the desk real estate to fit all the screens

[suedenim]

I use 2 at work and it makes life so much easier - work on one, email and reference material etc. on the other.

Eyefinity at home - nice to have music on one, web on one and other stuff on the third (monitoring apps, other utils etc.) Comes into its own for gaming though

[d6bmg]

Disadvantage?

Only two - a little bit more power consumption and you are going to need some more space.

 

Other than these everything is advantageous with dual monitor setup.

[freddie]

Once you get more, you'd wonder how you survived without them.

 

[Il_napoletano]

+1 to everything...I always had one..and prefered one..but I had a spare monitor sitting on my desk, so I plugged it in..and now it's there to stay...

 

It's so practical..u can watch movies while doin stuff etc.

[RedFury77]

+1 to everything here.

I use two monitors and I think it's great - I only use one for gaming, but it allows me to have things like CPU, GPU etc. temps on one screen, as well as some IM and Steam, which means I don't have to keep switching screens all the time.

 

You can also do things like play music on one screen and not have to switch applications etc. when you want to change songs/pause stuff etc. You can also have a web browser on one screen while typing something up on another screen if you need to take references from a webpage. Seriously, the possibilities are endless. 

 

It takes a tad of getting used to but once you do it's much better than using a single monitor.  

That's exactly how I do it.  Thanks for writing that out for me

 

[Kiro]

Ditto. ^^

 

I'm considering a third monitor, but I'm not sure what I'd use that for other than for chat, monitoring, etc. background tasks.

[Fogel]

I will be the lone wolf here.  I have two but only keep 1 on because if I'm chatting while I am gaming it is via voice chat and the only time I cared to see the interface is when 20+ people were in the lobby and I didn't recognize all the voices.   I don't like to keep too much software when I'm gaming as I'm very sensitive to latency delays.

 

So the only time I actually really like two displays is when I'm doing actual work.  If I was still building websites/forums for a living I would be loving both displays.  Now I'm just thankful I picked a display with resolution so I can do window mode 1920x1080 gaming on a 1920x1200 monitor.  If I do want to run a monitor program the extra 120 pixels is enough to show whatever critical information I want to see.

 

I'm a fan of 16:10 IPS displays, but not really a fan of multi-displays (unless I'm doing work then more the better) at home.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Fogel

[SpeedCrazy]

Once you get more, you'd wonder how you survived without them.

 

 

+1000000

[WhenKittensATK]

My annoyances with using Nvidia Surround.

 

1. No toggle/profile button to enable/disable Nvidia Surround

Reason: Playing videos full screen spans across all 3 screens very annoying. It also breaks Window Snap feature. Would manually have to go into Nvidia Control Panel and disable it and re-setup all my monitors as expanded.

 

2. Monitor bezels bugged me after awhile. I used the bezel corrector and that fixes it, but it also hides elements that would be there, so bad for certain games where you need to see where people are.

 

I no longer use Nvidia Surround for gaming. I have my monitors in expanded mode and use Portrait - Landscape - Portrait for multi-tasking. My suggestion would be to buy one high resolution monitor flanked by two other monitors. Game on the bigger one and use the side monitors for multi-tasking.

Edited April 16, 2013 by AZNguyen