Elysian Shadows

I'm thinking about dropping two bills on a second monitor. I'd like a 22" widescreen for gaming, and have no other use for the monitor I already have (19" Flat Panel.) So since my video card supports it I thought I'd try it out.

I'd like to get the community's input on what they like/dislike about the two monitor set up. What makes it so beneficial from a programming and/or game development stand-point? How taxing will it be on my video card? Will it qualify me for L337 H4XX0RZ status?

I've been using dual monitors since forever. 90% of the time my main monitor does what it always does, and I just have IRC maximized on the second.

It's also badass to be able to look at a website/reference in one screen and code on the other. You can also watch videos/stuff on one monitor while you do other things on a second.

I've become so attached to my two monitors that I want to die at work.

Yeah, I want two or three monitors :/ IRC/IMs = 1, IDE = 2, References/web browser = 3

I use two monitors at work and it's damn useful. I'm the opposite of Falco - I've only got 1 monitor at home and I've gotten spoiled from my 2 at work.

If I'm working on a web app, I can have the page running on one monitor and the Visual Studio on the other. Or if I need to reference a document or excel file, I can have it dedicated to it's own monitor without tabbing back and forth. A co-worker of mine actually uses 4 monitors. He swears by it - 1 for email, 1 for a web browser, 1 for Visual Studio, and 1 for IRC & misc. I just haven't sucked up enough to IT to get the extra 2 monitors.

Ive got two monitors and to be honest Its a worth while investment.

Ill post a picture of them when I get home. ( My school has photobucket blocked )

I have two huge monitors at work and it is absolute heaven for the art tasks I have. So much monitor real-estate. Unfortunately I only have 1 monitor at home.

Dual monitors is a theoretical heaven for me. I'm still on a list to get a second monitor at work, and as soon as I can stop spending hundreds of dollars every week on audio equipment, I'll get one for home since I have a video card that can handle it finally. Though, I'll probably have to buy two, for two reasons: I'm insanely picky about computer stuff, and if the monitors don't match, I'll be annoyed. And my current monitor has been unable to turn off without being unplugged, or adjust any settings since a very large static shock from touching the power button fried the side component that does these things. Luckily it was stuck in the "on" position, or I would have had to buy a monitor a while back.

Cool! Thanks for all the feedback. I'm probably going to pick my second monitor up Thursday :D

Yea... They are unbelievably useful.

I have an LCD and a CRT, but looking back and forth between them gives me a headache because of how different they are (brightness, color, resolution).

As long as you get a pair, I would definitely go with two as opposed to one any day.

Bludklok wrote:Yea... They are unbelievably useful.

What game is that? Looks like a pretty intense interface.

PS Where in Jersey are you from? I'm originally from Marlton.

aamesxdavid wrote: What game is that? Looks like a pretty intense interface.

PS Where in Jersey are you from? I'm originally from Marlton.

I just assumed it was WoW, but since I don't play it I dunno.

WoW with probably a billion Lua GUI pluggins.

GyroVorbis wrote:WoW with probably a billion Lua GUI pluggins.

Actually , it looks like there's very few addons

Yea, that looks pretty stock to me for WoW, just spells on the right and bottom.

I use dual 22s both at work and at home.

The Good:
Like everyone above said, its pretty much awesome incarnate...

SupCom on two screens is nice.

The Bad (Or more like keep this in mind):
Vista doesn't really help you orient windows in each monitor. Generally I'll have stuff maxed out on each which is actually pretty wasteful. I've loaded the Windows 7 beta on and it improves it somewhat, with the auto sizing on the left + right. But it only works on the far right of the right monitor and the far left of the left monitor, there's no middle ground. At least there wasn't, maybe the RC has fixed that. Ideally I'd have pages going half screen for surfing. I'm not sure how well Linux ____ /OS X work with this.

And the really annoying thing, VS2008 code view doesn't really work on two monitors at once, although you can drag the subwindows out (Solution Explorer, and Task list for myself). This frees up some screen real estate so I can do split view and see most of my code. But I would prefer being able to do more as I'm start and stop with my project enough that I often have to go back and look at my implementation of a specific feature.

Also note, if possible make sure you have a GPU capable of pushing games at native resolution, otherwise you'll have this very attractive stretching/squishing of other windows in your second monitor.