Playing Games on One Screen.

[Cheazypeaz]

Hi.

I have matrox parhelia 128mb & 3 X 21" Sony Trinitron Monitors.

I would like to play games on one screen and have desktop on the other two, is this possible, if so, how?

Thanks

[Kruzin]

The only way to do that would be to play the game in a window.

[Cheazypeaz]

How would i do that!

[High_Jumbllama]

That would depend on the game.

[Marshmallowman]

alt-enter
should work for alot of games

[Cheazypeaz]

Didnt work....

[Kruzin]

Not all games work in windowed mode, and some could be affected by powerdesk settings.
Might help if you told us what game(s) you're trying to do this with...

[Cheazypeaz]

delta force black hawk down.

I can get it windowed from a server manager program i have, But the problem is its tiny, like 640 x 480 on my 1280 x 1024 dekstops!! I cant change this :S

[UtwigMU]

You could switch to dualhead independant (requires a reboot) and play game on primary screen, while having apps you need on secondary screen.

Problem is, if games won't let you go to windowed mode or alt tab out of them, there's little use for side displays if you can't interact with them

[Cheazypeaz]

That sounds nice but then would i lose the triple display on ut2004 etc?

[UtwigMU]

You switch for the game you're currently playing, then you switch back to triplehead stretched.

A reboot is not as hard.

Otherwise:
If you really need stats, you could get a 2nd PCI card and connect it to some monitor's other input

Then when you're playing games, you stretch desktop to that card, position it's monitor to say right of triplehead desktop, switch input on right monitor and drag apps over and play games on main.

[Cheazypeaz]

I dont have that kind of space, surely theres an easiar way of doing this?

[UtwigMU]

I meant in windows display properties.

[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]

Monitors 1 2 3 all connected to Parhelia, but monitor 3 is connected to PCI car with it's second output.

Windows would most likely (I haven't tried it) see this as 4 monitors as PCI card is also connected to monitor.

When you're in desktop, you uncheck stretch my display to monitor 4 (in fact 3, it's other input is connected to PCI card)

Before you game, you enable that monitor and switch inputs, so that it displays image of PCI card instead of Parhelia's 3d head.

Otherwise IMO a reboot switch to dualhead independant or windowed mode is best.

[Cheazypeaz]

Got no money... Think ill have to work out how to window it, cheers neway

[Kruzin]

Some games, you can stretch that window just by grabbing the corner of the window and dragging it out, or clicking the maximize button at the top right of the window.
Other games, there is some type of ini file you can edit edit to adjust the windowed size to what you want (I don't have that particular game, so not sure if it can be done there).
Some games (particulary older DOS based games) don't work in a window at all.
Still others will only work in a window of a specific size...