My games need viagra - they won't stay up!

June 23, 2009 2:03 PM

(Vistafilter) Cannot full screen with dual monitors

Please MeFi, help me before I do something violent, or have a breakdown. This is frustrating me to an obscene degree.

I use a computer with dual monitors. It's home built, and is currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The issue is that when I try to run a full screen game, the screen goes dark, the secondary display flashes a few times, then it minimises the application. If I try maximising it from the taskbar, it MIGHT manage to get it to come up, usually taking a half dozen or more tries.

My google-fu has utterly failed me on this one. Currently my only solution (sort of) has been to maximise the game, set the resolution to the native res of my main screen, then close the game, edit the properties of the shortcut so that the "Run" option is "Maximised" instead of "Normal". Only then will it go fullscreen first try. I have to do this for every new game, and there are certain games which do not seem to work with a shortcut and must be run directly from the disk - these games I just have to patiently repeatedly click on the taskbar button. Games that do not have the option to run at native res are fubar, it's pot luck whether I can get them to maximise.

Changing the screens has not made a difference. If it's important, my graphics card is a GeForce 8800GT, latest drivers.

posted by fearnothing to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Ok, looks like I need to make a major update to this: it's worse. Now even if I disable and disconnect the secondary monitor, the game still won't maximise.
posted by fearnothing at 2:10 PM on June 23

This is not normal behavior for Vista - Vista runs full-screen games just fine under regular circumstances. Perhaps there's something off in the video drivers or the nvidia Control Panel.

Try setting everything to defaults with in the NV Control Panel and see if it changes.
posted by Rendus at 2:43 PM on June 23 [1 favorite]

Don't have a solution for you. But my Vista 64 dual screen system with a GeForce 9800 GTX and mismatched screens works fine. Driver version 182.08. A few very old games have trouble doing full screen, but many old games and all new games have no problem at all. (Good new games: Team Fortress 2, Warhammer Online.)

I'd try reinstalling the NVidia drivers and DirectX. If that doesn't fix it, try running in a single monitor setup and see if you still have the problem.
posted by Nelson at 3:42 PM on June 23

Ah, gents, I have found the solution. *sheepish grin* Apparently it's not Vista64 itself that's the issue, but a 64-bit version of an app that I was using before switching. Closing the app solves the issue. It only seemed to be Vista64 specific because the 32-bit version of the app didn't cause the issue.
posted by fearnothing at 5:19 PM on June 23