Dealing with shifting windows on a multi-monitor setup

March 23, 2016 7:23 PM

I have two computer monitors: a 1920x1080 144hz one that I use as my primary monitor for gaming on and a 1680x1050 60hz one that I use as a secondary for browsing/chatting/miscellaneous things on. This nearly always works well, but I've been running into an issue where if I'm running something at fullscreen at a non-native resolution on my primary monitor it shifts everything offscreen on the other -- making chat windows or Netflix unusable. Is there an easy way to fix this on a software/system level?

Here's my monitor layout. Doing research on my own has told me a few things about this problem, mainly that it's been a thing for many Windows versions (I'm currently on 10 and I know it's been an issue since 7). It appears to result from Windows starting the desktop layout at 0,0 on the top left corner. and when I start something running at a non-native resolution all the relative numbers stay unchanged and "shift over" instead of it actually shifting the relative index over -- i.e. if i'm running a 640x480 game it doesn't start drawing the second monitor's layout at 641 but keeps it drawing at 1921.

The simplest solution appears to be to make my secondary monitor physically above and to the left of my primary monitor so that all the shifting is done off-screen, but unfortunately that's not an option given how my workspace is currently set up.

posted by flatluigi to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

This application tries to catch dll calls to make games run in "fake fullscreen"- windowed, but borderless. Might help for some situations.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:36 PM on March 23, 2016

Could you run the secondary monitor in DSR/VSR @ 1080p or the 16:10 equivalent? I don't know if this would solve your problem since I don't have your setup, but it might be worth a try.

I always end up using a program like Ultramon or DisplayFusion to quickly change profiles with hotkeys etc so if you find a solution that works but don't want to run in it 100% of the time you might look into that.
posted by selfnoise at 7:50 PM on March 23, 2016

I'd say make the monitor that goes fullscreen the 2nd one, not the one at 0,0 but I'm not even sure this works. Are you sure you need to run those games in fullscreen? Nowadays the only benefit is somewhat fuller usage of the GPU memory, blits VS swaps are a non issue with current bandwidth.
posted by coust at 8:34 PM on March 23, 2016

I have a dual monitor setup that is basically the same layout, with the monitor on the right being the secondary display (only difference is that both monitors are the same size and resolution), and unfortunately, I don't think there's any way to do what you're asking directly. Either you need to run the game (or whatever) at native resolution or in a window, or try to finagle the windows into the right location for the new layout before you start.

That said, one possibility you could try is to make your current secondary monitor your primary monitor, and then (somehow) get your games to launch onto the secondary monitor. This StackExchange answer has some suggestions on how to get that to work. I haven't tried this (I pretty much always run games at native resolution), but it looks promising.
posted by Aleyn at 12:14 AM on March 24, 2016

How about you keep the physical layout the same, but you just change it on Windows? 0,0 will in fact be on the secondary monitor, so when you go full screen on the other one it shouldn't affect it.

Sure, it will take you some time to get used to the inverted layout, but it's like learning how to ride a backwards brain bicycle. Once you got it, it's second nature!
posted by Promethea at 4:36 AM on March 24, 2016