# PC Question - Dual Monitors

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-question-dual-monitors/386288>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 1, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-question-dual-monitors/386288 "2007-01-01T12:50:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gerome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Gerome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gerome)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-question-dual-monitors/386288/1 "2007-01-01T12:50:00Z")

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I’m currently running dual monitors on my PC, and it’s all working out fine. Except that if I run a full-screen game, in this case _Civilization IV_, and switch to a window on the other monitor, _Civ IV_ will minimise, and the computer will spazz out briefly, as it sorts itself out. This isn’t really that significant a problem, but it is annoying, and I was wondering if there was some way to stop this from happening? It’s conceivable I don’t have my monitors set up correctly.

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**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-question-dual-monitors/386288/2 "2007-01-01T13:01:20Z")

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No, not really. Some games handle it better than others (usually by forcing the cursor to stay in the full-screen monitor. For the ones that don’t, I usually just go to the screen preferences and turn off the second monitor while I play.

Luckily, more games are getting this right these days. I actually have more problems with things like Microsoft’s development tools, which still use the archaic “application desktop” system (all the document windows are children of a “main” window) – and therefore are hideously multi-monitor unfriendly.

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**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-question-dual-monitors/386288/3 "2007-01-02T23:46:51Z")

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Have you tried running Civ IV in windowed mode, but enlarged until it takes up the entire screen? I get similar kinds of problems with some of the way-to-graphics-intensive online games that I’ve played. They just don’t share the video card well when in full screen mode.