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Span across multiple monitors in Vista


Aerandir Telrunya

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Hi there,

I installed Vista (Home Premium 32-bit) today and found the the 'span' option for mulitple monitors isn't available through the NVIDIA Control Panel, only dual view (which is not what I'm after).

The reason I'm wanting the span (or specifically Horizontal span) is that I'm trying to get a game to full screen across my two 17" CRT's which are plugged (one via a dvi->vga converter) into my 7600 GT.

After a night of googleing and searching through forums I've still not found a solution.

The only glimmer of hope I found was on this site (specifically http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=14837 ) where it says:

Fixes issue where vertical and horizontal span modes are not available as nView Display Mode options in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Vertical and horizontal span modes are now available.

But this is where I come unstuck...

I've tried installing that version of forceware (although I used an INF file from somewhere else... and not the recomended Pieter's INF as I didn't know where to find that) but it didn't seem to enable the span option (I assume I'm looking in the correct place at NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Set up multiple displays).

So basically I'm wondering if I did something wrong (and if I did then some 'idiots guide' instructions would be greatly appreciated so I can have another go) or if not then is it possible for me to get this working in some other way?

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Span modes will never work in Vista due to its retarded DRM. You should use XP.

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The link to the driver you gave has a folder with multiple *.inf files. This link

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=918

shows the corresponding manufacture.

Hurm... I tried looking in that folder but none of the INF's matched my card (its the 'desktop' version of the 7600 GT ie. not the 'go' version)... do you know where I can find this 'Pieter's INF'? I'm quite new to this site and installing custom graphics drivers in general so you'll have to bear with me.

Span modes will never work in Vista due to its retarded DRM. You should use XP.

Unfortunatly I keep hearing this :)

But two things spring to mind. One, I've heard that ATI can do it in vista (apparently) so why can't nvidia and two, why does the information on that driver (a vista driver) say its 'fixed' when its not?

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  • 2 weeks later...

what do you guys mean by "span" anyway???

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In Span modes windows only sees 1 big monitor. Task bar/GAMES/programs can stretch across both monitors.

It explicitly states in the driver release notes I believe (on Nvidia's website) that span modes will never work or be implemented in Vista.

This is mainly due to all of the DRM bull**** in that OS.

Unfortunately no on around here listens to me when I tell them not to buy it.

I am having lots of fun using XP on my new laptop. I can enable span mode easily whenever I want with any working driver as long as there is a second monitor attached.

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  • 3 months later...
Hi there,

I installed Vista (Home Premium 32-bit) today and found the the 'span' option for mulitple monitors isn't available through the NVIDIA Control Panel, only dual view (which is not what I'm after).

The reason I'm wanting the span (or specifically Horizontal span) is that I'm trying to get a game to full screen across my two 17" CRT's which are plugged (one via a dvi->vga converter) into my 7600 GT.

After a night of googleing and searching through forums I've still not found a solution.

The only glimmer of hope I found was on this site (specifically http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=14837 ) where it says:

But this is where I come unstuck...

I've tried installing that version of forceware (although I used an INF file from somewhere else... and not the recomended Pieter's INF as I didn't know where to find that) but it didn't seem to enable the span option (I assume I'm looking in the correct place at NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Set up multiple displays).

So basically I'm wondering if I did something wrong (and if I did then some 'idiots guide' instructions would be greatly appreciated so I can have another go) or if not then is it possible for me to get this working in some other way?

no dont worry u made no mistakes NVIDIA doesnt support horizontal or vertical span on windows vista just spent an hour on the phone with dell,and ur gona have to downgrade to XP!!!!! i no it sucks me too!!!!

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  • 7 months later...
  • 2 months later...
Guest f Vista

Why the hell would we spend $350 on crap that should have been included in Vista. Basically if you upgrade to Vista, you're downgrading in functionality. WTF kind of logic is that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After fighting against this problem for a while I have found a work around.

For each application that you would like to stretch across multiple screens, you can try to customize the resolution.

For instance, when I connect remotely to another computer using remote desktop, I can use command line switches, so that the short cut runs "mstsc.exe /h:1050 /w:3360". This particular program has a /span option which accomplishes the same thing. In Half-life 2, there are command line switches for resolution height and width, and a no border switch that allows you to run the game in windowed mode without having a window border.

Some programs may not have command line switches or you may not no what they are. Depth of Peril is a game for which I do not know the command line switches. So, as a backup, if you have an nvidia card, in the nvidia control panel you can create custom resolutions. I created one of 3360x1050. Then, in DoP, I can play the game in a window of that resolution. (I cannot use full screen and that res, because it tries to crush everything into one monitor.)

I hope that helps!

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Eric

I still think it's still retarded that Vista doesn't allow desktop spanning when some games that do support multiple monitor requires desktop spanning to be enabled; when XP 64 bits have really crappy driver support; and when XP 32 bit (or any 32 bits OS) won't like my PC's 8 GB RAM. Obviously I can't use older Windows because I'd have to give up almost 5GB

DRM just doesn't work. No matter how well they try to make it work, hackers still find a way around it anyway. All Microsoft is doing is making 99% of legitimate users suffer due to their incompetence and that 1% of users who would rather steal video and music than paying for it.

If desktop spanning is still not implemented with Windows 7 when it goes live, my next OS will likely be a MacOS. I never had trouble with the multiple monitors on Macintosh and iMacs

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  • 3 months later...
Guest writevli

I still think it's still retarded that Vista doesn't allow desktop spanning when some games that do support multiple monitor requires desktop spanning to be enabled; when XP 64 bits have really crappy driver support; and when XP 32 bit (or any 32 bits OS) won't like my PC's 8 GB RAM. Obviously I can't use older Windows because I'd have to give up almost 5GB

DRM just doesn't work. No matter how well they try to make it work, hackers still find a way around it anyway. All Microsoft is doing is making 99% of legitimate users suffer due to their incompetence and that 1% of users who would rather steal video and music than paying for it.

If desktop spanning is still not implemented with Windows 7 when it goes live, my next OS will likely be a MacOS. I never had trouble with the multiple monitors on Macintosh and iMacs

You say you never had trouble with mult monitors with an imac, can you make a horizontal span using apple 24" led display? I'd like to use many programs: photo-editing software and games using the full screen directly, not just dual.

I have an Intel 3.06Ghz 24" iMac, Nvidia gefore gt 130

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