Dual Monitor

[Whisky]

When I launch some software and games, it tends of display it's self in between both monitors instead of my primary monitor. Are there any ways to solve it? Please explain indetail, im new to Linux. Just move to it after that stupid Windows 10 release

[sounds like a wooosh]

It is important to know which program organizes this for you. Are you using a standard Ubuntu with the normal Unity deskktop? Which version of Ubuntu?
Good luck.

[Whisky]

Sorry, I forgot to add that in. I'm currently using Ubuntu 14.04 Gnome

[Zyro]

I don't have two monitors attached, but I did some googling. I would try the following in gnome-terminal before starting a game:
xrandr --output HDMI1 --primary
Of course, the output parameter may be different for you, and you might have to install xranrd beforehand (something like "sudo apt-get install xrandr" might do it).
I can't tell if it will help you. Unfortunately, I got the impression that dual monitor support for games is not very good under Linux. Hope you get it running.

[Whisky]

Thanks for the help but sadly it didn't work

[DIRT]

Some window managers don't know how to open windows in a dual monitor, it just sees it as one big desktop. XFCE's window manager worked the best with multi monitor setups. KDE's kwin is a close second. With kwin some windows treat both monitors as one big desktop but it has good screen focus. Games knew where to open. Both desktops let you set the primary monitor where new windows open by default.
Gnome has been removing features ever since version 3 started but I believe the active screen is the one that has the activities bar in it. The rest you can't configure, because gnome thinks you don't need to configure things.
(xfce needs compton to fix screen tearing is the only thing I'd knock it on, but no biggie)

What I do is run games in a window at my desktops native resolution. XFCE and KDE can make those windows full screen. Its a lot less risky to do it that way.

[Letalis Sonus]

Originally posted by DIRT:

Some window managers don't know how to open windows in a dual monitor, it just sees it as one big desktop.

That might affect positioning, but pretty much everything else (especially on fullscreen OpenGL applications) is handled by the software itself - those are purely affected by how well the software's RandR support is written. If something does not just pop up between 2 screens but actually streches across the whole desktop, it simply doesn't support handling multiple monitors via RandR.

Extreme Tux Racer and Yo Frankie! used to stretch across *everything*, for example. I don't know about the latter, but ETR's multi-monitor support is still utterly broken, although in a different way.

I was actually quite amazed how well Valve's games were handling this right after their Linux release. Even if games did use only one screen and didn't messed up your current RandR configuration, you never knew whether they were actually using your primary screen or just the one in the top left corner - the ability to choose it yourself was something that used to be extremely rare.

[daniel.mantione]

There are multiple ways to configure multi monitor Linux system. Some approaches appear to the operating system as a single big monitor. You don't want that. May I ask what video card, driver is used? How many monitors are shown by xrandr?

[Whisky]

I'm using the NVIDIA binary drive v331.113 from nvidia-331 (proprietary, tested) driver. I tried installing xrandr but it tell me:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package xrandr is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
x11-xserver-utils:i386 x11-xserver-utils

E: Package 'xrandr' has no installation candidate

The settings on X Server shows 2 monitors

[daniel.mantione]

Then install the x11-xserver-utils.

[Whisky]

Done

[毕贤胜[Linux]]

a horrible workaround for this is to open a terminal on the display you wish to keep games "tied to" and enter the following command:

echo $DISPLAY

you should receive something along the lines of

:0.0 or :0.1

depending upon which display is set as your primary device.

and here's why it's a horrible workaround:

for every game in steam which you experience this issue, right click the game, choose Properties click the SET LAUNCH OPTIONS button and in the text input field put the following:

DISPLAY=:0.0 %command% (or DISPLAY=:0.1, again whichever one is set as the display you want the games tied to.)

it's a horrible and tedious workaround but it does work

[Whisky]

It seems to be working but on window mode. For some reason, it will go back in between when its in fullscreen.

[DIRT]

Originally posted by Letalis Sonus:

Originally posted by DIRT:

Some window managers don't know how to open windows in a dual monitor, it just sees it as one big desktop.

That might affect positioning, but pretty much everything else (especially on fullscreen OpenGL applications) is handled by the software itself - those are purely affected by how well the software's RandR support is written. If something does not just pop up between 2 screens but actually streches across the whole desktop, it simply doesn't support handling multiple monitors via RandR.
extremely rare.

I always run my games in a window then let the window manager bump them up to full screen. 0ad stretches like that. I run it in a window then tell the window manger go to full screen and it goes full screen in one monitor. Full screen apps scare me in linux. Especially wine where it can crash the entire computer if your "real" full screen game crashes.