Only black screen on duplicate monitor

[Mathūin Lucci]

All I want to do it play my steam games on my TV.
I'm using a new HP ENVY connected to my VIZIO TV with an HDMI cable.
I have the monitor settings on "Duplicate screen" so the same thing is going on my Laptop and my TV at the same time. Everything works as expected until I start up a game. I can see the game on my laptop screen but not the TV. It just shows a black screen. There's a brief flicker of what's there as the game starts up but nothing after that. Doesn't even get to the title screen

I'm about to have an aneurism. I swear to God it's impossible to find relevant information on this issue. I've searched here and on Google and other places and every time something looks like my question, it's totally different. I want only straight answers (and questions if it'll help me get where I need to be). I am extremely frustrated. Please and thank you.

EDIT:
I can see the games on my TV when I switch the setting from "Duplicate" to "Only second screen"

[Zekiran]

This is a feature, not a bug. Most video cards will do this, particularly with some older games, even on my modern rig with a titan card. Sometimes it's game specific, others I get just the regular wallpaper as it should be, but then I do not ever want my game on both monitors in that setup.

I've never been able to duplicate a game on a monitor and 2ndary one with the sole exception of my old XP laptop when I put a monitor into its display port, and that's not with a video card, and it was for playing half life 1 - which should tell you how old that system was that it would do this.

If you're trying to run games on a laptop externally... is your laptop capable of putting out enough power to do this? Is your power setup plugged in and set to performance / whatever option seems right to funnel power to the output device?

[Mathūin Lucci]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

This is a feature, not a bug. Most video cards will do this, particularly with some older games, even on my modern rig with a titan card. Sometimes it's game specific, others I get just the regular wallpaper as it should be, but then I do not ever want my game on both monitors in that setup.

I've never been able to duplicate a game on a monitor and 2ndary one with the sole exception of my old XP laptop when I put a monitor into its display port, and that's not with a video card, and it was for playing half life 1 - which should tell you how old that system was that it would do this.

If you're trying to run games on a laptop externally... is your laptop capable of putting out enough power to do this? Is your power setup plugged in and set to performance / whatever option seems right to funnel power to the output device?

My computer definitely puts out enough power for this, it's just being dumb. Like I said, it works fine when I tell it TV only but when I have it set to duplicate screens it only shows non-game screens on both. It's a black screen everywhere else. I am aware that I could easily play in windowed mode but I honestly can't stand playing games like Borderlands or Left for Dead or MTG in a windowed setting. Also yes, lappy is plugged in.

[Zekiran]

Oh I hear you on the windowed mode, seriously. Maybe check the manufacturer's site or forums if they have it, to see if anyone else has more specific advice on it.

[Mathūin Lucci]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Oh I hear you on the windowed mode, seriously. Maybe check the manufacturer's site or forums if they have it, to see if anyone else has more specific advice on it.

I'll try that. Thanks. Honestly I'm happy anyone even saw this, let alone took it seriously. Was expecting "Why do you even want to do that?" and stuff like that. So really, thanks for answering :)

[crunchyfrog]

I've seen this a lot on various places with people doing this. It mystified me as I do this all the time. I sit in bed with my laptop, plugged into my TV in bed. Never caused much issue with me.

Then I realised that the problem mostly manifests with American TVs (versus here in Britain and Europe). The issues seem to be that you used different connectors and have different aspect ratios for older signals. For whatever bizarre designe reason, the upshot of this is that modern US TVs will often point blank refuse to show older resolutions. It's REALLY common on the reddit PS2 threads. Many US users just won't have any display. But over here on this side of the pond modern TVs still often support resolutions like that.

So what to do? Basically, as Zekiran said - check the manual! You likely will find bugger all of use in there as far as these finer specs go, so don't be afraid to google for a workshop manual or service manual as these ALWAYS give you better data.

Best of luck.