Second Life refuses to run in Dual-Monitor setup

Okay, I hate to sound knit-picky, but this has been annoying me for a long time, and I'm tired of 'just dealing with it'. Dual-monitor setup on my GeForce FX 5700 256MB card. I've gotten so used to it that I don't like having one desktop overly cluttered when I'm trying to code, edit images and whatever else I happen to be doing.

One cannot offer me a valid reason or excuse as to why Second Life does this so far; OpenGL applications of any sort, of any level of stress to the graphics card, have absolutely zero issues running while I have "dual-view" enabled. Except Second Life. It will not start, says my graphics card is a "Generic GDI" device, gives me the option to try to run it anyways, then says I don't appear to have the hardware to support it.

I understand how hardware detection can make it easier for those who don't know much about computers, but it gets in my way more often than it helps. Kind of like Windows XP's "dummy mode" options, or Clippy from MS's office stuff. It's not really necissary. Might want to try making it an optional thing rather than forcing it, 'cause it really does get in the way. Heck, leaving it an open option leaves room for people to seriously tweak things the way they want it rather than how Second Life feels it should run. Might help people eliminate some of the crashing issues they've been having, too.

Have you set SL to run in windowed mode ?
Dual monitor works fine for me but SL must be windowed.
It's an option in the prefs.

In other words.. I need to disable dual-monitor support, start SL, tell it to go windowed, exit it so it doesn't freeze up when I change the graphics card back to dual-monitor mode (which resets it) so SL doesn't freeze, then restart SL? Call me lazy, but that seems like alot of work.

... and it didn't work. It still says I'm running GDI Generic, which means I also have to reboot, then start SL.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Maybe when I feel like it. To quote a WarCraft 2 footman: "I DO have work to do."

Im using 3 screens, gf6800gt, 21"lcd 2x19"crts, all i did to make SL work with mine was ,
start SL, preference, window mode, drag it to wherever screen you want

What vid card drivers do you use?, i used both 71.84, 77.30 from www.nvidia.com,, seem to work for me.

Seems one of your drivers gone into loon mode, shouldnt say generetic gdi , that sounds like compatible drivers from microsoft ;_;

*wants three screens*

I have a GeForce FX 5700VE 256MB & dual monitors. I run windowed same as mentioned above and have no issues. Well, except that I wish the SL UI would drag out of the window.

I agree, try new drivers.

I've had no issues at home with a GeForce 5950.. fullscreen and all.

The GDI error usually means one of these:

1) The current graphics card isn't sufficiently compatible.
2) The current graphics card drivers don't provide sufficient OpenGL support.
3) There are multiple graphics cards currently enabled, and one of them isn't supported. (This happens most when someone installs a graphics card and fails to fully disable the onboard graphics in the Windows Device Manager and/or system BIOS.)

Incidentally, which of the dual-screen modes are you using with the nVidia drivers?

I have an nVidia 5700LE with 256 MB and use two monitors with no trouble at all. SL can be running on either monitor, split across the border, or spread out all the way across both monitors. It works full screen or windowed, although windowed works best for rapid switching between applications.

I don't have to do any annoying changing of SL settings or the nVidia display settings.

One a separate computer with an unrelated video card I was getting a Generic GDI error message in connection with SL and it appeared that the cause was the main fan had seized up; I replaced the fan and the video card and SL became happy again.

I have dual monitors on a GeForce 5800 Ultra, and SL works fine whether I scale the window over both or drag it from one to the other. It sort of sounds like what you're doing is wanting it to run in full screen over both monitors, is that right? I'm not sure if there's a way to do that, to be honest. I've never tried, though. I run dual monitors, SL on one, so windowed mode makes the most sense for me.

(Also, you can change your shortcut's properties to run 'secondlife.exe -noprobe', which will disable the hardware probe. If the hardware probe is interfering with running on dual monitors for you, that might explain why.)

As others have stated, run SL in a window to solve your problem. I use dual monitors, and I keep SL sized to cover the entire left one and half of the right one. This way, I can keep the inventory window, mini map, editor window, and stats bar all on the right while having a completely unobstructed fullscreen-like feeling on the left monitor. I've tried it with it completely covering both monitors, but I don't like the way the av winds up stratilng the frame between the two screens.

funny thing , im getting the exact same error now,
"your video card appears to be a GDI Generetic" ,,,,eeeeh ? i can log in a few times in SL, but then it suddenly wont let me start at all, pretty odd.

Not to sure but it seem to happen every time i turn on local light now, i could log in 6-7 times without it, second i turned it on everything just went blah im not letting you in.

Odd ^^