SL suport dual monitors?

Does SL support dual monitors? If so how does it work? Curious as I have the option to add another monitor but need to know in advance if it is worth it (extra monitor from NewEgg accidentally shipped to me- I'll open it and keep it if SL is dual-monitor friendly, but not otherwise).

Thanks,
Legba

No, SL does not support dual monitors. That being said, haviong dual monitors is nice for having other apps running like a web browser or photoshop or poser if you are a content developer.

I have a triple monitor setup.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to get the SL viewer to use more than one at a time. I wish I could; I'd love to be able to put my inventory and object create/edit windows on another monitor.

Although I have found it handy to have SL in one window, and a browser with LSL reference guide in the other when I do scripting.

Well, the answer is yes and no. The yes part is there's nothing stopping you from sizing ANY open window to span two or more monitors, SL included. (So Doran, there most definitely IS a way. Simply run SL in a window, which I'd recommend you do anyway, dual monitors or no.)

The no part is that as soon as your SL window overlaps your second monitor by as little as one pixel, you can count on your frame rate dropping a good 20-30% or more. The viewer isn't optimized for multi-monitor support, so the program slows down as it has to figure out how to keep swapping between the two.

It didn't used to be that way. A couple of years back, I used to keep SL spanned across a monitor and a half, which was really handy. I was able to keep my inventory, mini map, and build/editor window open all the time on the right, while enjoying a completely unobstructed view on the left. The avatar was a little off center, of course, on the left hand screen, but who cares? It worked great, no slow-down.

Then, all of a sudden with one of the updates (1.4 maybe?) it didn't work any more. As soon overlap by so much as a pixel, and BAM, FPS in the toilet. So, I had to give that up.

There are still of course lots of uses for a dual monitor setup, even with SL just on one of them. I almost always have Photoshop running at the same time as SL, for example. Create a texture on the right, upload and apply it on the left. Beats the hell out of swapping back and forth.

That's an interesting comment. I have a dual monitor setup too, and I used to occasionally run SL filling both monitors. I found the same thing you did. Somewhere around 1.4ish it became too slow to be useful. I also used to run 2 copies of SL sometimes, with one on each monitor. That became impossible to do around the same time.

I've just got a new PC earlier this week so it'll be interesting to see if the same still applies now that I've got a lot more horsepower to throw at it. I'll try to remember to have another go at both options this weekend.

There's something else worth being aware of when running something graphically intensive like SL in a window on a dual monitor setup. From my experience it's pretty important that if you're not intending to have the window span two monitors, you ensure that the entire window is definitely restricted to one monitor. If even the tiniest bit of the SL window is appearing on the second monitor (even if it's just a bit of the window border) it can have quite a detrimental effect on the graphics speed. Of course the easiest way to avoid that is to maximise the window, but if it isn't maximised you'll want to take care u don't have any overlap to the other screen.

I run SL and SL FirstLook on 1-4 screens, each at 1600x1200 in windowed mode. Slows down a little, but not too bad if you bring in the max-view-distance. You need a monster machine to do this, probably, but there's nothing stopping you in the client itself.

Two monitors set horizontally with SL maximized is a pain, though, because the center of your vision is then exactly between the two (assuming they're the same size). I find that the optimum configuration is 3 horizontal monitors with the client using the right 50% of the left monitor, 100% of the center monitor, and 50% of the right monitor.

If the L-gods are listening, please hear this supple humblicant's request for a set-logical-center-of-view feature. For instance, I'd prefer to have my center of view set to the 1/3-2/3 vertical point. OTOH, if you'd respond to any of my resumes and applications for your UI expert position, I'd just fix it for you. Us. Whatever.

IMHO, it would be better to allow undocked windows for inventory, chat, friends, etc., allowing us to put those things on the second monitor.

But good support for running SL across monitors, with an offset for point-of-view, would still be very cool.