Jonesey 2004-07-28 12:20
Will there be the ability to shell out of a game, back to the normal desktop without minimizing the game? For example, I'm playing Warcraft 3 on monitor 1, and have IE open on monitor 2. I want to Switch to monitor 2 without leaving the game. Like a hotkey to switch between them without having to minimize the game. Couldn't you bind this to some key that normally isn't used in a game. Like the windows key + s or something? Thanks in advance.
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Christian Studer 2004-07-29 02:17
Thanks for the suggestion, this is something I'm going to look into for UltraMon 3, but I don't know yet if it's actually possible.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Jonesey 2004-07-29 10:37
Roger that. Just to let you know, you would definately get a strong pull from the gaming community upon doing this. I would recommend your product to a host of people, and websites for review, so as to help your business. As I'm sure a lot of other gamers would do. Thanks again.
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Misery 2004-08-05 02:46
I second that.
Such a feature would be most welcomed among me and probably all my gamer friends. :)
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ECM 2004-08-21 18:13
Let me third this most vociferously!
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Joe 2004-11-07 07:58
MUCH needed feature..
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antu^jamban 2004-12-03 02:21
count me in
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Kyle 2004-12-09 00:48
Mmmmhmm. :D
www.beyondthefield.ssbm.org
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vanjab 2005-01-01 02:18
The way i see it, this problem comes in 2 styles.
a) games don't let you out of their screen on monitor 1
b) games minimize if you move out and click.
Most games are type A (eg warcraft 3, halflife mods), some games however (eg sims2, HalfLife in menu) are type B.
Solving type B games would just involve catching the focus lost message (WM_FOCUSLOST or something) and discarding it. The rest would be trivial (eg checking if focus was lost to an app on another monitor, or if it was lost to an app under the game).
Type B games would be harder since you have to send a focus lost message to get the mouse back, but if you do that the game will minimize :|
tricky stuff indeed... I was planning on wriitng a test application that tried to catch and discard the lost focus message.
hope this helps, but you probably already knew this. Perhaps someone else will read this and it will spark an idea :)
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CalQdeX 2005-01-03 10:41
Not having this feature is the only thing stopping me from buying this software.
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Josh 2005-01-18 18:55
vanjab, I was also thinking about how you might accomplish this, although the approach I was thinking of was quite diffrent.
I can't remember the name but I have seen an app which gives you two mouse pointers and actually allows you to have a diffrent focus with each of them.
So I was thinking if this can be done why not just make a second pointer on the other monitor when a game is opened. Then rather then trying to move the cursor from the game over to the second monitor simply change the current mouse to start using the other pointer with a hotkey.
Of course, that would require figuring out how to get two mouse pointers going at once, if I can find the name of the app I've seen do it I'll post back. (Maybe I'm dreaming cause I'm not seeing it on google right now)
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JCA 2005-04-28 10:17
I'm looking for that program with two or more mouse pointers!
I think it would be a great idea. I've just tried to connect three mouses in one computer, it works fine, but they all control the same pointer :(
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Andrew 2005-05-26 07:41
Perhaps somethins like this would work? It is a driver that allows more than one mouse to be used at the same time. I don't know if it would work, because I don't have dual monitors yet.
http://www.vamos.de/english/dmouse.html
Tell me if it does!
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Allrounder 2005-06-30 14:20
I am searching too for this feature. While i am waiting to get into a game i could make a lot of things in the same time.
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Gmoff 2005-07-26 09:06
Agreed, this is the single thing I feel is missing from the current release to make the system perfect.
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Nx 2005-10-27 01:37
I agree this feature would make me buy this software
and im quite sure all of my multimonitor friends would do the same.
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Crow 2005-11-01 02:28
Hi everyone!
I was having the same problem. (mostly playing CS)
I had some time over the weekend an tried some different things and found a workaround for me.
I'm now playing CS in windowed mode (1024x768) and wrote a vbs script to change to an other UltraMon Profile (with 1024x768 resolution on my primary monitor) as soon as I start CS and to place this window to the position -3/-22 a short while afterwards.
This results in CS looking like fullscreen, but behaving like in windowed mode -> not minimizing while I'm working/surfing on the other screen.
After converting the script to an exe file I was able to start CS by HLSW and getting the right settings automatically and getting back my normal settings after quitting the game (through a second script which is executed by HLSW as well).
Greetz
Crow
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Waetfo 2005-11-14 14:29
Man, I have cs as well, can I please have that script? I presume it would work for other games too, like HL2 and that? If I changed the settings for those?
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Crow 2005-11-14 23:48
Yeah, sure you can have it. Just send a mail too pentamATgmxDOTde.
It'll work was HL2 as well. You just need to adjust the wait intervals to your loading times.
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Waetfo 2005-11-18 13:20
Hi, I sent you an email, and await your reply.
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Trey 2006-02-04 13:46
im also going to email about the script.. thatd be sweet with cs
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[unclan] Rhino 2006-02-26 15:06
Whoa, I need that script too! Hey, if you don't mind, someone email it to me with as much directions as possible and I will put it on the net as a how-to. I want to get this to work for BF1942/BFVN/BF2 as well, is it possible???
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Crow 2006-02-26 21:34
Hey Rhino,
just send me an email and I will send it to you. It will work with any game as long as it supports windowed mode.
Crow
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skythra 2006-04-22 13:38
just wanted to add, alot of games when you make a shortcut, just add -window at the end of run part... eg
"C:\game\gamename.exe" -window
that works for most of blizzard games.. and a few others too.
Perhaps just doing something like this would work, and then people can just either maximise it and work on the other desktop.
Im pretty sure unless you do this, you cant really do it properly, ie because its rendering only that area, there is no windows overlay.. as such. umm.. but yeah, .... hard for me to explain, i dont have the words =D
/skythra
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Matt Merkle 2006-09-02 01:26
I believe this is only possible when running in OpenGL. Direct3D with full hardware acceleration doesn't like to suddenly become a background process to another window.
OpenGL however doesn't really give a damn what you do. (For example, if you play Quake 3, hit the windows key. It'll give you your mouse back and you can do whatever you want on the other monitor. Most of the time, at least)
It'd still be a damn hard job to program in, but I'd definately be for it if you managed to pull it off!
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Sandman 2006-09-18 01:23
Unfortunately I believe this problem will always be dependent on the support of the game.
If the application is running in Directx exclusive mode then there is AFAIK no way to prevent the game from stalling upon loss of focus. Though I would welcome anybody to show this is incorrect... :D
The way to go would be like Blizzard have done with World of Warcraft - allow the game to initialise in a window but remove all the window dressings (ie the titlebar, min/max buttons), then there is little problem in changing focus - but again this requires the developers to implement this. I believe there is a small performance penalty with this option...
How this will change with Directx10 is unclear - id be willing to bet that the DX9 behaviour will continue for DX9 games under DX10, but this problem should all but disappear under native DX10 games... *crosses fingers*
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Dan L 2006-11-20 08:36
Final Fantasy XI is another MMORPG which does not allow switching to another window while the game is running. In fact, they go a step further and log you out if you do!
Fortunately, someone has written a program which allows FFXI to run in a window, yet it still believes it is running full-screen.
Once it is in a window, you can simply use Windows again as you normally would.
While this program only works for FFXI, maybe its concepts can be applied to UltraMon.
Check it out: www.windower.net
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TIM 2007-04-07 04:49
something new about this?
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azz 2007-07-07 17:39
Mmmm i would love my full screen video that i play on my secondary to not minimize when im surfing on the primary monitor any solution?
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Christian Studer 2007-07-08 08:29
You'll need a video player which supports this, for example Windows Media Player 9 or later.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Jooma 2007-08-13 03:01
I've been searching for a program that does just as the OP described.
Something where you hit the binded key and the mouse is released to the other screen.
The workaround I found for WoW is to just set the video options to Windowed and Maximized. Works perfectly. I just drag my mouse to my other monitor.
But for games more mouse dependent like an FPS, you wouldn't want it to work like this. You'd only want it to work when you held down the binded key.
Anyway like others have said, I can't justify $40 for this product as is since the only features I use from it are the extended task bar and the wallpaper settings. Other than that nVidia's Dual View does all I need my PC to do.
But if that mouse feature existed it would change everything. I'd justify $50 easy!
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Marc 2008-04-11 23:02
Hi, is there any solution to the minimize issue? I'm playing rFactor (car racing sim) and although I could run it in a Windowed mode I cannot maximise it afterwards meaning I see the screen edges and thats just off putting :(
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Christian Studer 2008-04-12 08:19
I'm not aware of a fix for this.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Griever 2008-04-21 10:27
4 years after the start of this thread, how far is development on this feature ? Or can it simply not be done?
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Christian Studer 2008-04-21 10:48
I don't think that this is possible, at the moment this isn't a high-priority feature.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Alex 2011-02-23 14:04
If its any help, I'm playing WoW, full updated right now. on my second monitor and writing this reply on the other.
The brought out this option for display "Window(fullscreen)" Its basically windowed mode but without the bars and perfectly to scale, amazing upgrade. I'm not to sure but i think SC2 would have it too. Its a really sleek and awesome idea. It might help somebody in some way or something but creating that upgrade for monitor software would really kick some ass.
Alex---
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scrapz 2011-09-07 14:02
seems like this works, check it out. http://www.ehow.com/how_6880682_do-multiple-screens-minimizing-them_.html
basicly alt/tabbing instead of mousing over out of the programs mouse range, i know some games dont allow alt-tab to another program *doom3 gives me this problem when attempting to answer a skype call or go to a webpage. hope it helps.
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leetNightshade 2011-09-12 02:30
Alt-Tabbing out of a game just causes it to minimize, and when I click back on the game it goes fullscreen and steals the focus again.
I'm going to try seeing if I can do anything about this in my own games; upon first tests of an oldish game I worked on, the second monitor actually goes black on fullscreen, which I've rarely experienced.
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Edgaras 2012-12-24 23:11
Erm what about games like LoL and StarCraft where "to push the border to move wieve" that borderless mode does not work in there than .. like in wow and stuff
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