Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Dual monitors


NOTE: Looking for a recommendation on where to acquire Wildvine that doesn't require herbalism. I remember them dropping quite well from trolls, but since cata removed tons of old mobs I don't know what is still in game.


This is something I'm a little surprised that I haven't written about before. I recommend to anybody that uses their computer for anything more than sending email to do immediately. Get a second monitor! Most video cards these days have a second port that you can plug another monitor into and it is (for the most part) plug and play. Hook up the second monitor, shuffle your desk around some to fit it and 15 minutes later you're done.

To get a decent size monitor is extremely cheap today, especially when compared to only two years ago. Hell you can probably get a good sized one of average quality for only $100 if you look. No this isn't going to be a techy entry today, this relates entirely to making the wow gold and then some.

Simply put, using two monitors makes life infinitely more convenient in so many ways, especially if you're a gamer and is a necessity if you actually work on your home computer. I've been using two for something like 8 years now and have no idea how I could possibly use a computer without it. Yes it is that amazing. Please, allow me to tell you why!

Multitasking. That is the name of the game and has always been one of the most important skills an AH baron could ever have. Having a second monitor lets you spam your post auctions macro while reading such fine blogs as theahpile.blogspot.com for example. Also while collecting mail or scanning the AH you can still keep an eye out on trade chat while doing your normal irl business.

Here's another practical point for it. You'll never have to worry about saying "sorry, was tabbed" ever again. Ever. You can be sitting in raid waiting for a ready check and watching cartoons or what have you and you still won't miss it. Also you'll never need atlas loot or half of the questing addons out there. You can search wowhead while playing wow (so you can wow while you wow or something like that).

Also if you're like me and try to have as few things open in wow as you can, you can look up a recipe on wowhead and look for the mats on the AH or start heading toward the vendor that sells them. Another thing I use it for is to be mass crafting or de'ing stuff while writing entries for the blog like this one. In fact I'm currently crafting a ton of enchanting rods while I write this sentence.

As a personal note on the ease of play that two monitors gives me, I can be busy drawing in photoshop on one monitor while watching for the pull on the other so that lets me get even more work done in an average day. Think about your average day on wow. There's constant times where you have to wait 2 minutes here, 5 minutes there and so forth. That's a lot of time that you could be doing something instead of sitting on your hands and just waiting.

Like I always say, time is the most valuable thing in the world because you cannot create more of it or get back any that you've lost. Simply put, having a second monitor allows you to do so much more in those small blocks of time. And of course if you do any irl work on the computer you'll make life a whole lot easier by not having to move windows around. Trust me on this one, it is most definitely a worthy investment.

Is there anything that you have/do IRL that improves your AH game?


Thanks for stopping by!

11 comments:

  1. You're right, a multi monitor setup is the way to go. I couldn't even imagine going back to just one, alt-tabbing every couple of seconds and only being able to do one thing at a time and keep track of one thing at a time.

    But you make it sound as if that would be the end of the story where it actually (at least for me) is just the start.
    I often enough find myself playing wow while watching a video while browsing the web while monitoring programs for work and end up still missing the occasional dungeon invite because I was alt-tabbed out, even with 3 monitors :-X

    By now I could go up to 6 before running out of perfectly valid reasons why I could really use another one!

    So my advise on that particular topic would be to make damn sure every monitor you buy can be attached to a wall mount. Even with just two of them, mounting them on at least a simple stand will save you more desk space than one would think. ;)

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  2. My first experience with dual monitors was actually on Stok's pc. Talk about having a whole new world open up to you! Not only for play, but for work as well. The added bonus...working on one monitor while playing on the other as asdf mentions in their post.

    After my experience on Stok's machine I added the second monitor to my machine. A total blessing for those like Stok and I that do a good chunk of our work from home.

    No folks, we don't live on game. Afk crafting on 1 screen while making the "real green" on the other is so win! Thank you my darling for coming into my life and for the dual monitors! =)
    You Goblins out there really should consider the second monitor. It will change your gold making in ways you could never imagine!

    Sound advice from Stok's lady,
    <3 Fickle Little Riddle

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  3. @ the above poster...
    No, i dont care about your suggestion or your link, you are a lot of things for doing what you do... If you post is not deleted and the link taken away... a link to a thing I will not check out, I will probably stop reading this blog.

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  4. And about dual monitors. LOVE THEM.. 28 inch wide screen is the main... and 17inch old one is the other... a million advantages and good things to say about it... great blogs to read while waiting, way to go to your favorite website about epic loots. Monitor vent and who is on and talking... love that for raiding...

    One technical note... More monitor size and quantity does take more GPU time... You can creat reduced frame rated depending on what you hook up (how big and how many monitors at what resolution) and what you hook it up to (how good is your GPU/video card).

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  5. The size of the monitor makes no difference on the GPU time. The resolution does, and the number of active outputs, but assuming the same resolution and content, a 19" would use the same power as a 28" monitor.

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  6. @ Asdf
    You got it right on. And I may have to look into wall mounts actually. I have plenty of room on my desk for the two I use and all of my other assorted things like coffee mug, soda bottle, ash tray, 5 kinds of assorted snacks etc. My only concern would be that it may be a bit too far away and would be pretty annoying to get used to.

    @ Michael and achieve
    You're right that monitor resolution is important, somethign I forgot to mention. If you get a second monitor make sure you don't mix a wide screen one with a plain 4:3 one as things will tend to get messy.

    Though personally I do use mixed resolutions, but that's entirely for work related things. For anybody else having two at the same resolution (and preferably same size) is the way to go.

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  7. so.. on GPU time.. does running in windowed mode slow things down? something is tickling my brain about windows vs full screen modes and FPS/CPU/GPU... >:-/

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  8. There are wallmounts and then there are wallmounts.
    If you get a simple piece of metal that stops one screen from falling of the wall or an arm that holds several of them somewhere in midair where you'd like them to be is merely a question of how much money you are willing to spend on it.

    As to the wow performance, I've been running in windowed mode since before druids were good at anything but healing and never noticed a problem.
    And as long as you don't open a second wow client on another monitor (very helpful for cross faction trading) just having it won't affect your framerate either.

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  9. I do this in a different manner. I have a laptop setup on the L shaped desk, next to my desktop computer. WOW on the desktop, and everything else (reading blogs, working, researching, etc.) on the laptop. It works well for me, especially if I am working on some AH spreadsheets and can take them with me to finish as time permits.

    Either way you go, multiple monitors is nice!

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