[aareyn]

I have a question if you hook up dual monitors does it take more processing power?

What I want is to have both My monitor and my TV plugged into my computer so that on occasion I watch shows I'll be able to quickly switch to my TV and vice versa. But I am wondering even though my TV will be off when I am playing games on my monitor although still plugged into my PC will it still take up memory/processing power?

I have it on Duplicate Displays and even though my Vizio is off it still recognizes my setting as such on Windows 7 which makes me curious. only reason I am asking is because I like to run intensive games so any extra power I can spare is crucial.


Thank you.

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Hello aareyn

Yes more memory and CPU processes would be used but the better the video card and overall system specs the less it will affect the CPU and Ram performance.

[phillpower2]

Hello aareyn

Yes more memory and CPU processes would be used but the better the video card and overall system specs the less it will affect the CPU and Ram performance.

[PhrantiQ]

Unplug it or disable it when you are not using it, as it will draw from your resources. Using the hotkey combo Windows Key and P will help - as you can cycle through the options by pressing P again.

[aareyn]

so it being disabled but still plugged in it won't take up any memory usage?

[PhrantiQ]

Correct. Disabling it is fine, turning it off just means the monitor doesn't see. Disabling is the software level of unplugging it (which is hardware level).

[dsenette]

as a general note....generally a system that is capable of having dual monitors is configured with the resources needed to function adequately with two monitors connected for general purposes (assuming you've got a video card with dual monitor support and you're not doing some fancy stuff with two single monitor graphics cards). so basically, the general answer that having a second monitor connected and on uses more ram/processing power is correct, the system should already have that taken into account since all of that processing is done on the graphics card anyway. general display (especially if nothing fancy is happening on the second monitor) shouldn't cause you to notice any difference in performance whether the second monitor is on, or off.

[PhrantiQ]

as a general note....generally a system that is capable of having dual monitors is configured with the resources needed to function adequately with two monitors connected for general purposes (assuming you've got a video card with dual monitor support and you're not doing some fancy stuff with two single monitor graphics cards). so basically, the general answer that having a second monitor connected and on uses more ram/processing power is correct, the system should already have that taken into account since all of that processing is done on the graphics card anyway. general display (especially if nothing fancy is happening on the second monitor) shouldn't cause you to notice any difference in performance whether the second monitor is on, or off.

So many uses of 'general' in that response, haha. Anyway yes, however the direct line I was aiming to answer was...

I am wondering even though my TV will be off when I am playing games on my monitor although still plugged into my PC will it still take up memory/processing power?

Which unless it's set to disabled, it will likely still see the monitor/TV connected and send what would show (provided it was on). Thus taking up resources. Now to simple disable the extend display during these times will increase his resources available by not having them send anything to said disabled TV/monitor(s).

I have also gone ahead and tested this on my personal machine (uses 4 screens and a 5th larger TV that I toggle on/off for movies/media as needed). Although my system doesn't need to have any of them off when gaming (power house machine), I was able to get much better graphics/resource availability with the other monitors disabled vs them being enabled but nothing on them even. Now when you put say youtube/video/music/applications up on the other screens, there goes even more of your system resources (of course).

Anyway this is no shot at what anyone here has said but to further explain the findings/sense in which I meant to cover better in my prior post. Also to address that single line (as I stated and had quoted above from the original post).