Life was so simple when I had one monitor on my PC. Life was better and still simple when I used two of the same size and resolution. Then I went and complicated it by getting a Dell U3219Q 4K monitor and paired it with my old Dell S2409W 1920×1080. Here’s the low down on mixing and matching monitors.
Why a 4K monitor?
I use several applications which have fairly complex multi-panel user interfaces which they try (fairly successfully) to fit on one screen. My photo editor (ACDSee Photo Studio), video editor (Da Vinci Resolve), web development (Pinegrow) and Windows Programming (Delphi) all work better with four times the screen real estate. Microsoft Office apps like Outlook, Excel and Access can show more data, and Word can show a full letter size page in portrait mode and still be legible. And of course, playing a video full screen is four times as good!
Having said that, you don’t actually get four times as much of everything because you wouldn’t be able to read it. On my PC, Windows recommends a setting that scales text apps and other items at 150%, which works well. (This setting may change depending on the physical size of your monitor.)
I think the expression is: “If you want to take away my 4K monitor, you’ll have to pry it from my cold dead hands.” It’s that good.
But it’s not all rosy.
Multiple monitors
I have grown to love having physical separation with multiple monitors. Some programs allow you to detach panels from the mother ship and move them to another monitor. Many of the ones mentioned above allow this. Then there is the synergy between separate programs which happens when both are visible at the same time. Having an email program open at the same time as a browser, so you can read the email and look at a referenced link at the same time is invaluable. Or programming on one monitor while looking up syntax or finding examples on another. Or dragging an image from a file explorer window to Facebook. My favourite is ignoring ads on one monitor while doing something useful on the other.
My problem was (a) not being able to justify buying two 4K monitors and (b) not having the physical space. I did start with my 1920×1080 monitor squeezed beside the 4K, but the arrangement is not ideal. With two identical-spec monitors, one can move the cursor to and fro, drag whole windows between monitors, or even extend a window to cover both screens. When a window that is 3840 pixels wide is dragged to a screen 1920 px wide, some hangs off the edge. When you move the cursor from a 1080px high screen to one 2160 px high, there is half of the height where the cursor just “bounces off” the edge. One has to remember to move in a curve to get through the “opening” which is common to both screens. We’ll get back to this in more detail later.
The vertical solution
It occurred to me that if I turned my “1K” screen 90° then I’d solve two problems: it took up less real estate on the desk and it aligned the 1920 side with the 2160 side of the 4K monitor, so cursor movement was more natural. Not totally natural, because the 1K pixels on a 24” monitor are bigger than the 4K pixels on a 32” monitor, so in my set-up, the cursor moves almost straight across near the centre of the screens, but jig-jags at top or bottom. But it’s very acceptable.
I made a monitor stand that holds the S2409W vertically. At first, I physically aligned the bottoms of the two monitors, but I found I was getting neck strain trying to read text near the top of the monitor through the bottom of my bi-focal glasses. My first version also didn’t have enough support out front, so a small tipping of the screen would move the centre of gravity past the front support, and over it would go. I changed the base and lowered the attachment point, so the bottom of the screen was almost at desk height – much better.
There are only a few changes to tell Windows about: in Settings | Display | Display Orientation, choose “Portrait (flipped)” and if it’s not already set, under multiple displays, choose “extend desktop to this display”. Set “make this my main display” – probably on the big screen.
I very much like the ability to have two format choices for placing my windows. I tend to keep Outlook and my browser vertical, and usually my file explorer replacement (Xplorer²) with two file panels stacked vertically. Many websites now favour a vertical orientation – the phone influence – so I can surf through posts on a 24” “phone”! If I want to watch a video, I just drag the tab to the 4K and full screen it there. I try to close the last browser window on the vertical screen so it will open there next time I open the browser.
Vertically challenged
There are some visual issues with the vertical monitor. There has always been a colour difference between two monitors when they are viewed from different angles – one has to move to view it from 90° to get the truest colour. This seems to be worse when the S2409W screen is turned vertically. Given that the screen is designed for horizontal operation, I can’t complain about this, but it does mean that I do all photo and video editing on the U3219Q.
It’s not possible to specify different wallpaper on each monitor (so far as I know), but as my wallpaper is mostly blue sky, I set the background colour to match that (approximately) using a custom colour and set the fit to “fit”. “Centre” or “Fill” would also work, except my photo is geese in flight and this options cut off one goose’s head, which seemed extreme.
I ran the Clear Type adjustment to improve the look of text on the screen which I think did make a visible difference.
In Outlook, I adjusted some fonts and column widths so that the screens I view most of the time were optimized for fitting in 108opx wide, and I made minor changes in some of the apps which run on multiple screens or ones I might move from screen to screen.
Lastly, I used the graphics card’s utility to adjust the colour and brightness on the S2409W. Most of the time I don’t notice, but the desktop wallpaper’s change from screen to screen bugged me.
Complicating matters with three monitors
At some point, I realized that my video card supported THREE monitors, and I had a spare HDMI output. Also, the TV in my office is above the right wing of my computer desk, and my stereo had a spare HDMI input. Obviously, fate had determined my path, and was not to be denied. My PC is right next to my receiver, so a short HDMI cord got me going.
This works quite well resolution wise, as the TV is the same proportions as the U3219Q, but I again had to try to fix the colours via the video card adjustments. One little bonus is that if a video is encoded for 5.1 sound, the HDMI connection accommodates that and passes it to the receiver to process, and I not only get to watch on the big screen, but in surround sound as well.
The real issue is that Windows doesn’t know if the TV is there or not so when the TV/receiver is not set to receive display 2, the cursor can disappear, and occasionally whole applications.
Windows applications lost on a phantom display
Most apps remember where they appeared last, and will re-open in that location next time. If that location is the TV, then there will be a button on the taskbar, but no application window is visible, and there’s no obvious way to access it. This can be disconcerting the first few times it happens, as the initial reaction is that the app didn’t open.
The low-tech solution to this is to turn the TV on, but if you click on the button in the task bar to put focus on the missing app and then press the Windows key and an arrow key Windows marches the errant window across your screens and at some point it will appear on one that you can see. In practice, one gets used to moving apps to the appropriate screen before closing the last instance – it’s just simpler that way.
Having said that, I do occasionally “lose” an application that I have no recollection of running on the TV. The Snag-it editor has ended up there a couple of times. This is either a mystery or or more probably user error.
Windows cursor lost on multiple displays
Even on a single large monitor, it’s not hard to lose the cursor, so I long since set the Ctrl key to highlight the current position. (Mouse properties | Pointer options | Show location of pointer…) But with more screen real estate, more drastic action is required.
Rearrange your displays strategically.
When you have more screens defined than you have active, it’s possible to run the mouse off an active screen into a phantom screen. Normally, you would set up the “Rearrange your displays” diagram so that it physically matches the hardware set-up. Logically I would put the TV to the right of my vertical screen so that mouse movement would naturally flow across the screens. However, I found that too often I would move the cursor too far and lose it. I prefer to “put” the TV somewhere that isn’t on the normal flight path of the mouse cursor. Where there is no adjacent screen, the mouse cursor just stops if you go too far. Something I discovered was that screens don’t have to be lined up corner to corner. I experimented with just a tiny space where the cursor could “escape”, like these, for example:
But in practice, if the cursor does “get through”, it’s not easy to guide it back, with screen 2 inactive. So I have the TV above the top right corner of the U3219Q, where I don’t often go off track.
The little diagram of your displays is scaled for screen resolution, not physical size. Thus the S2409W [3], which is physically taller (in portrait) than the U3219Q [1] (landscape) actually shows smaller by a little bit. After experimentation, I found I like to set it so that the centres of each display line up. Now the cursor can cross between displays almost anywhere; near the centre, it crosses over in a straight line, and the further towards the top or bottom, the more pronounced the zig-zag. Others may choose to align the top or the bottom, depending on their work flow.
Make the cursor more visible
In Mouse settings | adjust mouse & cursor size, I have made my mouse bigger, and changed the pointer colour to “inverted”, which makes the mouse black when it’s on a white background, white when it’s on black, and an inverted colour when it’s on a colour. It shows as red when it’s on my blue wallpaper, for instance.
When all else fails and the mouse is still lost
Despite all of this, I still lose the darn thing several times a day, and rather than fuss about, I have set up a hot key, “Windows-Z” which brings the cursor back to the centre and then “presses” the Ctrl key to attract my attention.
I’m fairly sure I got the basis for this autohotkey script from superuser.com:
#z::
#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.
DllCall("SetCursorPos", int, 1800, int, 1080)
Control::
return I compiled it and put the exe in my startup folder so it runs when I start Windows and is always available.
Conclusion
The set-up I have described is a good compromise for me. With a large enough desk and unlimited funds, I might go for a gigantic curved monitor, or two 4k monitors, but what I have set up works and works well. I only rarely use the TV option, usually for watching a video which is on a subscription channel as my TV is not a “smart” TV. In practical terms, if I want to show photos to someone, the U3219Q is quite big enough, and higher resolution that the TV. My main complaint is that I can’t trust the colours that show on the S2409W, and the solution to that is to do critical edits on the main screen – not a big deal.
So if you’re thinking of mixing and matching monitors, my experimentation can save you some time – go for it, you won’t be sorry!
