DEV Community

Cover image for Achieving Full Screen PBP in 4K, One Person's Journey

Achieving Full Screen PBP in 4K, One Person's Journey

Houston Haynes on August 10, 2019

Theory vs Practice It seemed simple. Use a 4K monitor to run multiple computer screens simultaneously. There are dozens of choices for t...
Collapse
 
skthegr8 profile image
SK

Amazing article and extremely useful! Thank you for all the help sir. I can’t even imagine why this isn’t part of the basic guide with every monitor. Sadly some brands like LG doesn’t have windows version for dual screen controls but just has Mac OS version

Collapse
 
houstonhhaynes profile image
Houston Haynes • Edited

Thanks so much! I agree that monitor manufacturers should do more to "meet users where they are" instead of those companies expecting everyone to have tribal knowledge of those that inhabit that world.

Collapse
 
oakcollin profile image
Collin Oak

Thank you very much, it helped me. My Linux machine works fine after using the NVidia Control panel. My windows laptop is giving me trouble though. I can stretch the picture to the full half of the 4K monitor, windows settings says it's 1920x2160, NVidia driver says the same, however the picture looks like 1920x1080 stretched to 1920x2160. So for the time being it makes only sense to use the left half with full resolution and right (Widnows) with FHD only.

Collapse
 
oakcollin profile image
Collin Oak

I actually see in the dialog for setting screens in Windows, going into "Advanced Screen Settings" of the 2nd monitor, that it says: Desktop resolution 1920x1200, Active Signal Resolution 1920x2160. Obviously, my resolution is set to 1920x2160. I can't find a way to affect this weird behaviour.

Collapse
 
oakcollin profile image
Collin Oak

Fixed!! Using superuser.com/questions/1396229/wi... and particularly this note: "If the correct resolution is already selected then select a incorrect one from list select apply ok then do the same thing for correct resolution. (Windows 10 version 20H2)". I switched the mode on the graphic card to 2560x1440 and it significantly improved, I then switched it back to what was set - 2560x1920 - and it works perfectly now!

Thread Thread
 
insight profile image
xbliss

I am going to follow in your foot steps.

One curiosity, how do you get the Custom new "Full Screen Resolutions" for
a PBP x 2 or 4 - if your laptop does not have Nvidia GPU?

Can the same be done via Windows?

I wonder if anyone tried pushing one of these odd resolution spaces using a Surface Pro?

Thread Thread
 
houstonhhaynes profile image
Houston Haynes

I imagine you might try to find the same settings for the respective video driver - AMD or Intel/on-chip? I'm assuming you mean that you're driving an external monitor with the Surface and it's one of several inputs - such as my case where I'm driving a 4K with an MSI laptop (clamshell closed in most cases) and an Intel NUC on another input. I haven't had any difficulty in setting it up with the AMD equivalent control panel - just a bit different in how you get to the controls. You just have to experiment with it. There's always an odd dance between the OS and the GPU driver, even if it's an on-chip co-processor that Intel piggy-backs on their laptop chips.

Collapse
 
pheelon profile image
Pheelon • Edited

personally i had the best results for this with one of the cheapest available models on the market (at least in europe) - the Philips BDM4350UC - its an older Model (released in 2016) but it was actually designed to be used this way (Phillips calls it MultiView) and supports PbP 4 - wich means it can display 2 to 4 separate Display Sources in 2 by 2 Grid and it adjusts the relations between those sources (up to a point).

At one time i had it setup to display 1 Source at 2160x1920 and 2 others at 1920x1080 (over each other) next to it.

Edit: An this one actually looks a lot like your first picture - so if that was it i can answer your question with - yes it works.

Collapse
 
oakcollin profile image
Collin Oak

Cool! Gotta try that 1/2 4K + 2xFHD setup :-)

Collapse
 
insight profile image
xbliss

I am going to follow in your foot steps.

One curiosity, how do you get the Custom new "Full Screen Resolutions" for
a PBP x 2 or 4 - if your laptop does not have Nvidia GPU?

Can the same be done via Windows?

I wonder if anyone tried pushing one of these odd resolution spaces using a Surface Pro?

Collapse
 
andrkaln profile image
andrkaln

thanks for idea to look into driver scaling setting, finally made it work PBP
for philips 349X7, however in my case, picture qualify seems affected, black text (cleartype-off) on white background fine, but on grey background, i see halo like shadows (lighter not darker). seems monitor is not so good in picture composition and artifacts appear. similar happens if sharpness is tweaked up too high :(

Collapse
 
houstonhhaynes profile image
Houston Haynes

Interesting. Glad you got it to work. I suppose they may sacrifice some scaling in order to support two inputs.

Side note: I have to admit that I don't use the ViewSplit window-arrangement management app as much as I thought I would.It's clunky and I can get nearly the same behavior from the default Windows 10 conventions of dragging to corners/edges to snap things into place. I do like the arrangement that allows for three 1:1 windows along the bottom - for multiple editing terminals. But now I mostly use Visual Studio Code and simply to splits in the editor. [shrug]

Collapse
 
magnuse profile image
magnuse

Thanks for taking the time and writing this. This helped me solve the PBP problem I had with my LG 32UD99-W. Instead of getting two small screens keeping the old aspect ratio it is now setup to show two 2160x1920 screens when in PBP.

Collapse
 
insight profile image
xbliss

I am going to follow in your foot steps.

One curiosity, how do you get the Custom new "Full Screen Resolutions" for
a PBP x 2 or 4 - if your laptop does not have Nvidia GPU?

Can the same be done via Windows?

I wonder if anyone tried pushing one of these odd resolution spaces using a Surface Pro?

Collapse
 
andrew_bruce_4f507c258a94 profile image
Andrew Bruce

Can anybody suggest current (2024) PBP solution which will work successfully for MacBook / Win 11 boxes? I really want to have a single solution (small space, no room for multiple monitors) and I'm sure that combining apple / m$ into the same mix is going to be problematic.

Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
houstonhhaynes profile image
Houston Haynes • Edited

Is it not visible in the sub-header? ViewSonic's VX4380-4K (I just noticed that Dev doesn't show it - but it appears when referenced in LinkedIn - go figure) You'll also see a little Easter Egg in one of the screen shots. :)

Collapse
 
dokall profile image
Sakthi Vel

thank you, Houston.

Sakthi

Collapse
 
santhoshr profile image
santhoshr

Thank you very much for the article, able to split nicely with my Acer 32 inch 4k monitor, with two inputs from PC and Work laptop