Surround wallpaper without using eyefinity group

[Aquinus]

Hi everyone.

I was wondering if there was a way to have a background wallpaper to span across the 3 displays but in standard multi-monitor mode. Using a eyefinity display group is a pain because it treats the entirety of it as one desktop, which isn't what I want, but on the other hand I would like it if I didn't see the same image on all 3 displays. I say this because I mainly use my tower for work and development and only the occasional bout of gaming if I can squeeze it in, and even then i don't usually use surround for gaming. So has anyone encountered or found a way around this problem? I do dig the surround backgrounds, but I don't want to give up the functionality I have to do it.

 

[Aquinus]

UltraMon or DisplayFusion

UltraMon is bugged but DisplayFusion works perfectly.

I was hoping for a solution without having to download anything. DisplayFusion looks neat, but I think that I would try that as a last resort.

 

[d1nky]

worked this bad boy out!

put the wanted wallpapers on the desktop first!

Ok so using windows 8 > right click desktop > personalize > desktop background > picture location > desktop (with all the pics) > place/remove ticks in the lil boxes AND/OR right click pictures and choose screen


BOOOOOYEEEEEE IM HAPPY NOW!

 

[d1nky]

 

[Aquinus]

worked this bad boy out!

put the wanted wallpapers on the desktop first!

Ok so using windows 8 > right click desktop > personalize > desktop background > picture location > desktop (with all the pics) > place/remove ticks in the lil boxes AND/OR right click pictures and choose screen


BOOOOOYEEEEEE IM HAPPY NOW!

That's great and all but I'm still running Windows 7 and I don't have any motivation to upgrade.

 

[d1nky]

doesnt it work the same or similar?

worth a shot if you havent already.

 

[Aquinus]

doesnt it work the same or similar?

worth a shot if you havent already.

Yes, since Windows 7 behaves exactly the same as Windows 7 did...

No, that feature doesn't exist, if it did, I probably wouldn't be asking this question now would I?

 

[d1nky]

Some features are quite similar between windows 7 and 8, so It was worth a try tho before using 3rd party software.

Also it may be overlooked by a lot of people if it did work...

 

[Aquinus]

The problem even with using paint is that my center display is my primary, so a "long image" will wrap around from the right to the left and doesn't look right. I could fix it by having it wrap around at that point, but that's a terrible hack imho. I would prefer if I could just use a wide image and have it work.

...and no, I'm not willing to make the left most monitor my primary display.

 

[newtekie1]

I assume you don't want the left most monitor to be the primary display because you like the task bar on the center display.(I'm the same way with my machines that have 3 monitors.)

However, you can set the left most display as your primary display and move the taskbar back to the center display simply by right clicking on the taskbar, unchecking Lock Taskbar, and dragging the taskbar to whichever display you want.

Then set you long wallpaper and it will stretch across all the displays. And since most programs remember which monitor you last opened them on, the middle monitor not being the primary isn't really a big deal. You just have to "retrain" you programs so they open on the right monitor.

 

[Aquinus]

I assume you don't want the left most monitor to be the primary display because you like the task bar on the center display.(I'm the same way with my machines that have 3 monitors.)

However, you can set the left most display as your primary display and move the taskbar back to the center display simply by right clicking on the taskbar, unchecking Lock Taskbar, and dragging the taskbar to whichever display you want.

Then set you long wallpaper and it will stretch across all the displays. And since most programs remember which monitor you last opened them on, the middle monitor not being the primary isn't really a big deal. You just have to "retrain" you programs so they open on the right monitor.

It's also so games open (full-screen) on the middle display as well, the start menu was just half of it and full-screen windowed mode is unacceptable for Crossfire unless the game doesn't need it.

 

[newtekie1]

It's also so games open (full-screen) on the middle display as well, the start menu was just half of it and full-screen windowed mode is unacceptable for Crossfire unless the game doesn't need it.

Ah, good point. Hmmm...

 

[Aquinus]

Ah, good point. Hmmm...

It's a semi-crappy problem. I'm willing to tolerate it or using a background with a pattern instead. Fortunately the background doesn't impact my ability to do anything, but it doesn't look as nice as it could when people come over and I show it off. DisplayFusion looks very interesting but I'm reluctant to try it as I'm not sure how it will act for the limited times I do enable surround, not that my 6870s can handle it well, but some older and less intense games like TF2 or CS:GO run like a dream and the extra immersion really does add to the games, at least in my opinion.

I really might just be encountering a limitation with Windows 7. One of these days I might take a deep breath and take the plunge into 8.1, but I would really like to see MS smooth out their OS a bit more. When you look at big businesses like hospitals who used to use XP, they're switching to 7 because it's the best thing MS has got (as far as reliability and stability is concerned). So as long as I can get away with sticking with what I know works, I think I can suffer.

Unfortunately I don't quite have a whole lot of time to write an application that handles image transformations just to deal with this... Maybe one of these weekend I'll be inspired if I can find a good Clojure library to assist me.