TwinView extended mode has a much greater set of features than clone mode. Unless you've actually had experience with multiple monitors, it can be difficult to grasp what's going on. Fortunately, I've included pictures that illustrate the various features of Extended Mode using Windows 98.

With TwinView extended mode, the Windows desktop area is spread across two displays. The configuration (refresh rate, color depth, and resolution) of each display can be independently set via the Windows Display Properties. This mode can be configured for multiple display types, although display limitations may override the capabilities of the GeForce2 MX.

If the second display happens to be a NTSC TV, you won’t be able to set the resolution above 800x600 or set the refresh rate above 60Hz because of to the limitations of the TV. If a PC monitor is used in such a configuration, its refresh rate and resolution can be set much higher.

Using the Windows Settings control panel allows the desktop to be extended horizontally, vertically, as well as at other angles by positioning the desktop display icons. Simply drag the icons to the positions that represent how you want to move items between monitors.

In this example, two monitors are positioned side-by-side. Applications can be moved from from one monitor to the other by dragging left and right. Similarly, applications can be moved between monitors by dragging them up and down. In this case the control panel display icons would be positioned one above the other.

Extended Mode: AGP

Extended Mode: PCI

Looking at the extended mode picture on the left shows the Windows desktop being extended onto the second (smaller) monitor. Internet Explorer spans both monitors and there is a column of icons at the far right of the second monitor with Quake 3 on the top. Clicking the thumbnail to enlarge the image will give you a better example of how extended mode works.

The image on the right shows MadOnion's 3DMark2000 benchmark running on the larger display, while the smaller display shows the 3DMark2000 application itself.

The Desktop Display Manager can be enabled via NVIDIA's Quick Tweak applet and allows you to run one or more applications on one or both monitors. This feature primarily works in conjunction with the TwinView Span and Extended Desktop modes.

Key features of the Desktop Manager include:

• Re-centering of dialog boxes, preventing dialogs being split between two monitors
• Maximizing an image to a single monitor and restoring application windows to their last-used position
• Hot keys to move windows from one monitor to the other
• Specific application support, such as the ability to display Microsoft PowerPoint slide shows on a single monitor without breaking the display across two monitors when in multi-monitor mode
• Displaying zoomed views of the screen area under your mouse cursor and changing the zoom level on the fly

Using the Desktop Manager Hot Keys tab allows the configuration of different keys to manage multiple displays. For example, a hot key can be used to move all active windows to another monitor. The default keys are defined as follows:

• Alt 1: Move the active window to another monitor.
• Alt 2: Move all windows to another monitor.
• Alt 3: Gather all windows to one monitor.
• Alt ~: Switch to another application desktop.

The picture below shows the results of using the Alt 1 key to move a graphics editing program to the TV. Before the move took place, you can see part of the application in the right corner of the the monitor.

Extended Mode With TV-Out

The image on the TV is enlarged since it's running at a resolution of 800x600 while the monitor was running at 1024x768.

The Desktop Manager Zoom feature allows a magnified view of an area of the screen around the position of the mouse cursor. The zoomed view appears on the display on which the mouse cursor is not pointing.

The zoom feature can be toggled on and off and hot keys can be assigend to increase and decrease the magnification level from a minimum of 2 times to a maximum of 32 times. A time delay can also be set to allow the mouse cursor to make the transition to the second monitor before zooming takes effect.

Zoom Mode To TV

Zoom Mode With Monitor

The image on the left shows a screenshot from the main character from Alice. The TV is running an image viewing application while the montitor illustrates zooming in around the characters head. The image on the right shows the nV News home page on the smaller monitor and the logo zoomed in on the larger monitor.

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