Start11 using multiple video cards on one monitor

from Stardock Forums

I have a Samsung G9 monitor. It's one of those Ultrawide things and is basically 2 QHD (2560x1440 x2) screens put together to make a single 5120x1440 screen.

Anyway it turns out my laptop can't power that with one port. As it's for work I don't really want to upgrade the PC just yet as it does what I want (coding/web design). Luckily it's still a pretty good PC and so has 2 video cards. I use both of these outputs (mini-DP and HDMI) to get the G9 to the full resolution. With a bit of mucking around it's 99% of what you would expect with one output. Will do basically.

As it's really 2 screens behind the scenes then the taskbar is repeated. Liveable but slightly annoying. I remembered I had a lapsed Stardock Object Desktop so renewed it and bunged on Start11.

Start11 is much better than when I used the older versions years ago. I've got it setup to have icons in the middle, but still can't see how to have a single taskbar stretched over the whole monitor. I have the Start button twice basically, and any running apps are shown on the side of the screen they are on (better than duplicating on both displays if you ask me).

Any idea on how to do this? Or this is a feature request? Essentially it's keeping to one single taskbar over multiple screens (even if it means the center most icon is split between two screens), not having a repeated taskbar like Win10 does as standard.

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3,212 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

I have forwarded your report to the Stardock support team for their review and recommendations.

Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates.

We really do appreciate your feedback, thanks.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks that’s great. Sounds like should be simple to implement so hopefully can get a fix for it.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Even if it's just right orientation for the left monitor and left orientation for the right monitor I would be happy with that. Making it one taskbar over two monitors with center icons though would be ideal

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I am afraid this is so incredibly niche that it wouldn't be economically viable to implement support for.  Taskbars are very much a one per attached display thing.

Sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Thought that maybe the case. Totally understandable. Nevermind duplicating the icons on both taskbars with left orientation pretty much is good enough, as all apps appear to the right of the middle, with the system tray to the left of the middle. I then pretty much just ignore what's on the left hand side of the screen. Workable until I upgrade my PC at some point.

Thanks for looking into it!

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

If your laptop has an AMD or Nvidia graphics chip, then there's a pretty easy solution for this: Enable AMD Eyefinity / Nvidia Surround.

These driver features allow you to combine multiple monitors into one large virtual monitor. It's usually used to allow games to stretch across 3 to 5 monitors, but it also works perfectly on dual-input ultrawides.

You also mentioned having DisplayPort. You should be able to run 5120x1440 over DisplayPort, though you'll need DisplayPort 1.4 if you want to run at the monitor's maximum refresh rate. DisplayPort 1.2 and lower will be restricted to 5120x1440 @ 60 Hz

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

It has Intel graphics, and Nvidia. It's just not that new. Plus I'm using both cards to power the single screen at full resolution. Each one is not good enough to power the monitor on it's own at full resolution.

(Mini) DisplayPort on my PC does not handle that resolution. I've looked up the PC capabilities. It's an old XPS.

Sure, I could get a new PC for the price of the monitor, but as it's only for work (coding, web design etc) then it does just fine. Esp when you can work around things. Plus work is locked into Win10 and I'd rather a new spangly PC would use all the benefits of Win11.