Lag in windowed mode?

[Ren.182]

Ok, i got a new CRT monitor today. A big 21" thing.

Anyway, the lag has only started happening since i started using the monitor. I used to play Guild Wars in windowed mode on a 19" CRT perfectly fine with no lag at all. I used 1280x1024 on the 19" and i'm still using 1280x1024 on the 21" monitor.

I guess its becuase the screen is bigger and the gfx card has more strain to render stuff on a bigger screen. I say "card" because i play in windowed mode with a single card (not SLi) so i can still use my secondary monitor.

Any idea why i'm getting such bad lag in windowed mode, and any idea how i can fix this? (games play fine full screen with a single card with the second screen still displaying the desktop.)

EDIT: btw, Monitor is an IBM P260 if thats any help.

Thanks for any help.

Also, while i'm here, anyone recommend any good programs which will help me clear up my processes. They've built up over time and rather than formatting i'd rather just clean it up. Thanks <3

 

[DrDevin]

Windowed mode requires more resources then fullscreen mode. Also, resolution is stretched to fit the screen. A larger screen has no impact on performance, 1280x1024 will always be 1280x1024 no matter what size screen it is filling.

Look in your videocard control panel to check if anything was changed when it detected your new monitor. The problem could also be unrelated to the monitor and instead be caused by spyware/drivers/etc.

 

[Ren.182]

Well seeing as its only started happening since i installed this monitor then i'm guessing thats it. I'll have a quick look in the control panel see if there is anything looking dodgey.

EDIT: Can't see anything which may cause lag... :/

Anyone else got ideas?

 

[Asus]

If you only used 1 monitor before but the you kept the old monitor on as a 2nd display, that added desktop real estate which will drag framerates.

Also if there is something graphic heavy like animated gif, flash and even the winamp/itunes song bar and visualization can drop framerates.

 

[Ren.182]

When i played games in windowed mode before, i had the game window on my primary monitor, and the secondary monitor was still turned on. Sometimes it did display winamp (with the scroll text say what song was on) and msn with maybe a few chat windows open. I could even browse the web on the secondary monitor at the same time and never get any lag.

I just tried Guild Wars again with nothing showing on the secondary monitor (just the background, which is only blue) and it still lagged. Everything is fine if i just use one monitor, windowed mode doesnt lag. It's just i like to play in windowed mode sometimes so i can still talk to the girlfriend and friends.

 

[3ssence]

On the processes front, type msconfig into the run prompt and you will be presented with a number of tabs, of which there will be a services and startup, you can use these to manually check/uncheck which services you want to run on windows startup, and these include those that you will find in your processes list.

 

[-Psy-]

Running a 21" monitor at 1280 x 1024 will run exactly the same as a 19" monitor.

It's like a TV. You can get enormous TV's but the resolution that they run at is always the same.

 

[Ren.182]

I tried a roll back of video drivers and windowed mode works fine now.
Oh well.
Thanks for the help etc guys.