Take control of your monitors with display profiles

Modern graphics cards come with some very powerful software tools. If you've never used (or found) them, you'd be forgiven for wondering why they're useful but features such as Profiles in the AMD Catalyst Control Center make changing monitor settings quick and easy.

One reason for using profiles is for switching between different methods of using two monitors. Dual monitors can be good fun with games and I freely admit that I'm mostly thinking of flight simulators. Partly because I'm a fan but also because the tend to offer the best support for monitors, whether it's Flight Sim X or DCS Black Shark.

The only snag is that the ideal settings for a dual monitor desktop don't always lend themselves to games. Extended Desktops keeps the Task bar on just one monitor and stops messages appearing half on one screen and half on another. The best results for games are with a stretched desktop.

Setting up different profiles for games and general windows use avoids having to comprimise, and lets you spend more time doing fun stuff.

Right-click on the Catalyst icon in the Notification area and then left-click on Catalyst Control Center.... Click on the Profiles option at the top and then Profiles Manager. Click in the top box (it has a drop down option but you can still enter text) and type 'Normal'. Select 'all Catalyst Control Center settings' at the bottom and click on the Save button. Click on Close.

The next step is to set up the display for gaming. Right-click on the icon for Desktop 2 that looks like a monitor with a red wallpaper. Left click on the option 'Stretch Desktop 1 horizontally onto monitor'. The displays will flash and when they come back on again, you'll see that the Task Bar appears along the bottom of both monitor.

To save the new settings, click on the Profiles button again and then Profiles Manager. Give the new profile a name, click on Save and then Close.

You can switch between the profiles by clicking on the Profiles button, Activate Profile and then the name of the profile.

There's also an option to switch profiles from the Notification Area. Right-click on the Catalyst icon, left-click on Activate profile and then the profile name.