Looking for Software that can Store and Switch between multi-monitor setups

[axipher]

I have a question for the forum regarding multi-monitor setups in Windows 11 with HDR.

 

I have my home office setup with two monitors via DisplayPort and then my OLED TV in the adjacent Rec Room via HDMI.  This is off my AMD RX 6700 XT.

 

They show up in Windows 11 as:

• Monitor 1: 1080p - 10-bit Colour - Primary - Display Port 1.4 or HDMI 2.0 input option - (Supports HDR)
• Monitor 2: 1080p - 8-bit Colour - Secondary - Display Port 1.4 or HDMI 2.0 input option - (No HDR)
• Monitor 3: 4k - 10-bit Colour - Rec Room TV - HDMI 2.1 - (Supports HDR)

 

 

Right now I typically just have Monitor 1 & 3 Cloned and Monitor 2 as Extended.  But Windows 11 doesn't allow you to activate HDR on Cloned monitors since they might have different Max Brightness and HDCP issues.

I have tried just having all 3 monitors Extended which allows me to enable HDR on Monitor 1 and 3, but then I have to move stuff like browsers and games between Monitor 1 and 3 if I want to just enjoy the Rec Room TV.  Also full screen games just default to Monitor 1 unless I change primary each time first.

 

Now the actual question is, are their any good tools that would work great for letting me have just saved Display Configs that I can quickly switch between using a taskbar icon or a bat file.

 

For example:

• Profile 1 - Office Work and 1080p HDR Gaming in Office:
  • Monitor 1: Primary with HDR On - 1080p
  • Monitor 2: Secondary (No HDR) - 1080p
  • Monitor 3: Disabled
• Profile 2 - 4k HDR Gaming/Media in Rec Room:
  • Monitor 1: Disabled
  • Monitor 2: Secondary (No HDR) - 1080p
  • Monitor 3: Primary with HDR On - 4k
• Profile 3 - 1080p (non HDR) Gaming/Media in Rec Room:
  • Monitor 1: Primary with HDR Off - 1080p
  • Monitor 2: Secondary (No HDR) - 1080p
  • Monitor 3: Cloned Primary with HDR Off - 1080p

 

Resolutions should stay constant between them, but if the tools allow for setting the resolution, colour depth and Windows HDR status, that would be amazing too.

 

Right now, my main solution is to look at just a physical HDMI splitter and send the same HDR signal to both Monitor 1 and Monitor 3 all the time, but some of those don't play nicely with HDCP content or higher resolutions and audio for gaming.  Or getting a cheap AVR that supports two 4k HDR outputs (TV + Projector) and I can just switch between them.

 

I'm hesitant to just throw hardware at a problem that could be solved in software though with less points of failure.

[axipher]

For reference for others following this problem, or have a similar setup, I did find an old tool from NirSoft, the makers of another well known tool called NirCMD that I've used on the past.

 

The tool is called quite simple MultiMonitorTool.  It can save current resolution and orientation, offset, refresh rate and on/off state.

 

It can save/load configs using the GUI or command line so I can setup two shortcuts to switch between my main monitor and OLED as my main screen.

 

Luckily in Windows 11 at least, colour Format, colour depth and HDR settings are saved per monitor even if they are disconnected; so when I switch on and off my main monitor and the OLED as primary monitors, they both keep their own HDR settings intact.

 

 

There are some issues with how open windows are handled and focus, and especially if you are going between monitors with different Windows Scaling values, so it's not a perfect solution, but I might be able to solve those with some other command line tools.

 

 

Left to fix:
- Window Focus

- Windows Game Bar breaks

- Switching between monitors sometimes requires a second request

- Windows Scaling issues

 

 

 

 

 

Now for those that might be asking why I don't just simply leave the OLED TV always connected as a 3rd monitor with some offset that will never let my mouse reach it, there are a few reasons:
- Sometimes Windows remembers where screens were open and I could be stuck with a program opening on the TV when I'm at my office computers

- TV's (at least my LG) will periodically disconnect from all inputs if it's left off for a while

- OLED TV's (at least my LG) will periodically do a Pixel Clean/Refresh that disconnects it from all inputs for a while

- Switching Primary between two active displays can cause even weirder window alignment issues especially when they are different resolutions