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I must be cursed when it comes to multiple monitors. I tried it a couple of years ago. Every time the workstation restarted, the monitor configuration, settings, and icons would get hosed. It was probably just my video card, as others seem to have no problems.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I would go with two...
I have one 21" Dell monitor and one 22" Dell monitor that are hooked to my main station, one is 1680x1050 and the bigger one is 1920x1080. I think the combination works out well, even though I got the monitors at different times.
I've been toying with the idea of replacing them with 2 24" monitors, and at one point I was thinking about 3 30" monitors, but I couldn't bring myself to drop $1500 on the monitors and video card necessary.
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Two monitors seems to work reasonably well! Sometimes when I'm working another screen seems like it would really be nice to have but those are rare times and doesn't justify getting the third screen.
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Two 24" monitors (1920x1200).
I would never want anything smaller or of different sizes. But next time I'll make sure they can be tilted to portrait mode. And maybe 27".
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I have four, one really small on my left and three across. It's too many, I never use them. I think three is optimal, one big one in the middle and one either side. That leaves one for chat, one for docs or side tasks, and one for your main IDE.
Christian Graus
My new article series is all about SQL !!!
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Christian Graus wrote: That leaves one for chat, one for docs or side tasks, two for CodeProject and one for your main IDE.
FTFY 
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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*grin* I use CP in my main window. I also read mail in my main window. That way, I do it when I feel like I have a moment and it's not an always present distraction. Esp when I'm helping in forums and people ask questions, if I could see those while coding, it might make me stop to help.
Christian Graus
My new article series is all about SQL !!!
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JMK89 wrote: What do you guys have, and what would you want to have?
I have a big screen in the middle and two smaller screens, one on each side, sometimes a laptop in front of the monitor on the left, sometimes a cat wanting attention in front of the monitor in the middle.
Ideally, I'd like three big screens, all side by side. No wait. Ideally, I want something like this[^]
Marc
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That reminds me of Back To The Future... I still don't see why no one watches 6 TV channels at once. 
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At the moment I have 3 24" screens side by side
And a Tv connected as well tough I only turn that one on when I watch a movie or something.
Couldn't go back to 2 but 3 24" is a bit much, usually don't use all the space on them but for those rare occasions I do use everything it's very handy.
Ideally, see Marc's link 
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2 - 24"
They suit my needs of having one for an app like visual studio and one for reference material.
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For my department, I choose 2 x 4:3 screens, default 1280x1024 resolution. It works fantastic for development, and a second screen is a must.
Whenever I work with a 'widescreen' I curse it, the space just seems to big use effiently: too much eye movement horizontally, too little space vertically. It is great for movies, but not for working. It is also too small to split into two.
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I have a pair of 24" (1920x1200) monitors in front of me, with two satellite 19" monitors (1440x900). All are mounted on monitor arms so I can positioning them flexibly - the 19" monitors are stacked on top of each other to the right of the main two.
I tend to use the satellite monitors mostly for RDP sessions while I work in VS or whatever on the main two. It works pretty well - I find the layout pretty much ideal, quite honestly.
Anna ![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Tech Blog | Visual Lint
"Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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I run 3 additional screens from my laptop, 2 are on USB -> DVI extenders.
The original Laptop screen has unimportant stuff on it like emails etc. Then I have two 23" 1920 x 1080 screens for development, and finally I have a 19" 1280 x 1024 touch screen for testing the application on.
Most of my time is spent working withg the two 23" screens
~A
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I recommend three always. Not so much for work, but because flight and racing sim's are SO much better with the extra FOV.
If it wasn't for them, I like to work with two 22" screens, one rotatable set mainly to portrait and one landscape. Portrait mode is surprisingly good for code work, and is much, much better for doc reading.
When not simming, the portrait monitor is precariously blanaced above the landscape monitor as I rarely use them both at once in work mode, so moving my head to focus on the other monitor acts like a trigger that my focus is shifting.
I spent a long while playing around though, and would say what's best for me is no good for other folks in the office or at home, so it's definitely down to personal preference.
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A 2x2 grid of 24" screens at 1080p is great for software devs, especially if you are on multiple projects. Over time you do find ways to optimize using the real estate. Anyone who says 4 is too many didn't use them for long enough.
If I were to start over, I would replace the 4 with a single 50" 4K, like this 4K Seiki. Takes up the same space on your office desk, and you could use something like Gridy to define snappable desktop areas. Imagine expanding a single large excel sheet on that thing.
Terry
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I've got 3 at home and at work. The 3rd is nice; but in both cases it was a lot less of a gain than the second. I briefly had 4 at work but found I never used the 4th once I got past wooting that I could. At home I've got a 2560x1600 screen flanked by a pair of 20" 1200x1600 screens (as a side note: unfortunately this is the only combination where you can get height and DPI to align in a PLP setup  ). Games, outlook, and my main browser go on the middle screen. The left is for chat, the right holds a second browser and other miscellany. At work I have a 19" 1280x1024 on the left and 22" 1680x1050's in the center and right. Outlook/Ide in the center, a browser and the app being tested on the right, chat/code diffs/etc on the right.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I think that rather depends on what you want to use the monitor for.
At work in 2010 I had a 21" for windows dev work with a 10" for email and messages only.
When I work now I'm constrained to a 17" 4:3 for compatibility with the robotic interfaces and embedded systems we build.
At home, I don't use multiple monitors, I use multiple PC's. Thus my media centre, which I use for television, music, video, blogging, writing novels and fb'ing, is piped through a lower cost 40" television with ample cross-room detail, such as four page simultaneous word processing, using a wifi keyboard and mouse from my easy chair.
On the table beside me I often also fire up a middling Laptop with a TB drive and Core 2 Duo, which I use for actual video processing and storage. I also use this for detail work such as Gimp, while I can do Monodevelop on either.
Also all my boxes are wireless, including my (exiled) Windows 7 machine in the kitchen, which I use with a 22" for MS-specific work tasks. The rest are Ubuntu, save for the Win 8.1 redundant desktop I'm prepping for sale. Incidentally, I've found VS2008 works well with 8.1, although SQL Server 2005 complains at installation.
Bottom line, to give your eyes a rest use a big, single monitor, and you don't necessarily have to shell out for a monitor when TV's come with 2 or 3 hdmi ports which you can connect to a reasonable video card and which cost £300 for 40".
The first 100,000 years were the worst; except for the second 100,000 years.
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<pre></pre><pre lang="PHP"></pre>
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for at home?
I got a 60" HDTV on the wall (the usual landscape).
And a regular size portrait monitor at my piano/programming desk.
98 lines of text on that guy.
But then, I had to get divorced to get it.
So there's that 
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I have 3 monitors and I cannot imagine going back to 1 or even 2. They're especially useful for doing peer code reviews, since I have the code up on one screen, the requirements up on another and the window for entering review comments on the last one.
At work I always have between 10 and 20 applications running at once and spreading them out over multiple screens is a great way to stay sane
I heard that there was a study done that showed a 20% productivity improvement in going from 2 to 3 monitors. However, I think that very much depends on what work you do and how you personally work.
I don't think that 4 monitors would be much of a help to me but I haven't tried it out so maybe it would be even better than 3!
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Read this from a software development shop...
http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers
Clinton Gallagher
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I have two 27" screens plus the laptop screen. That's usually enough but sometimes I think about adding another one.
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I use 2 monitors at least, one for development/debbuging and one for running whatever I'm developing. When in support mode, usually I have the questions in one monitor and the answers in another. I would like to add another monitor, but I doubt my laptop can handle it.
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I'm a professional games coder and I used to have two large monitors, but I rarely used the second. Now I just use a high-end laptop with a 1920x1080 screen which really is good enough.
Honestly, clicking on the taskbar really is just about as simple as moving your eyeballs (do try it). Don't bother wasting your money or your desk space with more than one monitor.
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