[Solved] The mysterious imaginary display

Okay, this isn't related only to BeamNG; it has to do with any fullscreen application/game. My laptop, the Dell XPS15Z, has an HDMI out port, which I used to use for a secondary monitor. When I had that monitor, it was the only one I played games on, so any fullscreen game is displayed on that monitor. But I had to move again and disconnect the monitor while the laptop was off, which messed something up. I've gone through numerous links on the internet explaining how to move fullscreen applications, but nothing works. Under display settings, it acknowledges only one monitor and I've reset all of those settings. For my graphics card (some sort of NVidia card) I've reset and reloaded driver. Even after all these resets, when I launch these applications the screen goes blank as if the computer went to sleep and I can't see anything (most of the time I have to restart, but sometimes pressing the Fn hotkey for projectors jumps it back with an error). I've tried to hook the computer up to other displays but it seems as if it remembered this imaginary other display so even if I reset them on those monitors, it still reverts. I'm out of ideas and don't have access to that old monitor. Any ideas?

 

Re: The mysterious imaginary display

Well, there's always this, but if that doesn't work, then your only option is to connect a secondary display and reset the game's graphics settings to the primary monitor.

 

Re: The mysterious imaginary display

Thanks Zappy, you gave me an idea. My laptop has two video cards (Intel Graphics 3000 and NVidia 525m), and when I disabled the intel graphics, I did loose my primary monitor but I was able to pull up iRacing fullscreen on a tv we have. So, I think it has to do with a mix of game settings and the video cards "fighting" each other. I'll experiment some more and see what I can fix.

 

Re: The mysterious imaginary display

have you tried the Windows key+shift+left arrow key? (or right arrow key)

 

Re: The mysterious imaginary display

I tried all of that... but the fighting has been resolved. After reviewing the driver, I realized the dell website didn't give me the newest driver for either. I updated them and that somehow reset all of those settings, s othanks to Zappymouse for making me look further at the graphics cards, it helped a lot.