Laptop + External Monitor Output Resolution Issues

Okay, so my laptop's LCD is a 1920x1200 native screen. I recently bought a Samsung 2443BWX, also 1920x1200 native. After struggling to make it display 1920x1200 properly, I've now encountered a new issue. Note the video card is a Geforce Go 7950 GTX.

Now, bear with me if this is a general issue with external monitors. It's been awhile since I used one (been on a laptop for a long time).

Anyway, if I'm playing e.g. CoD4 on my laptop's display, in-game I'm able to select a whole ton of resolutions. However if I switch over to my external monitor, it seriously limits my resolution options (i.e. I get maybe 1/4 as many options). Furthermore, if I go to NVIDIA control panel and change flat panel scaling to, say "Do not scale." or "Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed aspect-ratio." then as soon as I enter the game it jumps back to "Use my display's built-in scaling." If I'm on my laptop I can use any of these options.

Is there something I'm missing here? Maybe my monitor and graphics drivers just aren't playing well together. I'm thinking about just returning the monitor. As nice as it is to have a big external display, if lose a ton of flexibility it's not worth it.

I was thinking of maybe trying the BenQ 2400wd anyway, as it comes highly recommended here. Or would I probably have the same issue with that screen?

Thanks.

 

make your external display the Primary display... then the issue is resolved.

 

I have "Only use one display (Single)" selected, so it is already the primary by default. Or should I set it as clone with external primary, or something?

 

I use the Nvidia Control Panel.

- connect the external display
- open Nvidia Control Panel
- go to "set up multiple displays"
- select your external display as primary

then you can just disable the notebook's display (since it should now be designated as the secondary).

now you can play your games perfectly at 1920x1200 on an external display without any issues.

 

Well I can play at 1920x1200, which isn't really the issue. The problem arises when I have to play at a lower resolution because my video card can't keep up. Unfortunately, with my external monitor I can't just step down to say, 1680x1050. The only other other resolutions if offers are:
800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1600x900, 1600x1200, or 1920x1200.

However, since my laptop display lets me select way more resolutions than this, I know my card can output at them. Why can't my monitor display them?

 

dual displays will cause performance loss in games... no doubt.

you need a more powerful videocard to play them fine over an extended desktop.

or you can just try to run clone display

or just disable the notebook's display to run the games at full speed on the external.