How to play a game on your second monitor

Games tend to open on your main display, whatever you would rather they did. Here is how to move one, and how to make it stay.

Why it happens

A game opens on the monitor Windows calls the main display, or on whichever one it used last. Fullscreen games pick their display once, at startup, and many offer no setting to change it. Windows also renumbers displays when one is unplugged, so a game told to use display 2 can end up on the wrong screen.

Free fixes first

1. Look for a "Monitor", "Display" or "Adapter" option in the game's video settings.
2. Set the game to windowed or borderless, then press Windows key + Shift + Left or Right arrow to move it to the other screen.
3. Unity games accept a launch option. In Steam, open the game's Properties and add -monitor 2 to Launch Options, using the number of the screen you want.
4. As a last resort, make that screen your main display in Settings, System, Display, "Make this my main display". Your taskbar and desktop icons move along with it.

When the free fixes are not enough

Most games have no monitor option, a window you moved opens on the main screen again next launch, and changing the main display moves the rest of Windows along with the game.

How Second Screen Gaming fixes it

Run borderless on a chosen screen puts the game on the monitor you pick and fills that screen with it, every time the game starts.

Screens are recognized by the monitor itself, its maker, model and the port it is plugged into, not by the number Windows hands out, so unplugging a screen cannot send the game somewhere else. If the chosen screen is not connected, the game waits for it and moves there the moment it appears.

Two options go with it: Keep above other windows, and Send sound to that screen, which plays the game's audio through that monitor's own speakers.