How DisplayMagician Handles Different Display Setups for Different Games

Updated

DisplayMagician solves a specific problem: different games need different display and audio configurations, and switching between them manually every time is tedious. The tool lets you save multiple display profiles, then attach each profile to a Game Shortcut that launches your game or application with the right setup automatically. When you close the game, it resets your displays and audio back to how they were.

This is useful if you regularly switch between configurations — for example, running one racing game across a triple-screen NVIDIA Surround window and another across four individual screens. It is a Windows tool and is described as open source.

What DisplayMagician can configure

According to the project's own description, DisplayMagician is designed to:

  • Change your display profile
  • Change audio devices
  • Start extra programs
  • Then run the game or application you want
  • Reset things back to the way they were once you close the game or application

The audio piece is worth noting: you can switch to a different audio device for a single game and have that change reverted when the game closes — useful if you keep special audio devices for certain games.

The core workflow: profiles plus Game Shortcuts

The mechanism has two parts.

1. Display Profiles

You create and save a Display Profile that captures a display configuration you want to reuse. The site notes that the NVIDIA, AMD, and Windows video manipulation libraries were completely rewritten, and the current version is described as able to track and manipulate nearly all possible display configuration settings. If you tried DisplayMagician in the past and it didn't work for you, the project explicitly asks you to try again because of this rewrite.

2. Game Shortcuts

You then use those display profiles to create Game Shortcuts. A Game Shortcut ties a profile (and optionally audio changes and extra helper programs) to a specific game or application, so it starts exactly the way you like it.

3. Launching

You can launch a Game Shortcut from a single Desktop Shortcut, or even start games with a Hotkey.

A concrete example

The project gives examples that map directly onto this workflow:

  • Running Dirt Rally 2.0 on a single NVIDIA Surround window across triple screens
  • Running Assetto Corsa across four individual screens (a triple plus one above)
  • Starting SimHub when you play iRacing, but starting Twitch when you play Call of Duty

Each of these becomes its own Game Shortcut, so you pick the game and the correct display, audio, and helper-app setup follows.

What to check before relying on it

  • Platform: Windows only, based on the description.
  • Download: The latest version is available via the project's release page.
  • Known issues and full feature list: The project points you to its README for current and planned features and for issues you may encounter.
  • Reporting problems or missing features: Use the project issue tracker.

If your setup involves frequent switching between multi-monitor layouts, per-game audio devices, or launching helper apps alongside games, DisplayMagician is built for exactly that. If you only ever use one display configuration, the profile-and-shortcut model adds little.