Stillward Display

Switch to your headphones automatically when a game starts

Speakers for the evening, headphones for the game - and back again when it ends, without opening the sound settings twice a night.

Doing it by hand

Switching by hand means opening the sound list - Win + Ctrl + V on Windows 11 - picking the headphones when you start, and remembering to switch back when you stop. Windows can also pin a single app to one device for good, but that is one app forever, not the whole evening: voice chat, the browser and the game all on the headphones while you play, and back on the speakers when you are done.

Switch the whole computer, then switch it back

  1. In Stillward Display, make a preset for the game - pick it from the list of what you have installed.
  2. Under sound, choose your headphones.
  3. Optionally, pick apps to turn down while you play: the music in the background, a video left open in the browser - whatever is playing when the game starts.
  4. Save.

When the game starts, your headphones become the default device, and everything that follows the default output moves with them; an app you set to its own device in Windows stays on it. When you quit, the sound goes back to the device it was on and the apps you turned down come back up. If the headset is unplugged, the rest of the preset still runs, it tells you the sound stayed where it was, and the headset stays in the preset for next time.

Just one program on other speakers

Sometimes it is one window, not the evening: the music should play on the speakers while everything else is in the headphones. One key opens a small panel over any window, where you can make it quieter, mute it, or send its sound to another device - without opening the Windows settings at all.

Good to know

Stillward Display works through the Windows sound settings - nothing is installed into your drivers. A few programs choose their output only when they start; when you send one of those to other speakers from the panel, it offers to restart it for you.

More guides

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