I'm a game developer. 3 monitors isn't enough to solve my problems. The documentation, the IDE, and the game: For the basics, this is acceptable. The game m

I'm a game developer. 3 monitors isn't enough to solve my problems. The documentation, the IDE, and the game: For the basics, this is acceptable. The game monitor is constantly switching between several HDMI inputs, as I'm testing on multiple consoles and my PC. I need to verify my change on all platforms after all. A dedicated HDMI switch was provided when the 3+ inputs on the monitor itself turned out to be insufficient. I want to debug multiplayer. Figuring out which of the 5+ chrome windows full of documentation tabs I want back afterwards is a needless distraction, but even ignoring that: I don't have enough monitors to dedicate one to each debugger instance and each game instance. The IDEs are already cramped on a single monitor, with tabs of code, watched variables, logs, and breakpoints all divide and subdivide the space. I routinely spill IDE tabs into a second monitor for minor bugfixing, and now they get half a monitor each. I wish to double check a function signature in the docs. A new chrome instance opens, covering up the already cramped confines of what I'm working on. I glance - no wait, it's been covered up. I alt tab back and forth a few times, and then notice some parameters had their order swapped. I buy a commercial license for Input Director out of pocket to treat my netbook as another monitor suitable for reading docs - I might be high maintenance, but it's no problem if I cover the cost myself, right? Even so, I continue split monitors between multiple IDEs. I fix the bug in the inlined function. The entire C++ universe must now be rebuilt, because precompiled headers were abused. The overbuilt 6 core monster I inherited from another dev maxes out all it's cores. Fortunately, I already bugged IT into adding an SSD to it. While waiting for that rebuild to complete, I fix a serialization bug I noticed while fixing this bug - unfortunately it's a breaking change. I now have to rebuild 100GB+ of optimized-for-runtime-on-x-platform assets. A designer complains that everything is crashing. For everyone. It will be at least an hour before everything finishes rebuilding for me. I wish I had another useful computer, that I might be able to investigate the issue (the netbook can't run anything of note.) Eventually, sheepishly, I ask IT about it. Despite my concerns that I'm being unreasonable, they see no issue and are more than happy to provide what is now my 3rd machine. I buy myself a 4K monitor for work, the cheapest one I can find, again out of pocket because I don't feel I can justify the purchase from a business perspective - but still want one. My computers only have 3 outputs each, but this at least makes side by side IDEs less cramped. For the first time in my life, I choose an IDE font size other than "smallest possible" as monitor DPI stops being the bottleneck. I no longer have to constantly drag the divider back and forth when doing side-by-side comparisons in P4Diff, which I use for every code review. I realize I can totally justify it.