Fullscreen Borderless Window?

[Finarfin]

Is there any way to get this to run in in a borderless window?

[HazardHawk]

That specific format, native? Kind of and not really. Kind of, well, if your native resolution is 1920x1080, then running in a window at 1920x1080 is basically what you are asking. Getting it to actually work that way is something entirely different though as it will want to scale your main background to your monitor native resolution and then rescale the game into a smaller window at the resolution you are choosing within that native resolution. It is a major pain getting it to work as you ask and there is no set of specific instructions as you have to battle your computer, windows, the monitor, the video card software, and the game to get it to work all in balance. Then, even when you are successful once it does not mean you will be the next time you try to load it up.

JUST TO BE ACCURATE: Perhaps someone has come up with a way I dont know about, but I have watched people for a long time trying to make it work that way so they could use two monitors with the game only on one screen.

[operating1]

I have to ask the OP if the border he is talking about appears only at the top of the screen? If so, go to game options, then graphics, on the left side of your screen will be the selection for 1920 x 1080 HH is talking about (put a check mark there), below that is a box for "windows" (either check it or not check it). If you check it you will get a border on top of your screen, if it is left "unchecked" you should get a full screen. Hope that helps..

[Finarfin]

I can set it to Windowed, but then I get the border like in any other Windows application. I was hoping to get it fullscreen at 1920x1080 on one monitor and be able to switch to other applications on a different monitor without the game minimizing and having to restore and go through the loading screen every time I go back to it. The only viable solution I've found so far is to put it in a window smaller than 1920x1080, but then it looks lame.

[HazardHawk]

Originally posted by Finarfin:

I can set it to Windowed, but then I get the border like in any other Windows application. I was hoping to get it fullscreen at 1920x1080 on one monitor and be able to switch to other applications on a different monitor without the game minimizing and having to restore and go through the loading screen every time I go back to it. The only viable solution I've found so far is to put it in a window smaller than 1920x1080, but then it looks lame.

I know exactly what you are trying to do, but remember this is a game made for Windows XP and a dual core CPU on a 32 bit system with a single monitor. I am not knocking your efforts and I am also going to give you a warning, if you do make it work, even temporary, if you leave the screen too long the computer will stop responding altogether and require a hard shutdown and reboot. The problems you will have will be the exact same as the first SLI setups with an NVIDIA card set had on a 32 bit system.

If you will keep attempting this, use a Large Address Aware enabler on your empire.exe, go to properties of the empire.exe and disable full screen optimizations. Next, go into game settings and set everything down one level in detail if you are running at Ultra and you may have to go all the way down to Medium to keep the memory leak from getting you.

THAT said, I can tear this game down in detail inside and change almost everything I want to change but I cannot make it run on a dual monitor setup on one screen only when set to extended and it be stable. It can be stretched to two monitors and it can be duplicated, but assigning to one of two monitors it just does not like when you flip from screen to screen. The ONLY way I have ever managed to get it to work is using a KVM switch swapping the PC rather than the screens.

[HazardHawk]

OH! I have never tried this as it is a feature where you need the full paid version, but I do know someone who swears Display Fusion will allow what you want. It does have a trial version if you wish to try.

[Finarfin]

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll just leave it in a smaller window for now. I've tried a few applications that are supposed to put turn windowed programs into fullscreen borderless, but I've had no success with this game. I was able to somehow get it to work on Total War Shogun 2, but not this one.

Running in a smaller window is not that bad. The only thing I've really noticed is that I cannot zoom in as far during battles for some reason. But I make the window one size bigger, 1920x1080 then I can't see all of the game interface because of the border.

[pgeerkens]

I run the game with two monitors off a laptop. By making the second monitor [2.5K: 2560 x 1080] the "Main Display" the game automatically runs on it every time, full-screen borderless though not in a Window. Whenever I detach the second monitor my Main Display (temporarily) returns to being the built-in display. This also ensures the game runs with affinity to the high-performance graphics card instead of the default Intel card.

Provided I'm on the Campaign Map rather than the Battle Map, I can mouse-click or ALT-TAB to another application and, at least 19 times out of 20, successfully return to the game with only a few seconds slight delay. The occasional chance of a reconnect failure means I do make sure to perform a Quick Save with CTRL-S first before switching applications.

I've now successfully run ETW, NTW, and Shogun-2 this way on two separate rigs

[Finarfin]

But when you leave the game and go to the other monitor does the game remain visible or does it minimize? And when speaking of the slight delay in returning to the game, does it start with the loading screen again or immediately show the in-game screen?

[pgeerkens]

Originally posted by Finarfin:

But when you leave the game and go to the other monitor does the game remain visible or does it minimize? And when speaking of the slight delay in returning to the game, does it start with the loading screen again or immediately show the in-game screen?

The game minimizes when I go to any other application on either monitor; and it displays the splash screen while the data and code are reloaded to the graphics card.

[HazardHawk]

Originally posted by pgeerkens:

Originally posted by Finarfin:

But when you leave the game and go to the other monitor does the game remain visible or does it minimize? And when speaking of the slight delay in returning to the game, does it start with the loading screen again or immediately show the in-game screen?

The game minimizes when I go to any other application on either monitor; and it displays the splash screen while the data and code are reloaded to the graphics card.

That is what he is trying to avoid. Wants to release the mouse without losing the window like in modern games.

[Copperfield [SAC]]

Originally posted by Finarfin:

Is there any way to get this to run in in a borderless window?

Try Borderless Gaming, by this software you can switch every game from window mod to borderless window [fullscreen]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/388080/Borderless_Gaming/

it's also free on github

[Finarfin]

Borderless Gaming was one of the tools I tried. It was unsuccessful.

[BaboonX]

In case you're still looking for borderless window mode, this program called ShiftWindow worked for me; http://grismar.net/shiftwindow/
Just make it so that Empire runs in a window, with the bar at the top, then let ShiftWindow move it, so that it fills the entire screen.

[bk]

Originally posted by BaboonX:

In case you're still looking for borderless window mode, this program called ShiftWindow worked for me; http://grismar.net/shiftwindow/
Just make it so that Empire runs in a window, with the bar at the top, then let ShiftWindow move it, so that it fills the entire screen.

Thank you man i love yo

[Mrs Brisby]

Originally posted by BaboonX:

In case you're still looking for borderless window mode, this program called ShiftWindow worked for me; http://grismar.net/shiftwindow/
Just make it so that Empire runs in a window, with the bar at the top, then let ShiftWindow move it, so that it fills the entire screen.

Omg thank you so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much. Was sick of having to use a tiny window in order to see the bottom of the screen. This worked for me.

For anyone else doing this just follow the instructions on the ShiftWindow site it gives for EVE but click on Empire: Total War in the selection box and it'll do it for this.