[BUG} The in-game Exclusive fullscreen option does not work!

[Doctor Hades]

I have been trying to use Exclusive fullscreen mode with this game but it appears to be broken.

For one, it doesn't appear to be exclusive fullscreen anyway since the Windows Game bar is visible (which does not show in proper exclusive fullscreen games) as does the sound volume slider. DSR downsampling from 3840x2160 also does not work so to all intents and purposes it acts exactly the same as Borderless!

Secondly, when I set this option my game loads at 640x480 rather than the 2560x1440 native resolution I set in the game's Display options. This issue is replicable and it doesn't matter how many times I reset the resolution to 2560x1440, as long as Exclusive is set then the game continues to load at 640x480!

However, if I use Borderless then the game works fine.

Why include an Exclusive fullscreen option if it does not work? I am on Windows 10 Pro v1803 Build 17133.1 (the Spring Creators Update) but I do not believe the issue is with that but rather with the Unity engine itself which doesn't generally support exclusive fullscreen anyway. Most Unity games need to be forced manually using the -window-mode exclusive launcher option.

P.S. I am using a GTX 1080 Ti with the latest v391.35 drivers on an i7-4770K PC with 16 GB of memory and Windows 10 Pro v1803.

*EDIT*
If I use the -window-mode exclusive command in the game's launcher options then the game *DOES* launch with exclusive fullscreen mode and DSR works at 3840x2160 too (on my 2560x1440 monitor).

Evidently, the game's implementation of Exclusive fullscreen is clearly buggy and does not work as intended...

[evil]

Hi, just to be sure, you are talking about Surviving Mars here, right? Or this post is for another game? There isn't a game launcher, nor is the game made with the Unity engine.

[Doctor Hades]

Sorry, I assumed the game was using Unity because excusive fullscreen was not working and the Windows gamebar overlay etc were showing in-game with the setting enabled, which is typical of Unity Engine games in my experience.

To clarify, yes, I am talking about Surviving Mars.

The game's display mode simply does not work properly when I set it to Exclusive as the next time I load it up instead of the resolution being 2560x1440 it resets to 640x480!!! The only way I can keep the correct native resolution is to use Borderless mode. That means that I cannot use DSR (despite owning the GTX 1080 Ti) to run the game at 3840x2160 or even 5120x2880 (since it is relatively undemanding compared with other games).

Hopefully, you can fix this. It may be an issue with the new version of Windows (v1803 build 17133.1) which I'm currently using as a Windows Insider but since that is going to be rolled out to everyone from the 10th April then if it is then more people are going to be affected by it.

P.S. Odd as this may sound I *did* get Exclusive mode working with DSR at 3840x2160 the first time I tried the -window-mode exclusive setting in the game's launcher option (right-click on the game properties and select Set Launch Options under the General tab). However, the second time it did not work and the game reverted back to 640x480. So it looks like a one-off glitch which made the game appear as if it was using Unity.

[ivanassen]

Thank you for the report.

We've heard the 640x480 thing from other users, but couldn't reproduce it on our NVIDIA cards; thank you for pointing out the exact Windows build, we'll give it a try.

The game doesn't recognize the -window-mode exclusive parameter from the command line, so it's probably a random factor that happened to coincide with the parameter.

[Doctor Hades]

Thanks.

Even when I set Exclusive fullscreen in the Display options and set the resolution to 2560x1440 for that play session it is clear that it is not working as I can still access the Windows Gamebar and volume overlays which should not be visible if exclusive fullscreen is working properly, at least from my experience. It acts basically like borderless mode as confirmed by the fact that DSR does not work either.

Whatever, the setting is unusable for me because using it results in the game loading the next time I play it at 640x480. I could change to Borderless before I quit, I suppose, and change to Exclusive once loaded but that isn’t really a fix, more of a workaround for something that isn’t working as intended anyway on my PC.

It is possible that this may be an issue with Windows 10’s fullscreen optimisations which is enabled by default. You can disable it though on a per-game basis by right-clicking on the game executable and selecting Properties then finally going to the tab with the Disable fullscreen optimisation option and checking/enabling that option.

I will try this and report back...

[Doctor Hades]

Well, disabling fullscreen optimisations makes no difference; setting Exclusive fullscreen still results in the game loading at 640x480 the next time I play it regardless of what resolution I set. Also, when using Exclusive mode, DSR does not work.

However... I've just found that DSR *does* work in Borderless mode which is something I never thought to test originally as in every other game DSR only works if the screen mode is set to Exclusive and since this game had such an option then I incorrectly assumed that it would have to be set to that in order to work! I know DSR is working because the RTSS overlay gets smaller as I switch from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 to 5120x2880.

It's almost like the Borderless and Exclusive options have been set the wrong way round. I would only expect DSR to work in Exclusive fullscreen. The Gamebar and volume overlays still appear in-game regardless of whether I use Borderless or Exclusive but that is actually a good thing.

DSR works in Borderless so, I guess, the only issue is that confusion over which is which. As far as I can tell from testing both the only difference between them is that Borderless supports DSR whereas Exclusive does not (which contradicts every other game I've played!) and using Exclusive results in the game loading at 640x480 the next time I load it. However you look at it, there's something wrong with Exclusive mode when I use it on my PC.

I will just stick with Borderless as it works with DSR. Not really sure what the point of Exclusive fullscreen is in this game really but my guess is that few people have noticed the 640x480 bug (if it is a bug and not specific to my machine) because they're using Borderless fullscreen which I believe the game defaults to.

[Dark Tyr]

Originally posted by ivanassen:

Thank you for the report.

We've heard the 640x480 thing from other users, but couldn't reproduce it on our NVIDIA cards; thank you for pointing out the exact Windows build, we'll give it a try.

The game doesn't recognize the -window-mode exclusive parameter from the command line, so it's probably a random factor that happened to coincide with the parameter.

Well,
I can at least add another point. I think the log file covers it.

I get the same resolution 640x480 that Doctor Hades gets, the log file does say it tries to change the resolution but changes it to 640x480.
From the log file:


*** executable info
Timestamp: 5ac49410
Date: Wed Apr 4 03:00:00 2018


*** hardware info
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6600K CPU @ 3.50GHz
CPU count 4
Phys. Memory 16337 MBytes
Memory In Use 34%
Disk Free 30573 MBytes


*** OS info
OS: Windows 10
Version: 10.0.16299


*** Debug::Init()


Render time 0:00:00:047
Steam initialized (AppId 464920)
Language: English
Render time 0:00:01:578

*** RenderDevice::Init: started...

Render time 0:00:03:328
*** Texture headers: 7441 loaded, 0 newer, 6 ms

Render time 0:00:03:437
*** graphics info
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Feature Level: 11.0)
API d3d11
GPU Driver Version 23.21.13.8871
GPU Driver Package Version 388.71
Render time 0:00:03:734
Platform: {
desktop = true,
developer = false,
editor = true,
goldmaster = true,
pc = true,
pops = true,
steam = true,
}

CPU Task time 0:00:03:812
[Console Error] Light.Important has duplicated default value
Render time 0:00:04:078
Enumming all 4 sound devices
Found a sound device 'Speakers (Sound Blaster Recon3Di)' (ID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{c75b5ddf-e809-4235-a013-61784b73dd24}), format: 0000fffe, channels: 6, sample rate: 48000, bits: 32, role: 0000000f
Found a sound device 'VG248-0 (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)' (ID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{9aedc165-7ed6-4f58-9c36-4ce1fd301a7a}), format: 0000fffe, channels: 2, sample rate: 48000, bits: 16, role: 00000000
Found a sound device 'SPDIF-Out (Sound Blaster Recon3Di)' (ID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{9d063927-1f08-45d1-83f1-f8d3f2b36166}), format: 0000fffe, channels: 2, sample rate: 48000, bits: 32, role: 00000000
Found a sound device 'VE247-4 (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)' (ID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{164f8fe7-bb66-429b-8d14-c1f743099e08}), format: 0000fffe, channels: 2, sample rate: 48000, bits: 16, role: 00000000
*** Sound device 'Speakers (Sound Blaster Recon3Di)' (ID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{c75b5ddf-e809-4235-a013-61784b73dd24}), format: 0000fffe, channels: 6, sample rate: 48000, bits: 32
Lua time 0:00:04:093
Lua revision: 228722
Assets revision: 18035
Steam AppID: 464920
Lua time 0:00:09:640
DLC dde loaded, lua revision 228644, assets revision 18084
Lua time 0:00:09:672
Loading entities from BinAssets/entities.dat
Lua time 0:00:09:703
*** Texture headers: 7441 loaded, 0 newer, 4 ms

Reloading lua files
Lua time 0:00:09:922
Light.Important has duplicated default value
Lua time 0:00:10:172
Reloading done
Lua time 0:00:10:203
Available DLCs: dde(Deluxe Edition Upgrade Pack)
Lua time 0:00:10:453
[RM] Prefab marker versions: {
[3] = {
count = 35,
hash = -499894753,
height_hash = 1090524013,
mask_hash = 1713301995,
type_hash = 594247860,
},
{
count = 1480,
hash = -967453716,
height_hash = -326695681,
mask_hash = 1344179518,
type_hash = 214197002,
},
}

Account storage loaded successfully in 104 ms
POPS: Setting root path C:\Users\DarkTyr\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars
Lua time 0:00:10:515
VideoImpl::Init(Movies/Main Menu.ivf)
Lua time 0:00:10:687
Received achievements from Steam.
Lua time 0:00:10:781
New UA mode "Game" set in 1 ms
Lua time 0:00:12:422
POPS: [CurlCallManager::update] FAIL '00000264327E6B50' http status was none of 100, 200, 304: 401
POPS: [CAccountLogInSteamTicket] Received errorCode:'Failure'
POPS: [CAccountLogInSteamTicket] Server returned success code but JSON reply says failure. This might indicate subtle failure modes.
POPS: [CAccountLogInSteamTicket] Received errorMessage:'Unauthorized'
Lua time 0:00:23:953
ChangeVideoMode request: 1920 x 1080 0 Hz, Fullscreen, vsync: on
Render time 0:00:24:000
Changed video mode to: 640 x 480 (Fullscreen) vsync: on
ChangeVideoMode end.
Lua time 0:00:28:750


Stopping the game threads from the Lua side.

Render time 0:00:28:781


Stopping the game threads after receiving WM_QUIT.

Render time 0:00:28:843
Hook 'Shader :: CompileEffect' not found!
DestroyVideos: 1 videos not cleaned up
Render time 0:00:28:859


*** Debug::Done()
Time (ms) 28859


I hope this might help.

Tyr

[baddoggs]

Well, i run an El Cheapo GTX 1050 on the Win 10 64 bit O/S
and i have never had that issue. Dispite the bug's and certain
flaws/omissions from the game it actually runs really well on my
rig. I run with all the video/display settings at max and have run it
with up to 40 mod's, no problems at all. I have never had the FPS
drop below 60 even with a 500+colony.
I never play any game in "windowed" mode ever if i can help it.
That being said, i check things like drivers on a weekly basis
and perform maintanance, ie, scan and frag every few days as i play a lot.

[shirgall]

I also experience this issue, and I wonder if it has something to do with having a g-sync monitor.

[Doctor Hades]

I also have a 27” ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 165 Hz G-SYNC monitor so that could well be the issue with Exclusive mode.

[shirgall]

Wow, I also have the PG279Q. Odd coincidence.

[Litcube]

I also have one, having the same issue.

[Doctor Hades]

The developer needs to test Exclusive mode with a G-SYNC monitor such as the ASUS PG279Q which myself and others in this thread are using to replicate the issue. In fact, I’d wager the issue will happen on *ANY* G-SYNC monitor.

[BLÀde]

that's what i have too but i play in fullscreen borderless mode fine. there really is no difference to exclusive mode

[WolfKnight179]

I have both a standard 60Hz monitor and an Acer Predator XB271HUbmiprz G-SYNC monitor. I tested setting the game to exclusive and my desired resolution to 2560x1440 with both of them, with each being set as the primary monitor within Windows 10 when testing. When I used the G-SYNC monitor, the game would reset the resolution to 640x480 every time the game was booted, even when I tried turning G-SYNC off. The normal monitor on the other hand worked absolutely fine, the game booted in exclusive mode with my desired resolution of 2560x1440 every time. I really want this to be looked at as I'm fed up of changing the resolution every time I boot the game.

[WolfKnight179]

I tried turning off G-SYNC in the Nvidia Control Panel and then tried setting the resolution again, no luck.