Window Mode in Games?

[Axe]

Sounds a bit silly I suppose after all these years but when choosing a windows mode in a/any game do any of the options make a difference regarding game CPU or GPU 'demands' on the PC system?

If not - I've never understood the difference between Full Screen and Windowed Full Screen and why one would chose one over the other.

Also why would anybody choose just windowed?

Thanks if you can help me here :-)

[lavalobster93]

cs2 seems to never crash in fullscreen mode, where in windowed it would crash after or even during a match

[Sasori Kigaru]

So I can't explain the specifics but I'll explain why I choose windowed mode in my experience.

I have an Ultra Wide monitor, 5120x1440 and there aren't many games that support or look good with that resolution.

So when playing a game in full screen? Not only does it take more GPU to display all those pixels at that resolution but any attempt to lower the resolution while retaining full screen makes the game look worse.

So to get around this and to improve performance for some games I will play in windowed mode, at a resolution that is better supported.

Generally I'll go with 2560x1080 since it isn't too small AND it doesn't look stretched and the performance is at its best. While I COULD go with 1440 instead of 1080 in windowed mode I avoid it because the taskbar at the bottom of my screen covers the bottom portion of the game's window while I'm playing which can get in the way of certain hud elements in some games.

Additionally, playing in windowed mode allows me to multitask. I don't have multiple monitors but since my screen is so wide I can have other things open on either side of my game window such as discord or youtube or anything else I may be doing.

ANYWAY! Thats my explanation for why I use windowed mode myself. Reasons will vary from person to person.

[nullable]

https://game.info.intel.com/gaming-access/should-you-use-fullscreen-or-borderless-windowed-mode

I mean there's not much to it. Fullscreen is more dedicated, but alt tabbing is more of a problem. Borderless Windowed is more flexible, and unless you have a crummy system the performance penalty is negligible. Mostly it's a matter of preference. Although sometimes specific programs may prefer one or the other, and others are fine with either.

As for why anyone would choose Windowed, well without making up scenarios lets just say this, games are just programs. Why do users run any programs in a non-full screen window? Why are games exactly should games be excluded from those reasons? If you always want to run every program in fullscreen that's fine, other people are bound to make their own decisions. After all as I'm typing this, my Steam client isn't full screen.

I run most games in borderless windowed, but I don't have much of an issue using fullscreen if it's preferred in some instances. I'll often go with the default setting a game uses unless there's an issue.

[Lexapex3]

Fullscreen windowed give you more fps because of modern cpu boost algothrim. Where they boost less with more cores involve. With fullscreen games take as much core as need. With fullscreen windowed. Window involve and decide itself

[Katie]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.