Resolutions
Video settings
Hardware
For a list of games, see List of games that support borderless fullscreen windowed.
Key points
- Windowed mode is needed in the first place for games which do not natively provide a borderless mode.
- Certain games do not lock the mouse to the window, which can be problematic on multi-monitor setups. See Mouse locking.
- Seamless task switching with no risk of crashes or freezes with a very little loss in performance.
- Eliminates screen tearing on Windows, due to the way windows are handled.[1]
- AMD/ATI cards only support Crossfire in this mode for games using Mantle.[2]
Setting Up
Basic Instructions
Windows
- Open source and simple to use application.
- Dynamic, adapts easily when switching to a different resolution on another monitor.
- Allows games to lock the mouse to the current window.
- GeDoSaTo and Borderless Gaming can be used together.
- Allows games to be downsampled at any resolution.
- Slightly unintuitive interface.
AutoHotkey
- The following scripts require AutoHotkey.
- Games utilizing PunkBuster as an anti-cheat measure may mistakenly treat AutoHotkey as a cheat.
Saving and running a script
Scripts compilation
Borderless scripts
Fullscreen script
- This script will full screen the currently active window onto your primary monitor with F12.
Fullscreen toggle script
- This script will toggle between fullscreen and windowed modes when pressing F12 as well as hiding the taskbar on the fullscreen mode.
Multiple monitors script
- Someone needs to check whenever this explanation for the script is correct or if 0, 0, and A_ScreenWidth/Height mean that the script automatically detects the user's resolution.
- This is a snippet from the Fullscreen toggle script.
Linux
- Most Linux windows managers allow fullscreen applications to natively run under a borderless mode by default.
Another tip that exclusively works on Linux is running your game in a separate X server instance. This allows you to switch between your game and your desktop using Ctrl+Alt+F7 and Ctrl+Alt+F8 (buttons may differ, may be F1 through F12) and it increases performance and stability. To do this, edit the launch options for your game on Steam as follows:
Engines
- Games built on the Source engine can be run in a borderless window by enabling windowed mode and adding the launch argument
-windowed -noborder
to the main executable.[3]
- Games built on the Unity engine can be run in a borderless window by enabling windowed mode and adding the launch argument
-popupwindow
to the main executable.[4]
Windows troubleshooting
Game crashes on startup
- Certain borderless applications have to be started before the game itself and not while the game is running.
Window constantly resizes itself
- After applying the borderless mode simply restart the game itself, while keeping the borderless application open.
References