Glossary:Borderless fullscreen windowed
Graphics and video
Resolutions
Video settings
- Field of view (FOV)
- Windowed / borderless fullscreen
- Anisotropic filtering (AF)
- Anti-aliasing (AA)
- High-fidelity upscaling
- Vertical sync (Vsync)
- Frame rate (FPS)
- High dynamic range (HDR)
- Ray tracing (RT)
- Color blind mode
Hardware
For a list of games, see List of games that support borderless fullscreen windowed.
Key points
- Borderless fullscreen windowed offers similar benefits as normal windowed mode, but with a fullscreen-like appearance.
- Native feature in many modern titles, and can often be forced in the majority of older titles.
- Can sometimes be used to enable wider or higher resolutions via resizing the game's viewport.[1][2]
- Seamless task switching with no risk of crashes or freezes with a minor loss in performance.
- Eliminates screen tearing on Windows (only on Vista and later) due to Vertical sync (Vsync) being applied for all windows by the Desktop Window Manager (DWM)..[3]
- ..but will subsequently cause additional input lag as well, due to the aforementioned vertical sync. It is possible to disable the vertical sync, however it requires either disabling DWM (only possible on Vista/7) or by using a certain presentation mode and flag.[4]
Borderless fullscreen windowed refers to a mode where the game presents the rendered image in a maximized window without borders making it cover the whole monitor. This is opposed to a regular window that uses window decorations around the contents of the window, or fullscreen exclusive mode where the game takes control over the output device and where each application switch required a display mode switch to occur.
This feature is known by a lot of different names between games, such as borderless mode, maximized window, fullscreen window, or any combination thereof. Some titles might also refer to it using less common names, such as scaling or even fullscreen if the game does not support exclusive fullscreen mode.
Windows
Borderless Gaming
Instructions[citation needed] |
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Notes
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Special K
See Special K > Borderless fullscreen windowed for instructions. |
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GeDoSaTo
- Works with games on the Unreal Engine 3. Allows Windowed modes to be forced on games which don't have them.
- Limited to DirectX 9 and 32-Bit games.
Instructions[citation needed] |
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Simple Runtime Window Editor
- Allows manipulating the size, position, and styles of a game's main/child windows.
Instructions[citation needed] |
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Windowed Borderless Gaming
- Has favorite games and can be minimized to tray.
Instructions[citation needed] |
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AutoHotkey
- Games utilizing PunkBuster as an anti-cheat measure may mistakenly treat AutoHotkey as a cheat.
Saving and running AutoHotkey scripts |
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Notes
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Fullscreen Toggle Script
- This script will remove any borders and center the currently active window on the primary monitor by pushing F12.
Instructions |
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#UseHook On F12:: WinGet, WindowID, ID, A WinSet, Style, -0xC40000, ahk_id %WindowID% WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight Return 5. Push F12 while in a game in order to activate the script. |
Fullscreen Toggle Script (Hidden Taskbar)
- This script will toggle between fullscreen and windowed modes when pressing F12 as well as hiding the taskbar on the fullscreen mode.
Fullscreen script |
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#UseHook On F12:: WinGet, TempWindowID, ID, A If (WindowID != TempWindowID) { WindowID:=TempWindowID WindowState:=0 } If (WindowState != 1) { WinGetPos, WinPosX, WinPosY, WindowWidth, WindowHeight, ahk_id %WindowID% WinSet, Style, -0xC40000, ahk_id %WindowID% WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight ;Hide Windows Task Bar and Start Button. (Remove the following two lines if you don't want that behaviour) WinHide ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd WinHide Start ahk_class Button } Else { WinSet, Style, +0xC40000, ahk_id %WindowID% WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , WinPosX, WinPosY, WindowWidth, WindowHeight ;Show the task bar again WinShow ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd WinShow Start ahk_class Button } WindowState:=!WindowState return |
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.
Fullscreen script |
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WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight
WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 1920, 0, 1920, 1080 Notes
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Linux
- Most Linux window 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:
Run Game in New X Server |
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xinit %command% :1 Notes
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Improved tiling windows manager
Instructions |
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Engines
Source
Instructions[5] |
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Unity
Instructions[6] |
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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
- ↑ Lantern | WSGF
- ↑ Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team | WSGF
- ↑ Microsoft Docs - Double Buffered Graphics - last accessed on 2018-04-13
- ↑ DirectX Developer Blog - For best performance, use DXGI flip model - last accessed on 2018-04-13
- ↑ Command line options - Valve Developer Community
- ↑ Unity - Manual: Command line arguments