Glossary:Borderless fullscreen windowed

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Revision as of 03:28, 12 September 2017 by Lol28 (talk | contribs) (→‎Windowed Borderless Gaming)

Graphics and video

Resolutions

Video settings

Hardware

For a list of games, see games with borderless fullscreen windowed support.


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 due to Vsync being applied over any windows by default.[3]
Will cause an input lag due to the Windows' window composition VSync. It is possible to disable the composition to remove it, however that can be done only in Windows 7.

Windows

Borderless Gaming

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  1. Download Borderless Gaming and install it.
  2. Navigate to the Borderless Gaming installation path and run BorderlessGaming.exe
  3. Run the game in a Windowed mode, then Alt+Tab ↹ to the Desktop and open Borderless Gaming again.
  4. Select the game's executable from under the Applications field, then push the first Right Arrow button located at the top.

Notes

Restart the game if the borderless mode isn't working, keep Borderless Gaming open.
If the game crashed after Borderless Gaming was launched then restart the game, keep Borderless Gaming open.

Special K

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  1. Install the global or local injector of Special K. See An Unofficial Guide to Special K for instructions.
  2. Start the game and configure the in-game options to windowed mode and the resolution of the monitor.
  3. Press Ctrl+⇧ Shift+← Backspace to invoke the Special K Control Panel.
  4. Expand the Window Management section.
  5. Enable Borderless and Fullscreen (Borderless Upscale).

Notes

Special K's OSD can be toggled with Ctrl+⇧ Shift+O.

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.
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  1. Install and run GeDoSaTo.
  2. Edit settings and find the following line in GeDoSaTo.ini. 
    forceBorderlessFullscreen false
  3. Edit the value from "false" to "true" to force this mode.
  4. Add the game's executable name to the user whitelist.
  5. Run the game in its normal fullscreen mode as opposed to windowed.

Simple Runtime Window Editor

Allows manipulating the size, position, and styles of a game's main/child windows.
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  1. Download SRWE and run it as administrator.
  2. Run the game in windowed mode, and switch back to SRWE.
  3. Select running application and open the game.
  4. Use the Remove borders and Fake fullscreen buttons.
  5. Save the profile to the same folder as SRWE.


Fullscreenizer

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  1. Download Fullscreenizer and run it as administrator.
  2. Run the game in windowed mode, and switch back to Fullscreenizer.
  3. Click to "Show All", select game and click "Add".
  4. Use the Fullscrenize button.

Windowed Borderless Gaming

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  1. Download Windowed Borderless Gaming and run.
  2. Run the game in windowed mode, and click to icon in tray.
  3. Use "Add window (F3)" button, go to game and click F3.
  4. Restart the game.

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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  1. Download AutoHotkey and install it.
  2. Go to the Desktop, then Right Click on an empty space and select New, AutoHotkey script.
  3. Right Click on the AutoHotkey file, and select Edit Script, erase the contents of this file, close it and save any new changes.
  4. Double click on the file in order to launch the script.

Notes

AutoHotkey scripts can be placed in the Startup folder in order to be executed automatically.

Fullscreen Toggle Script

This script will remove any borders and center the currently active window on the primary monitor by pushing F12.
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  1. Download AutoHotkey and install it.
  2. Go to the Desktop, then Right Click on an empty space and select New, AutoHotkey script.
  3. Right Click on the AutoHotkey file, and select Edit Script, erase the contents of the file.
  4. Copy the following source code into the new file, close the file and save, then Double Click on it in order to execute the script.
#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.
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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.
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  • The values 0, 0, represent the coordinates of the upper left corner of the window.
WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight
  • For multiple resolutions the values have to be the sum of the monitors total width, for 3840x1080 them being.
WinMove, ahk_id %WindowID%, , 1920, 0, 1920, 1080

Notes

Use 1920, 0, 1920, 1080 (right) or 0, 1920, 1920, 1080 (left) in order to change which side of the screen is filled.

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:

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xinit %command% :1

Notes

Manually launch a Non-Steam game by replacing %command% with the path to the game executable. Some games, including Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor may run into glitches using this method (as verified by Feral Interactive)

Improved tiling windows manager

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  1. Install improved tiling wm.
  2. Start the game in a windowed mode.
  3. Move it to a new virtual desktop by using ⇧ Shift+⊞ Win+Number.
  4. Switch to the virtual terminal with ⊞ Win+Number then go into fullscreen mode by pushing ⊞ Win+F.

Engines

Source

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  1. See Command line arguments.
  2. Use the -windowed -noborder arguments.

Unity

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  1. Use the -popupwindow command line argument.
  2. Launch the game in windowed mode (if no option is available toggle with Alt+↵ Enter).

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

  1. ↑ Lantern | WSGF
  2. ↑ Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team | WSGF
  3. ↑ Microsoft Developer Network - Double Buffered Graphics