I had a discussion the other day with some engineers about monitors and full screen versus windowed mode in games, and it emerged that even the brightest minds seem to disagree here. Maybe the FS community can shed some light. It has always been my contention that full-screen mode is useful for CRT monitors to align the vertical refresh frequencies and thus give the video card direct access. On a TFT-LCD monitor, full-screen mode is thus pointless, and should deliver no difference in performance (if anything, a deterioration). It emerged in the discussion yesterday that certain games seem to benefit from full-screen mode even on TFT-LCD monitors, which seems highly questionable. None of the guys used FS, but in any case, why should full-screen mode have any effect on a TFT-LCD monitor and the game's performance??

See, that's what happens when you try to have a discussion with "some engineers.";) R-

LOL -- we'll let the thread ripen a bit. In the meantime I got an answer directly from the OEM maker of Viewsonic - people who should know, and they agree that games on TFTs should be run in windowed mode.

It's not so much the performance, but the immersion experience that counts with full screen versus windowed. Some people can't stand to see windows and menu text while in a game and hence prefer full screen. I usually run a lot of external addons, so windowed mode is preferable to me. YMMV.Gary

What a load of rubbish - it makes no difference whatsoever to the monitor whether it's being fed a full screen or a window.The issue with a window v's full screen always used to be that some graphics cards/drivers didn't enable the full features of the card whilst in a window (needing a full screen overide to do this) which is why a window often seemed to give better performance than full screen - because the output actually wasn't as good.Whether that output goes to a TFT or CRT makes no difference.

>The issue with a window v's full screen always used to be that>some graphics cards/drivers didn't enable the full features of>the card whilst in a window (needing a full screen overide to>do this) which is why a window often seemed to give better>performance than full screen - because the output actually>wasn't as good.>>Whether that output goes to a TFT or CRT makes no difference.This is interesting because I am getting much better frame rates (like +12) in windowed with FSX. In FS9, it didn't make a difference. I am using CRT's.If what you say is true, there must be a frame rate hogging feature that is enabled when I go to full screen that isn't enabled in windowed. If I could figure out what it is, I can disable it and run full screen with the same performance as windowed. Any idea what it is? Visually, I can't tell the difference. AA and AF are set to be application controlled and AA is definitly in effect in both full screen and windowed.

Full screen exclusive modes help performance (usually) by suspending the windowing system, and giving the application, through the DirectX API, direct access to the graphics systems and resources.If you experience a DECREASE in performance when moving to fullscreen mode, it certainly is possible that a feature of your video card that was not enabled in windowed mode is being turned on in full screen mode, hindering performance. Bloom? AA? AS? perhaps conflicting AA/AS between the game and the driver?I generally see little to no performance difference in full screen to windowed modes, but I MUCH prefer full screen for immersion's sake.-Greg