I have a GTX 285 paired with an E6600 at 3.3ghz and have recently discovered that fullscreen mode produces much higher FPS than in windowed mode, almost twice as much. The experience is night and day but the problem is I prefer windowed mode so I can multitask and use other programs essential for flight simulator. Does anyone know if there's some setting or tweak that's holding back windowed mode? Thanks.-Alex

I run windowed mode myself, and have found that not allowing the FS window to touch the start menu bar gives me a dramatic increase in frame rate (in windowed mode). When running windowed mode, try grabbing the bottom of the FSX window, and drag it up a couple of pixels so it doesn't touch the start menu bar at the bottom of the screen, and see if that improves anything for you.Good luck. :)-George

I have a GTX 285 paired with an E6600 at 3.3ghz and have recently discovered that fullscreen mode produces much higher FPS than in windowed mode, almost twice as much.

Are you sure they are both using the same screen resolution? When you put FS into full screen mode it uses the resolution set in its Options-Settings-display menu, not that set for Windows. If you've not changed it at all I expect FSX has automatically selected a lower resolution in order to boost performance. Here I get pretty much the same performance in either mode. the only real difference it the title bar at the top in maximised Windowed mode.RegardsPete

It is a known issue when using Vista or Windows 7 that when running FS9 or FSX in windowed mode if the window touches the taskbar (as said above actually the start button) you will see a significant drop in FPS.You can drag the window up a bit or if using Vista you can either click auto hide taskbar or keep windows on top of taskbar. In Windows 7 you can only select auto hide taskbar. Any of those will return the lost FPS and still allow running in a maximized window.Todd

Generally fps is higher in full screen than windowed.But the slowwer your pc the more youll notice the difference, i know cause i moved form 1.8Ghz dual core to 3.8 Ghz i7920.I always use windowed cause i undock all kinds of stuff to second screen, not possible in full screen.Infact ill never sim on one screen again, managing panels on single screen is too much hassle.

The Vista and Win7 taskbars use shaders that run in competition with the shaders used in FSX, that's why the window should not touch the taskbar, apparently. Beyond that, though, there are several other hidden reasons why FSX works better in windowed vs. fullscreen. As mentioned, resolution may be one of them, but there are others. It almost seems to depend on the individual rig.I highly reccommend that all flight simmers try both modes for themselves, as this advice is very much personal. Me, I currently get the best out of windowed mode. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

It may be that those who see performance drop in going from full to windowed is cause thier desktop reoslution and fsx resolution are not the same.In my case fsx resolution is always set to same a windows.

AlexThis post explains it pretty well: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/304669/...ull-screen-modeIt's good to know that it doesn't just happen in FSX :( RegardsPeterH

I hear ya man. When on vatsim I'm in windowed mode for sure. Sky vector is open, NACO charts, Squawkbox is up. Lots of windows open. Unfortunately I also have an issue with my mouse. If the cursor is displayed in the VC mode I have significantly LESS fps than if its off screen or over a 2D popup.

Chapstick,Thanks for bringing this up. I have tested the difference between full screen and windowed a number of times, and there is always a major loss of FPS when in a window, even when it is significantly reduced in size. I wonder why some others find the opposite happens on their machines...interesting. :( Stephen

Generally fps is higher in full screen than windowed.But the slowwer your pc the more youll notice the difference, i know cause i moved form 1.8Ghz dual core to 3.8 Ghz i7920.I always use windowed cause i undock all kinds of stuff to second screen, not possible in full screen.Infact ill never sim on one screen again, managing panels on single screen is too much hassle.

I always use full screen. And I can move any undockable panel to the second screen.

I always use full screen. And I can move any undockable panel to the second screen.

Not a lot of difference between full screen and windowed for me (W7 x64).Make sure that the shortcut you use to run FSX has Disable Visual Themes checked, in the Compatibility tab.You know it's working because as soon as you run FSX, you get the Windows theme changes to the basic, and a there's pop-up saying visual themes have been deactivated. I know the Windows Aero theme in Vista and "7" can have an effect.Does this help?

I wonder why some others find the opposite happens on their machines...interesting. :(

Must be a video card/driver thing. I get better performance in window mode on my current system, in the past the opposite has been true.

Thanks for the help guys, the FPS between windowed and fullscreen is now equalized. Sheesh, for months I was running FSX at half the framerate I could've been... it feels like I got a free CPU upgrade. I wonder how many people gave up on FSX because they didn't know about this bug...-Alex

I'm still curious if others have the mouse cursor problem. There's a few guys on the hardware forums that do, from what I've read.