Massive FPS difference in fullscreen vs. windowed.

[chapstick 2,757]

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.

I tried to re-create it and I didn't get an FPS drop. -Alex

[ryanbatc 12,836]

Argh. It must be some combination of hardware, drivers, nHancer.... so pretty much anything is possible lol

[TPerson 15]

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?

Actually it's "Disable Desktop Compilation" you're talking about and that turns off the Aero Desktop. For some people (myself included) the RealityXP WAAS units require "Disable Visual Themes" to be checked also. I'm running W7 x64 and I see no difference in FPS between full screen and windowed mode provided that the window isn't touching the taskbar. I have no issues with FPS with the mouse cursor displayed.Todd

[Vuong 0]

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

May I ask you when you use full screen, does the second screen decrease to a lower resolution ?My full screen resolution is 2560x1600 , my second screen switch from 1920 x 1080 to 1280 x 1024. No problem if I use both in windows mode.Jimmy

[Owi 0]

Golly! I switched to windowed mode on a suggestion in some forum (I can't remember where) that I'd get an improvement in FPS - I did - so I hadn't considered going back to fullscreen mode because I got used to windowed mode.Thanks to this thread, I was curious enough to experiment again. I switched back to fullscreen mode and I have an average FPS increase of about 50%.My result is based on a five minute flight in an AS Twotter, on heading 110 from Bankstown YSBK, 1500ft AMSL over the western suburbs of Sydney and just past Botany Bay in the city's south; and I have FTX AU !I was lucky to hit 14fps before, but now I get to 24fps frequently. FSX is locked at 25fps. Go figure.Cheers and thanks to all here for helping make this a great FS forum in general.

[marce155 0]

Sorry to revive this, but I have a strange problem: Going to full screen costs me 50% of my FPS. In windowed mode I get the ~30FPS I’m locked into in Nvidia Inspector (with FlyTampa Vienna, 737NGX, on the ground, ASN, full FTX package incl. openLC and REX clouds). Once I hit Alt+Return it drops to ~15FPS. Call me crazy but I would actually prefer fullscreen mode…

 

Tweaks I applied: I followed Kostas guide and applied the setting in Nvidia Inspector Ryan (from PMDG) suggested. Only difference: I have to run DX10 because DX9 simply does not work at all for me and never has (it always falls back to 1024x768 resolution whatever I do). VSync is off.

 

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

EDIT: I think because of Performance mode my system doesn't show up so I'll post it here: i5-3570k@4,4, GTX780, 16GB RAM, everything FSX related on SSDs, 2560x1600 native res.

[altstiff 71]

I run in full screen mode and use a second older P4 computer for everything else...

[marce155 0]

Well my point is that I get a 50% FPS drop when using full screen while everyone else seems to be experiencing the exact opposite.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it doesn't feel right.

 

Anyway, as long as I get my quite stable 30FPS in windowed mode I'll pass on WideFS. Adding more networking usually creates more trouble in my experience.

But if I'm losing FPS in full screen because I screwed up something I'd like to know and fix it ^_^

[Michael Moe 495]

Well my point is that I get a 50% FPS drop when using full screen while everyone else seems to be experiencing the exact opposite.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it doesn't feel right.

 

Anyway, as long as I get my quite stable 30FPS in windowed mode I'll pass on WideFS. Adding more networking usually creates more trouble in my experience.

But if I'm losing FPS in full screen because I screwed up something I'd like to know and fix it ^_^

 

+1 on my system. Never found the reason though.

 

Michael

[sgreen91 182]

 

 

Well my point is that I get a 50% FPS drop when using full screen while everyone else seems to be experiencing the exact opposite.

 

You need to enable aero theme in windows 7.  

 

There are multiple ways of doing this but just to see if it works start FSX and load a flight.

Open the task manager and look for dwm.exe under the processes tab.

Highlight that process and select "end process".  

 

It will restart and you will have the aero theme as long as you didn't disable in the performance tab.

You should then be running full FPS.

[marce155 0]

You need to enable aero theme in windows 7.  

 

There are multiple ways of doing this but just to see if it works start FSX and load a flight.

Open the task manager and look for dwm.exe under the processes tab.

Highlight that process and select "end process".  

 

It will restart and you will have the aero theme as long as you didn't disable in the performance tab.

You should then be running full FPS.

 

Thanks for the hint. Actually I'm running 8.1 and aero (or the remains of it aka the taskbar) stays on all the time.

But I'll try to kill the window manager and see if it helps once I get home.

[marce155 0]

Tried it and it didn't help. Still max 15FPS as if Vsync 1/2 would be magically active although it isn't :mellow:

[Zoho30 7]

Thanks for the hint. Actually I'm running 8.1 and aero (or the remains of it aka the taskbar) stays on all the time.

But I'll try to kill the window manager and see if it helps once I get home.

If the AERO not work, just re install the intel graphic driver and it will work.

 

I get the same problem and fixed it by this way.

 

Just give a try.

[StubbinMyToe 14]

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

 

With DirectX  and Direct3D, full screen mode allows the application to take exclusive control of the device, that can allow the application to do things it cannot do when not exclusive.   In windowed mode, regardless of borderless or resolution, exclusive control is not possible.  That is one reason why fullscreen will be faster.  BUT, given today's video cards it should not be that drastic of a difference.

 

Before going to work at Adobe, I was a 3D game developer in the 90's (back then we used VESA drivers and wrote our own 3D code) our 3D code ran at Ring0 to handle VESA bank switching to allow for linear frame buffer access.  In the early 2000's before DirectX, it was called the Windows Game SDK, and all 3D games back then were full screen exclusive mode only for reasons I mentioned.   Today most games are fullscreen or window, but it will always be faster full screen (just not as much as it used to be).

[marce155 0]

If the AERO not work, just re install the intel graphic driver and it will work.

 

I get the same problem and fixed it by this way.

 

Just give a try.

 

No Aero does work always, no need to change anything about it. That's not the problem either. And updateing Intel graphic drivers shouldn't do anything while the integrated GPU is deactivated, maybe you updated the chipset drivers and fixed something else.

 

With DirectX  and Direct3D, full screen mode allows the application to take exclusive control of the device, that can allow the application to do things it cannot do when not exclusive.   In windowed mode, regardless of borderless or resolution, exclusive control is not possible.  That is one reason why fullscreen will be faster.  BUT, given today's video cards it should not be that drastic of a difference.

 

Before going to work at Adobe, I was a 3D game developer in the 90's (back then we used VESA drivers and wrote our own 3D code) our 3D code ran at Ring0 to handle VESA bank switching to allow for linear frame buffer access.  In the early 2000's before DirectX, it was called the Windows Game SDK, and all 3D games back then were full screen exclusive mode only for reasons I mentioned.   Today most games are fullscreen or window, but it will always be faster full screen (just not as much as it used to be).

 

Yeah, that's my problem. I know it's hard to grasp but I have a reversed effect where full screen is much slower than windowed which is illogical. And I'd like to fix that.

Sorry for "shouting" but I feel that I'm not really getting through :mellow: