Performance- Windowed vs. Full screen

[bradrcfii 3]

I saw a thread in the MD11 forum that suggested PMDG products perform better in "windowed" mode.Is this true ad if so, why?Thanks

[sheepfu 3]

Strange glitches can occur with any complex aircraft (not exclusive to PMDG) product in Full Screen mode. Without getting into the nitty gritty is mostly has to do with the amount of simulation which is taking place outside of FSX.

[flyguy172 0]

i get better frames in fullscreen, so go figuredepends on the machine FSX is setup on, not PMDG aircraft

[bradrcfii 3]

Yes, I notice better frame rates in full screen and do not suffer any glitches running four monitors via a triple head.

[Tabs 2,790]

Strange glitches can occur with any complex aircraft (not exclusive to PMDG) product in Full Screen mode. Without getting into the nitty gritty is mostly has to do with the amount of simulation which is taking place outside of FSX.

No idea what you're talking about here... the code runs exactly the same either way.Some of you are probably getting better frames in full screen because you have Vsync on. FSX uses triple buffering in full screen only - this allows for a wider range of possible framerates than windowed does (it won't drop immediately from 60 to 30 to 20 etc like it will with double-buffered Vsync. If you fly in Windowed, leave Vsync off and make sure there's no Windows UI elements like Vista's Start orb overlaying the window. I see the same performance either way myself.

[mcbellette 145]

No idea what you're talking about here... the code runs exactly the same either way.Some of you are probably getting better frames in full screen because you have Vsync on. FSX uses triple buffering in full screen only - this allows for a wider range of possible framerates than windowed does (it won't drop immediately from 60 to 30 to 20 etc like it will with double-buffered Vsync. If you fly in Windowed, leave Vsync off and make sure there's no Windows UI elements like Vista's Start orb overlaying the window. I see the same performance either way myself.

So if I select vsync to "on" and triple buffering to "on", I should see an improvement in fps in fullscreen mode?

[dazz 69]

So if I select vsync to "on" and triple buffering to "on", I should see an improvement in fps in fullscreen mode?

No. MatthewVsync on in Inspector = Vsync on in FSX + full screen (no FPS loss because of tripple buffering)Vsync tweak in fsx.cfg (ForceWindowedVsync=1) = Vsync on in windowed mode, but with the FPS loss

[Cuddly1956 1]

I don't know if it has been addressed yet but with ATI cards if the mouse cursor was outside the fsx window the framerate would increase a lot. Don't believe it makes a difference with Nvidia cards.I usually run in a window anyway as I have programs on another monitor but yes there is an apparent improvement in fullscreen but if you keep changing views, etc it will crash eventually due to a fsx bug.Just speculation here as I have never had an issue with this so please take as opinion, not hard fact.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Cuddly1956

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Random question for Windowed Mode users:I have Win7, so when I start FSX, the aero theme blanks (it does for any program with high mem usage). It's not a big deal that the aero theme goes away, per se, but when I fly at night it gets to be an issue. The aero theme blanks to a light (bright) blue, which is distracting down at the bottom of the screen when the sim screen is in the dark of night, and the taskbar is bright.If I change the aero theme's color to a charcoal, the reverted theme is still bright. Do I change the old school Windows theme to get a darker reverted taskbar?

[MrKen 3]

Random question for Windowed Mode users:I have Win7, so when I start FSX, the aero theme blanks (it does for any program with high mem usage). It's not a big deal that the aero theme goes away, per se, but when I fly at night it gets to be an issue. The aero theme blanks to a light (bright) blue, which is distracting down at the bottom of the screen when the sim screen is in the dark of night, and the taskbar is bright.If I change the aero theme's color to a charcoal, the reverted theme is still bright. Do I change the old school Windows theme to get a darker reverted taskbar?

Easiest fix is just hide the taskbar.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Cool. Thanks.

[MrKen 3]

Forgot to mention its also a good idea to avoid aero themes when running fsx. That's just extra CPU time your sim can't have.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Yeah, mine actually kicks off anyway when the sim starts up and reverts to the old style.

[tipitout 5]

I don't know if it has been addressed yet but with ATI cards if the mouse cursor was outside the fsx window the framerate would increase a lot. Don't believe it makes a difference with Nvidia cards.

Its an FSX phenomenon. Everyone has it to greater or lesser extents, regardless of GPU manufacturer. Edited February 2, 2012 by tipitout