Does anyone know what the difference is between the operation of FS9 in windowed mode vs full screen? I have a intermittant weird dislay probelm in full screen with the textures like trees, ground scenery, etc..., and when switching to windowed mode, it immediatly corrects itself. Back to full screen and the problem returns. Selecting another aircraft, will cause it to also correct itself, sometimes for the rest of the day. Rebooting the pc, always returns the graphics to normal for a day or more.

I'm no expert here, but it sounds like a graphics card/driver issue. What are your system specs (graphics card/mem, graphics driver, os, memory, processor, board, display resolution)?Thomas Perry

I had a similar sounding problem with an ATI 9800. Textures had weird little marks on them. Turned out to be a bad video card.You should be ok in Windowed view. I think only difference is the title bar at the top of the menu goes away in full screen.Matt

My knowledge is that running FS in windowed mode doesn't make use of the 3D engine of any video adapter, whereas full screen uses the adapter's full potential (that's why you have much better framerates in windowed mode compared to full screen).Andreas

Urban legend which might once have been true.Not using the hardware would cause lower performance, not higher performance, as the load on the CPU would become higher (and it's already high in FS).

Well, urban legend or no, this extract from the FS Help section seems to suggest a definite opinion on the matter. As usual though, your milage may vary, as the saying goes.

Performance (fps wise) in windowed mode depends on the size of the window.That's how it is on my system:I get more fps (if you call this performance?) out of FS2004 in windowed mode, but only if the window has the size of approx. half the screen or lessIf the window is bigger, or even maxed, than I get less fps than with full screen mode.Since I do not like to fly with a tiny window, I only fly in full screen mode.Wolfgangsys specsP4 2.4 Ghz512 MB DDR SDRWin XP Pro SP2ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB

For what it's worth, I get pretty much exact same performance, same 3D video enhancements, etc. whether in full screen or windowed mode. With dual monitors, pretty much have no choice but to run in windowed mode with FS2004 since FS minimizes if you try to do anything on the second monitor if it's in full screen.Back about 5 years ago, needed to run in full screen mode to take advantage of 3D video card, but it's not true these days.Bottom line...whatever works best for you, go for it.Matt