Obviously, to be fair, games should allow you to switch between windows and fullscreen. However, speaking as a gamer myself, I prefer fullscreen mode for most games. Maximized windows do NOT do it for me. That taskbar is a constant annoyance. I can''t be immersed in universe X when I have a taskbar below me with a flashing AIM message. Furthermore, just because computers can multitask, doesn''t mean you have to take full advantage of it. Sometimes it''s better the "DOS" way.

Not to mention the game is faster.

quote:Original post by alnite
For me it seems wrong that only games taking over the entire screen while no other application ever does that. The system is meant as a multitasking environment by running every application on its own window, but why can''t video games cooperate by doing that as well?

By the same logic, it seems wrong that a game takes 100% of the processor and so much memory and other system resources when no other application does. Games have been known to take GIGABYTES of hard disk space. I can''t think of a single application that takes that much. Heck, computer games have their own API. They don''t interface with windows much, they interface with DirectX or OpenGL/OpenAL/other open libraries to replace the various components of DirectX.

When I play a game or a movie, I want an emersive, entertaining experiance. In both cases I close EVERYTHING down on the computer that isn''t needed, I like to have every iota of power I can get. In both instances I make it fullscreen (and I despise the few seconds that my mouse cursor stays on screen before vanishing during a movie), because everything else is just unneeded. If I want to pause and go to another screen, I use Alt+Tab (that''s why it''s there). Why would someone like me want windowed mode when there is literally nothing else running I would want to multitask with?

Games are special. Most other applications don''t even have a fullscreen mode. Games have a unique situation in requiring extreme power and performance. That''s why fullscreen is default.

Im sure that if you did a major poll, with a good amount of people participating, that full screen is the prefered way of playing games

like an above poster said.... just cause its possible to have my game in a window and my OS supports windowing and multitasking, doesnt mean it has to be done, it doesnt mean i want my game to do it and im sure most people agree with me.

running in fullscreen is an advantage, like people have said before the major one is performance. on my last computer when it was getting on a bit i found it near impossible to run any game in windowed mode if i had to for some reason. Games run so much better in fullscreen which IS important because if your getting %50 more speed from the game, you can waste it on higher resolutions/more eye candy and the like which is gotta be good. Maybe it is just me but i cant understand why people well reduce the potential quality of the game theyre playing so the can have the desktop in the background.

anyway thats just my 2 pence, dont flame me

Fullscreen mode has the advantage over windowed mode in terms of performance. Since the windowing system has a high over head and by entering fullscreen mode that windowing system overhead is eliminated. Also in some cases windowed mode doesn''t support hardware rendering.

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