Fullscreen vs. windowed mode
Author
I am kind of new to DirectX but I always thought, that fullscreen modes are faster than windowed ones.
I have a Geforce2 card and I am using DirectX 8.0A
I am using VB 6.0 and I noticed this effect in basically any demo which was coming with the SDK. Anyone knows why ??
Any help is greatly appreciated
Thx,
telecontrol
Try changing to a lower desktop resolution and then running the windowed apps. Does the performance increase? Usually, the fullscreen apps are lower res than your desktop, so the card is doing less because it''s not drawing a huge desktop AND rendering the app.
Author
Thanks CrazedGenius but I did not make myself clear I am sorry. The windowed ones are FASTER than the fullscreen one.
This is simply against anything I ever heard and you kind of agree
Thx,
telecontrol
This is simply against anything I ever heard and you kind of agree
Thx,
telecontrol
Windowed mode applications will be running as fast as possible, while fullscreen ones will be synced to the monitor refresh rate.
Author
Siaspete, thanks for the, but of course the next questions are:
This would mean that a windowed app is always better ?
Or how would I get a fullscreen game to run the same speed (especially when you scroll it is too slow)
Thx,
telecontrol
This would mean that a windowed app is always better ?
Or how would I get a fullscreen game to run the same speed (especially when you scroll it is too slow)
Thx,
telecontrol
Not really - If your monitor refreshes at 80Hz, you can`t see the extra frames drawn in windowed mode. All that happens is that the image ''tears'' every now and then because the image changes whilst the screen has been half scanned. Thats assuming your machine can draw frames faster than the monitor can display them.
To get a fullscreen app to get the same rate, you could disable ''vsync'', but if you decide to do that in your game make it an option. I find the tearing effect with vsync off makes me feel sick
To get a fullscreen app to get the same rate, you could disable ''vsync'', but if you decide to do that in your game make it an option. I find the tearing effect with vsync off makes me feel sick
Ahh... Now I understand...
Yes, siaspete''s answer is correct. On my laptop, I run at 60Hz both for windowed apps and fullscreen apps, so performance increases slightly for the reason''s I mentioned, but if you are running your desktop at >60Hz, then a fullscreen app is probably slower because most fullscreen apps are set to run at 60Hz.
Ultimately, the refresh rate determines what the eye actually sees, so you might get different numbers, but performance is really the same (in terms of vertex processing, fill rate, etc.) Try setting the fullscreen app to use a higher refresh rate.
Yes, siaspete''s answer is correct. On my laptop, I run at 60Hz both for windowed apps and fullscreen apps, so performance increases slightly for the reason''s I mentioned, but if you are running your desktop at >60Hz, then a fullscreen app is probably slower because most fullscreen apps are set to run at 60Hz.
Ultimately, the refresh rate determines what the eye actually sees, so you might get different numbers, but performance is really the same (in terms of vertex processing, fill rate, etc.) Try setting the fullscreen app to use a higher refresh rate.
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