Borderless Windowed Mode
rectifier
Member Posts: 15
I didn't see this request in a search so here goes.
For certain users, in particular desktop and laptop users, there is a feature in many games called borderless windowed mode, fake fullscreen, full window, etc.
What this feature (essentially) does:
Launches the game in a window.
Changes the resolution of the window so only the game itself covers the entire screen.
Removes the window's default borders, menus, buttons, etc. that aren't part of the game itself.
Feature Pros:
Graphically displays the game as if it was in fullscreen mode.
Allows fast and stable switching between the game window and other windows.
Eliminate screen tearing without vsync because the window uses the operating system to synchronize.
Feature Cons:
Some graphics cards do/may not support crossfire/sli when the game is in this mode.
Could have scrolling issues on multiple monitor setups.
Takes up more memory (RAM) than fullscreen mode (usually not an issue).
Why should this feature be considered?
Many gamers/users like to switch between multiple applications and want to do so quickly and painlessly. If this switching takes a long time or causes unexpected behavior (like a crash or other bug), people may be less inclined to play the game.
Quick Summary (tl;dr):
Let's assume many players switch applications while playing games and switching is important to them. If the game session's stability (lag, disconnects in multiplayer, crashes) in fullscreen mode is affected by switching applications, then borderless windowed mode is a solution for that.
Conclusion:
I think many players would appreciate an official borderless windowed mode for BGEE/BGEE2.
Footnote: I made a script to do this (somewhat) for Windows users at http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/20092/bgeebw
For certain users, in particular desktop and laptop users, there is a feature in many games called borderless windowed mode, fake fullscreen, full window, etc.
What this feature (essentially) does:
Launches the game in a window.
Changes the resolution of the window so only the game itself covers the entire screen.
Removes the window's default borders, menus, buttons, etc. that aren't part of the game itself.
Feature Pros:
Graphically displays the game as if it was in fullscreen mode.
Allows fast and stable switching between the game window and other windows.
Eliminate screen tearing without vsync because the window uses the operating system to synchronize.
Feature Cons:
Some graphics cards do/may not support crossfire/sli when the game is in this mode.
Could have scrolling issues on multiple monitor setups.
Takes up more memory (RAM) than fullscreen mode (usually not an issue).
Why should this feature be considered?
Many gamers/users like to switch between multiple applications and want to do so quickly and painlessly. If this switching takes a long time or causes unexpected behavior (like a crash or other bug), people may be less inclined to play the game.
Quick Summary (tl;dr):
Let's assume many players switch applications while playing games and switching is important to them. If the game session's stability (lag, disconnects in multiplayer, crashes) in fullscreen mode is affected by switching applications, then borderless windowed mode is a solution for that.
Conclusion:
I think many players would appreciate an official borderless windowed mode for BGEE/BGEE2.
Footnote: I made a script to do this (somewhat) for Windows users at http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/20092/bgeebw
4
Comments
The numbers are referring to the (internal) bug/feature tracker.
The links are added automatically by the forum (it happens for every word with a # symbol as prefix) but they might be useful to search other places where the same tracker issue is mentioned.
In Options->Graphics, one of the options is Hardware Mouse Cursor.
If BGEE is in fullscreen mode and Hardware Mouse Cursor is enabled, the mouse cursor is entirely invisible, but if the option is disabled, the mouse cursor is visible.
If BGEE is in windowed mode the cursor is visible regardless.
So I can choose to either use this option and be forced to play windowed mode, or not use this option at all and be able to use either mode. Maybe this is a BGEE bug, maybe its on my end, I don't know, and I don't really care (from a user standpoint) why this happens on my machine.
I decided I didn't like either choice and thats why I made an ahk script to force borderless windowed mode, but my solution is hackish at best, only works on Windows, and has flaws.
For issues like these, albeit small compared to other issues, an official borderless windowed mode would be an ideal solution. I know this can be done on Windows because many modern video games support borderless windowed mode, and I know this can be done on Mac and Linux because many *nix window managers can perform the task.
Just some food for thought.
I had the game impossible to run in fullscreen. Just no way. I tried a lot of different stuff, but I always kept a window.
Guess what, the window is now borderless
Also, I had a minor issue : after running the exe, I still had a small blank line on the left side of my screen. I just messed a bit in this order : graphics (in game), fullscreen (bad idea), then quit, then relaunch the exe, then... alt+b.
Great fix !
Hey I saw your comment, I don't own Icewind Dale enhanced edition so its hard for me to make the script work without knowing some details. Regardless I can share the link to the dropbox folder where I put this stuff.
https://dropbox.com/sh/s575yegm9a81ou5/AACqkWPkiT9oi3VEMi0jijj2a?dl=0
One caveat, I believe the autohotkey major version I used to create these scripts is 1, so if you try to run this with authotkey 2 there is a pretty good likelihood of it failing.
Let me know if the dropbox link doesn't work.