Author Topic: Window mode runs slower than full screen. (Read 4434 times)

vidjogamer · « **on:** March 12, 2011, 01:52:15 am »

Does anyone know why fullscreen mode would run faster than windowed?

Also does your video mode resolution affect rendering speeds?

JAssange · « **Reply #1 on:** March 12, 2011, 01:56:12 am »

Fullscreen is always faster because it can exclusively own the various video buffers.

vidjogamer · « **Reply #2 on:** March 12, 2011, 02:04:24 am »

Oh I see. Is that the same for maximized windows? I run at 60 fps when I maximize the window but it runs at about 24 fps when non maximized.

Edit: When I dont cap my frame rate at 60 I get 330 fps when maximized and only 40 fps when non maximized.

pdinklag · « **Reply #3 on:** March 12, 2011, 08:25:01 am »

No, a maximized window is still a window. That means all your desktop stuff is rendered (task bar, window frames, other windows, desktop, whatever else your OS needs to render) while rendering your SFML application.

As JAssange said, windowed is naturally slower than fullscreen, because in fullscreen mode your graphics processing is dedicated to it.

If your framerate drops too much while in windowed mode you will either have to render less, or if that doesn't help or isn't possible you might have to get a stronger graphics card.

Laurent · « **Reply #4 on:** March 12, 2011, 01:08:12 pm »

I don't think this is true. As far as I know, with WGL/GLX/... there's no way to start "exclusive fullscreen mode", like you can do with Direct3D or DirectDraw for example.

In SFML, for fullscreen all I do is to change the desktop resolution and then maximize the window, so it shouldn't be faster than windowed mode.