Thread: Windowed + noborder = awesome

have you found a way to move the window? I saw this in l4d2, but couldnt figure out how to move the window so i stuck with the boarder

you can have a perfectly calibrated monitor and the game is still too dark.

Originally Posted by Oozish

you can have a perfectly calibrated monitor and the game is still too dark.

Not true. A calibrated display has a gamma of 2.2, which not coincidentally is exactly the default gamma for TF2. Look at every screenshot I've ever posted (like the one at the top of this thread). I have never found a map that didn't look right at these settings. I'm not sure why you would want it brighter OR darker. I mean, I guess personal preference could vary for some strange reason, but nothing has ever been even slightly difficult for me to see due to being "too dark."

What is the calibrated gamma of your display? How did you calibrate it?

Originally Posted by Cripple

Why would you use this anyway? I can tab out and be back in the game within a minute. takes me about 10 seconds to load the game from minimized

Those numbers sounds ridiculous. It takes you a MINUTE to tab out and back in? With windowed mode it takes a SECOND, literally. And more importantly, I crash a lot when alt tabbing out of full screen. Not so with windowed mode.

However, I have discovered something new and unrelated about windowed mode which may turn me off from using it. I was using it last night and noticed my fans sounded a lot louder than usual, so I glanced at my EVEREST sidebar and my GPU was running at about 95%. A cursory test showed that it stays above 90% in windowed mode but only goes to 30% or so for fullscreen mode at the same resolution. I am NOT a fan of overtaxing my hardware.

Although, another POSITIVE I noticed is that the game doesn't crash on map change in windowed mode... which it still does in fullscreen mode a lot.

It's too dark for me. My display is fine, I like gamma in game around 1.8 but that's too bright for normal use. However, if it works for you that's great. I've messed with this and personally it's not an option for me that's all.

Originally Posted by Oozish

My display is fine

So what's the gamma of your display, and how did you calibrate it?

before i went windowed I couldnt alt tab with out serious graphic mix ups. Like I couldnt see enemies and I got purple and black checkered everything. Windowed no border changed my life...

Originally Posted by Bunni

have you found a way to move the window? I saw this in l4d2, but couldnt figure out how to move the window so i stuck with the boarder

Nope, also can't find out how to minimize it. But I do the native res for my display anyway, so it's essentially "full screen."

BUT... I did find one negative about windowed mode. Even if it's reporting a steady 300fps... it chops in certain places. It is VERY minor and probably not enough to even affect a real game... but it bothers me. Like when you are running, every oncee in a while instead of steady forward motion you feel like you are skipping... even though your frames aren't dropping at all. I tested this several times and it definitely only happens in windowed mode. No point having a rig that can run this game butter smooth only to have it chop for no reason. That is enough to make me go back to full screen, even if I crash every map... only takes 20 seconds to reload the whole game/map.

I have the hp 24" screen/lcd and the greys/blacks aren't very good/delineated. 'Calibration' is based on forums user settings of what they recommend and tweaking the greys/blacks via calibration software makes virtually no difference to the grey scale.

I could post screenshots I guess, if I were trying to convince you; but it doesn't matter that much to me.