Windowed + noborder = awesome

**Veovis** · 12-16-09, 11:38 PM

If you've ever tried playing in windowed mode, it sucks if you use your native res because of the border around the window. Well, if you go into steam and set launch options for TF2, you can insert "-sw -noborder" to put it in windowed noborder mode and it will look exactly like fullscreen but you can alt-tab to your heart's content very quickly. Also add "-novid" to remove the stupid "head" intro video and save loading time.

I have heard it might make the game run slower, but on my machine I don't have an issue.

Also you can add custom res, like I added "-w 1680 -h 945"... which puts me at 16:9 even though my display is 16:10 (1680x1050) and essentially gives me more FOV. You can actually take this as far as you want. I tried "-w 1680 -h 400" which gave me an INSANELY wide FOV (it also made 2/3 of my monitor useless/letterboxed). I am kind of surprised they allow this, but at the same time I think it should be. I think they should remove the FOV cap also. In effect it gives you about the same FOV that a 3-display setup would as BigDog posted about here. But like we concluded in that thread... it's an advantage everyone has access to... only in this case you don't have to buy a bunch of expensive hardware... you just have to change your launch options.

It actually made me sick playing like this... not very useful. I'm sticking with 16:10 for now but MIGHT change to 16:9 in the future.

This is "16:3.8" (1680x400)

**IRON MAN 2142** · 12-16-09, 11:43 PM

Tried this, but when windows, you cant change brightness/gamma, which just makes me mad :5

**The Lord of the Land** · 12-17-09, 01:53 AM

I recently change to this and noticed no drop in framerate.

**vectus** · 12-17-09, 01:58 AM

Also, Windows mode does not take advantage of AA/AF.

**Veovis** · 12-17-09, 02:00 AM

Originally Posted by vectus

Also, Windows mode does not take advantage of AA/AF.

Weird, I didn't notice a change in gfx. I will have to do some comparison screenshots tomorrow...

**Oozish** · 12-17-09, 09:23 AM

big change in contrast/gamme as said already...no no for me. If not for no control over gamma I'd be using this a long time ago as it's very convenient.

**Veovis** · 12-17-09, 11:19 AM

Doesn't affect my brightness at all... I have mine at default, I guess since my displays are hardware profiled/calibrated.

**Oozish** · 12-17-09, 12:15 PM

If you try to adjust gamma you'll find it has no effect. On my setup and every setup I've tried it on the graphics are noticeably darker and sort of flat.

**flame** · 12-17-09, 12:44 PM

kibner showed me how to do this, I love it now I can pop into forums and post with out leaving game

**Veovis** · 01-19-10, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by Veovis

Originally Posted by vectus

Also, Windows mode does not take advantage of AA/AF.

Weird, I didn't notice a change in gfx. I will have to do some comparison screenshots tomorrow...

Ok, reviving my own thread here... I just tested it and you are definitely wrong. Both AA and AF function in windowed mode, the difference is clear.

It is true the gamma control gets removed, but again you can control this directly with your display gamma, which should be properly set anyway so it's not an issue.