Dragon Age-Frame rates almost doubled in windowed mode

That's said, i was fiddling the graphic settings today and found my fps almost doubled (from about 15-17 to 30-35) in windowed mode when switched from full screen mode at same resolution and settings(1920x1080, max settings,no AA). It's a pleasant surprise, of course, but i don't understand, do the two modes(windowed vs full screen) make the GPU work differently somehow?

Anyway, gonna play the game in windowed mode from now on

 

A VERY interesting find - will try this out. What driver are you using?

 

Well I did notice a major increase in FPS when in windowed mode, but I wasn't using the same resolution.

Hmmm I'll try it and see just for fun

 

Umm that's actually really weird as is supposed to be "harder" on the system to play games windowed... When you go fullscreen for a game, aero (for example) gets disabled, while when you open a game in windowed mode, this won't happen...

 

hmm, just a little update on my experience: the fps seems only to have a major boost in certain scenes, eg: indoor areas/small maps, on large maps likes Ostaga, the frame rate doesn't seem to be affected. But still it's nice to see I can tune up the settings to a higher level.

Btw, i am using official 186.82 driver.

 

Doesnt make any sense at all :| Like Jose says, aero should still be enabled and that should decrease FPS..

Weird.

 

REB!, if it made sense to me, i wouldn't have made this thread.

 

take screenshots of both fullscreen and windowed modes at the exact same spot... there could be less details when in windowed mode, some games do that

 

Yeah well, true that... We are all clueless.

 

I experience the same thing in other games. My speculation is the the resolution is smaller (obviously) and enables for more framerates. I find this is regardless of the GUI (Aero) that this effect will happen.

 

Yeah, but the OP stated that he is playing windowed mode at full res (1920x1080)... So, it's still a very weird and insteresting find...