The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Gaming in A WINDOW Question >>>>

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by JDELUNA, Feb 2, 2009.

  1. JDELUNA

    JDELUNA Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    419
    Messages:
    958
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Is gaming in a window harder for the GPU meaning is it better or worse for performance or does it even matter ?? Thanks for any info. God Bless :)
     
    JDELUNA, Feb 2, 2009
    #1
  2. Euquility

    Euquility Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    198
    Messages:
    1,592
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    I believe playing full screen is a less taxing task on your GPU, assuming the game is in the same resolution
     
    Euquility, Feb 2, 2009
    #2
  3. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    543
    Messages:
    2,871
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    theoritically, gaming in windows will be harder, coz it needs to render the windows UI as well as the game. but i never notice any difference.

    maybe in vista if you have many many windows open plus the game, then you might see a bit of difference.

    depend on the graphic card also, if you have a decent card; geforce 9400 upward, i think performance difference is rather negligible.
     
    wobble987, Feb 2, 2009
    #3
  4. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

    Reputations:
    2,637
    Messages:
    6,370
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Probably should ask a programmer this..... As far as I've seen, my FPS isn't bettter or worse in a window. The best part about the window though is I don't have to wait for the program to minimize if I want to click stuff on the second monitor.
     
    surfasb, Feb 2, 2009
    #4
  5. gary_hendricks

    gary_hendricks Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    29
    Messages:
    561
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    yes, it matters. usually, you'll get 2/3 fps hit.
    if the game is too much resource consuming (think crysis),
    drop will be even more.
     
    gary_hendricks, Feb 2, 2009
    #5
  6. eecan

    eecan Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I always seem to run slower in a window...
     
    eecan, Feb 2, 2009
    #6
  7. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

    Reputations:
    21,580
    Messages:
    35,370
    Likes Received:
    9,878
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Run any GPU temp monitor and try running in a window and full screen. You will see your temps rise considerably in windows mode, which means your GPU is working harder, and if it's a graphically demanding game, you will see a degradation in performance.
     
    HTWingNut, Feb 2, 2009
    #7
  8. Templesa

    Templesa Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    172
    Messages:
    808
    Likes Received:
    247
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Maybe its just me, but I've always seen them run about the same, and on low end GPU's maybe even a little better in a window.
     
    Templesa, Feb 2, 2009
    #8
  9. Danja

    Danja Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    57
    Messages:
    576
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I accidentally ran Crysis in window mode and definitely experienced lags that don't normally happen.
     
    Danja, Feb 2, 2009
    #9
  10. mortalcombat

    mortalcombat Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    214
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    it is worse... tried it with a 7600 go
     
    mortalcombat, Feb 2, 2009
    #10