Ever play WoW in Windowed Mode?

Bellator · 08-13-08, 03:48 AM

I was wondering how well WoW played in the Windowed Mode? Any performance problems that you have experienced or do you love it?

Bellator

Striph · 08-13-08, 03:52 AM

Been running WOW in windowed mode since the 2.1? patch where when you alt-tabbed out after a few times WOW would crash. So i play in windowed fulltime now, maybe they'll fix that sometime, but till then its windowed mode all the way!

Performance wise it appears to run a tad slower, like say maybe 3-5% slower overall, but nothing huge enough to make a difference really.

Equitoen · 08-13-08, 04:16 AM

I play exclusively in Windowed Mode (because I do so many things at once) and actually get much better performance than in Fullscreen mode.

Amethyst · 08-13-08, 05:43 AM

I'm using 2 monitors for dual desktop, so windowed mode is essential. I've found there's no performance issues at all for me if running in maximised windowed mode.

Means you can browse and do stuff in other apps and so forth.

p3lim · 08-13-08, 06:17 AM

Running two monitors, WoW in the left one with windowed mode full screen on, its easier to 'alt-tab' with that setup. (very good as you write addons too)

Archippus · 08-13-08, 06:35 AM

I run in maximized Windowed mode and have excellent performance. With the Maximized and Disable Resize boxes checked, there is no visual difference between windowed and full screen, but I have all of the functionality of Windows.

secutanudu · 08-13-08, 06:43 AM

Originally Posted by Striph

Been running WOW in windowed mode since the 2.1? patch where when you alt-tabbed out after a few times WOW would crash. So i play in windowed fulltime now, maybe they'll fix that sometime, but till then its windowed mode all the way!

Same for me. I've grown to like it, though. I run windowed/maximized. Also, I recently downloaded DeskPins as well. It makes it possible to make any program "always on top".

I have a big monitor (24" widescreen) so I make my firefox window "always on top" on the left side of my screen, and fish in wow on the right side while I read the news, surf the web.

Even if they fixed the crashing when you alt+tab out of fullscreen mode, I'm staying windowed/maximized.

BlackAcid · 08-13-08, 06:52 AM

Yeah I run in windowed mode as well.
As for performance, well in XP I would get at best 30 FPS, (full screen is 35-40 FPS) but because I live and work in linux I'm also running it in windowed mode on linux and I get much better performance than I do in XP at full screen. Typically it's 40-60 FPS windowed on linux.

Strego · 08-13-08, 07:00 AM

I have been running in windowed mode almost since release and I love it. I have never noticed a preformance difference in game, but there is a huge difference when your switch back and forth between applications, so much easier.

eiszeit · 08-13-08, 07:09 AM

I play WoW in window mode + fullscreen on... awesome, tabbing to browser wasnt ever so fast..

dafire · 08-13-08, 07:20 AM

I think window mode is about 10 fps slower then fullscreen mode.. (presuming you use the directx renderer)

eiszeit · 08-13-08, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by dafire

I think window mode is about 10 fps slower then fullscreen mode.. (presuming you use the directx renderer)

really? never had a difference.

LBXZero · 08-13-08, 08:23 AM

The performance between windowed mode and full screen mode depends on the hardware, drivers, and the operating system.

In my computer hardware and OS classes, we talked about the difference between interrupts and polling for system status control. The difference between windowed mode and fullscreen mode is about the same concept.

The difference is that in fullscreen mode, the system tries to keep a smooth pace, while in windowed mode the system is not holding pace. Try going into dxdiag.exe and run the DirectDraw diagnostics and watch the speed of the bouncing box between fullscreen and windowed.

Also for the performance between switching programs in alt-tab, some programs are put in a background state and may be shoved into virtual ram while WoW is running in fullscreen to give the primary program more room. In windowed mode, those visible programs do not go into background mode and stay in RAM.

jonathon · 08-13-08, 12:29 PM

I run 3 monitors (yes that was 3, three) so running WoW in windowed is the only way to go, I run it maximised on my center monitor and see 60 FPS, with 80mbs of UI.

Can't complain it's awesome.

Ackis · 08-13-08, 12:40 PM

Full time windowed mode.

Only thing I don't like is when I load through the launcher it doesn't start off as maximized.

Bellator · 08-13-08, 03:44 PM

Great and thanks all for the feedback, just got home from work and going to give it a shot. Very cool.

Bellator

Nynaeve · 08-13-08, 05:16 PM

My computer is crap. I'm not sure it could handle windowed mode.

That being said, I'm not currently using any art panels on my screen, so I could technically switch to windowed mode without it messing anything up, and it would probably stop the side-screen tearing in psychedelic colors that always happens when I alt-tab a lot.

Farook · 08-13-08, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by eiszeit

I play WoW in window mode + fullscreen on... awesome, tabbing to browser wasnt ever so fast..

So do I... and I love it.

GrissomXIX · 08-13-08, 10:05 PM

Full screen windowed mode, dual monitors since day one and never looked back.

Whitey · 08-16-08, 01:54 PM

Single monitor (Come on pay day!) with two WoW clients running in windowed mode is usually how I run

.

Yay for dual boxing!

- Whitey