Symptoms:
- I want some clarification regarding building for Windows and choosing fullscreen mode. Which is the 'correct' choice, and why?
Cause:
In Player Settings for Windows Standalone, there are options to set which mode should be used for fullscreen. Fullscreen Window (Borderless) or Exclusive Fullscreen. It can be confusing which mode should be used for your game. See below:
Resolution:
There is no definitive answer for which fullscreen option you should use, as it depends on the game, the user's hardware, and the user's intended usage.
Fullscreen Window (Borderless)
Allows for quicker process focus switching (alt-tab) but will consume slightly more resources as it is still rendering the desktop. Normally users with multi-monitor setups or users who need to alt-tab to other applications (web browser, music player, etc) prefer Fullscreen Window (Borderless).
If profiling reveals the game is approaching its limit for VRAM, then Exclusive Fullscreen mode may be better, allowing users to gain a slight performance improvement.
A common solution is to default to one mode and then allow the user to override it if they want/need it.
Users can specify the fullscreen window mode by using the standalone player command line argument
-window-mode with either exclusive or borderless values when launching the game, e.g., -window-mode exclusive. Users in Steam could set this up. Alternatively, a custom launcher could be created to allow users to select this setting before launching the game with the custom launch options.It is not bad practice to use exclusive fullscreen mode as default (many users prefer this mode as it can sometimes give better performance with their hardware).
Please note: Maximized Window only works on Mac. Other platforms will fall back to Fullscreen Window.