1.5.4 Windowed Fullscreen was a TERRIBLE idea

Issue Type (Required):

Visual

Issue Description (Required):

SInce 1.5.4 and the forced Windowed Fullscreen mode I have lost a huge chunk of performance. My frame rate is 50FPS lower in the Mourningstar alone, and in game it hitches and lags too.

You do know why almost every single game ever gives the OPTION of Fullscreen right?

As per google;

“Playing at fullscreen gives the application — in this case, a game — full control over the display.”
“Running a game in windowed mode can sometimes lead to lower frames per second (FPS) compared to full screen mode.”
“Windowed mode increases GPU usage as your computer must render the game and your desktop environment.”

Since 1.5.4 my GPU usage is 20% greater than previously when sat in doing nothing in the Mourningstar, and my FPS went from a stable 120+ fps to and unstable 70~ with the exact same graphics settings I had previously.

I have tried changing the settings up and down, and only by massively reducing the settings from what I used previously can i get back to 120fps but its NOT stable and it looks like ass.

Give us back the option to use real fullscreen.

Steps to Reproduce (Required):

Attempt to play the game on a regular PC that has things like Steam, G-Hub, iCue, Voicemeeter, or any other of the hundreds of required background apps for that setup.

[PC] Do You Use Mods? (Optional):

Yes, and I’ve tried disabling them (none were installed at all for my third and fourth attempts at reinstalling the game on fresh partitions with just drivers/steam etc.)

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Constant (100%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

3 Likes

I would especially like to know why the option for fullscreen was removed entirely…

5 Likes

Similar issues. Huge drops of performance I’ve never had before this hotfix

2 Likes

Stupid Q, and I feel dumb for asking, those on nVidia, updated to new drivers from this week? My buddy had issues with latest DT till he updated (after I reminded). He’s bad at driver updates…for some reason; maybe anecdotal.

FSE vs Borderless Fullscreen hasn’t really been advantageous since Win 10 ~ 5 years DWM changes and Fullscreen Optimization for borderless fullscreen windows, AFAIK, and FSE introduces its own issues with overlays and the like.
e: And stuff kept evolving past that. Win11 brings even more to the table, see SpecialK Author’s related insight mentioned further down.

The googling is a bit incomplete, outdated and misleading
here.

There’s a difference between windowed, and borderless full screen (OFC it’s a window) too in Win10+.
The 5 year old blog post
Demystifying Fullscreen Optimizations - DirectX Developer Blog

Games on PC generally offer three different types of display modes: Fullscreen Exclusive (FSE), Windowed, and Borderless Windowed. Fullscreen Exclusive mode gives your game complete ownership of the display and allocation of resources of your graphics card. In windowed game mode, the game is deployed in a bordered window which allows other applications and windows to continue running in the background. The Desktop Window Manager (DWM) has control of the display, while the graphics resources are shared among all applications, unlike in a Fullscreen Exclusive environment. The third mode is borderless windowed. In a borderless windowed mode, the game is still running in a window but has no border around it. This means the size of window can be adjusted to fill the entire screen while other processes still run in the background.

With the release of Windows 10, we added Fullscreen Optimizations – which takes full screen exclusive games and runs them instead in a highly optimized borderless windowed format that takes up the entire screen. You get the visual experience and performance of running your game in FSE, but with the benefits of running in a windowed mode. These benefits include faster PC commands such as alt-tab, multiple monitor set ups and overlays. We have extensive performance data that indicates that almost all users who use Fullscreen Optimizations have equal performance to Full Screen Exclusive. However, if you do find that you are experiencing any issues that may be related to full screen optimizations, please head to the troubleshooting section where we will walk through how to optimize your system and provide feedback to our team.

4 Likes

FSE is how GSync operates. It single handedly boosts most computers’ FPS by 50%. Windowed GSync is only a 20% FPS improvement.

1 Like

While I agree that FSE vs Borderless FS has basically no performance impact in my experience, I literally don’t understand the idea of “we’ll just remove the option entirely.” more options is almost always a good thing.

1 Like

I’m no GFX dev but…uh…what!? Source for this? Where are you getting this from?

In fact google “flip presentation model” etc ed: and all the later refinements through out the years and win versions.

and here’s a good short article comparing FSE vs borderless window and covering the crucial bits of information, **must read.

2 Likes

There are valid reasons, all info is googleable, e.g. a recent discussion on reddit, one of very many Reddit - Dive into anything

Look at some of the answers, usually more upvoted in that thread, a lot of good info to glean.

The major reasons are already in the hotfix notes, one being FSR framegen issues.

Nothing in the 2019 dev blog Fatshark used to justify their actions ever mentioned G-sync. Nothing in their dev post mentioned G-Sync. Given Fatshark’s track history, I doubt they are even aware what G-sync is.

Most players use Nvidia GPUs, most using G-sync or Async. My guess is they never even considered G-sync.

2 Likes

FS dropped the ball on QA again, but that doesn’t mean you have to go around making crap up.

The blogs are related to VRR and other stuff, you’re the one that brought it up with this outlandish claim. Information is at your fingertips, no need to make up stuff. It makes helping and troubleshooting much harder for starters…

I unblocked you because I was told I had replies that would make me laugh.

First of all terminology. Windowed and Full screen. “Borderless Fullscreen” is just “Borderless Windowed” renamed - just like FS have renamed it to “Fullscreen” when it’s still a window over the desktop without a border.

I have 26 years experience building and maintaining computers I built for myself and others, almost 10 years of doing it for a job and the rest just as a hobby - also spent a few years building GSM equipment for Siemens - I know a little bit about troubleshooting etc. So yes, my drivers are updated, and so is Windows on two of the partitions I can boot to for testing why DT broke this time.

My current setups are my gaming rig, a 7800X3D with a 4080super, 32gb and 4tb in 2 m.2 nVMEs, a 4k Samsung Neo g8 main screen and an Asus 1440p auxiliary. My stream/recording PC which is a 10900k with a 6900XT, 32gb, 5tb of storage across m.2 nVME and SSD a 4k Samsung TV and an Asus 1440p monitor. And my third PC which serves as a media server, stream monitoring and a screen for my cats to watch bird videos on youtube on is a 5930k, dual GTX980s, 32gb, and 8tb of SSDs, with a pair of cheap 1440p’s.

I have the screens in two clusters, 4 in front of me from game and stream PC and the other two behind me, all three PCs are controlled by a single keyboard and mouse at all times. They are linked together with Input Director for controls, Voicemeeter VBAN for audio, and NDI for streaming over network so any program on any screen can be shown anywhere else, this is over a 2.5gbps independent internal LAN on a managed switch.

I stream and game across these PCs every day for multiple hours - in fact I have streamed almost 2000hrs of Darktide alone until 1.5.4 dropped and it became unplayable AND unwatchable with the stutters and hitching.

I use multiple monitors, with multiple overlays from multiple programs, and have been doing so on and off for well over a decade since my first foray into streaming, so I am pretty sure I can say with some confidence that the only thing not being in full screen EVER does other than “nothing” is increase the GPU usage and make things sluggish or laggy as it tries to render more than the visible screen resolution. Not to mention being unable to pass raw mouse data to some programs causing huge input lag.

I will totally admit that on some things it makes no difference - and there are VERY FEW programs that can run in a window and get some benefits, but darktide is not one of those things, and pretending that Fatshark has the skill to implement something like this flawlessly is frankly laughable.

I used google to prove that the MAJORITY of cases Fullscreen is the better option.

You suggest that my use of google was “incomplete, outdated and misleading” and yet you cherry pick an article that is 5 years old and then only the section that supports your beliefs. Not to mention written by someone who has very little clue as to how computers work.

“One example is when you give an application full control of your desktop, you cannot run any other processes in the background.”

I wonder how I have managed all this time with not being able to run OBS, Steam, Voicemeeter, my overlays etc in the background!? :joy:

Here, let me cherry pick a little something for you; the main reason why windowed is ass from the exact same article;

“When a game is run in borderless windowed mode, the game does not have full control of the display– that overarching control is given back to the Desktop Window Manager (DWM).”

… and DWM is notoriously shitty at doing its job, it uses up processing time, takes extra resources and divides the resources remaining between all the applications that want to render stuff on the screen and the desktop environment, so the game being played does not get the resources it should. And if you leave all the BS bells and whistles on that come with Windows like Aero or whatever the visual fluff is and the news feeds etc… you need a whole extra graphics card. Its dumb.

I went from stable 120-140 in 4k depending on map and action to an unstable 70~ (40min 120max) on a 4080super on a fresh install with fresh drivers.

I went from stable 100-120fps in 1440p depending on map and action to an unstable 60~ (25min 100max) on a 6900XT on a fresh install with fresh drivers.

Esoteric DX12 troubleshooting isn’t gonna fix it.

I type this waiting for the plumber to get the kitchen taps back together and it sounds done, so yeah, making people despise you for funsies by being a contrarian to everything must be a riot.

3 Likes

Just a reminder that having an Nvidia GPU != using G-Sync.

I have an Nvidia GPU and I have an excellent monitor, that monitor is not G-Sync or A-Sync/Free-Sync compatible. I’m not replacing my monitor for it either.

1 Like

TLDR, I have more experience than you not just as a SW dev but also building PCs not just for me, my friends, but stores and companies as well. Gaming PC, workstations and servers.

If you can’t read articles and understand them, that’s on you. Borderless fullscreen is still a window, duh, there are special considerations for it.
Read the bottom of the article " Fullscreen Optimizations"
Stuff has been changing for a long time, Win8, Vista, Win 7, Win 10, Win11 have all brought changes under the hood.

There are reasons games are moving to borderless fullscreen, regardless of your being unaware.

To anyone reading this, this makes you sound clueless and that you just picked the first blurbs some bad AI suggested. Zero context or reference to things under the hood. Or it makes it sound like you cherry-picked stuff because waaagh.

Cool, maybe the plumber can you help you with your PC issues.
Please re-block me.

P.S. More super advanced tech:
image

P.P.S. Streamer huh? 'Nuff said.

Whoa, the SpecialK (1.5 years ago) author Kaldaien weighs in, Some related insight.

I don’t use Reddit often, but as the author of Special K I feel obligated to chime in here.

Since before the release of Windows 10, SK has had Flip Model support for D3D11 games to make their borderless window implementation bypass the DWM completely under a specific set of conditions:

Game's framebuffer resolution and window resolution must match, or DWM scaling kicks-in

Game's window must cover the entire desktop, or again... DWM comes back (it's not even fullscreen at that point :P)

If an application implements an overlay by putting a Win32 window on top of your game, you guessed it, DWM comes back.

Fullscreen Optimization has had some teething issues because it sometimes isn’t able to satisfy all three of these conditions and bypass the DWM. You may momentarily loose the DWM bypass if an application throws a window on top of your game, etc.

Fullscreen Optimization has improved dramatically since its inception. It now even puts game windows in this Borderless Fullscreen Window into a window layer that only Microsoft applications have the ability to put windows on top of (i.e. the volume slider or Microsoft Game Bar).

Furthermore, with all the major HW vendors now supporting Multiplane Overlays, the conditions necessary to bypass the DWM have shrunk to in many cases none of the three bullet-points listed above – D3D11 (Flip Model, or Windows 11 + Windowed Optimization) / D3D12 can bypass the DWM completely for arbitrarily sized windows that don’t even cover the entire screen. MPOs are hot shot, they took Fullscreen Optimization, removed the Fullscreen caveat and became Optimization pure and simple :slight_smile:

Tl;Dr: The real PSA here should not be “Disable Fullscreen Optimization”, but rather upgrade to Windows 11 22H2 as soon as possible to reap the benefits of Multiplane Overlays and render Fullscreen COMPLETELY obsolete.

Another interesting blurb, same thread from him:

Yes. NVIDIA drivers give you up to 4 overlay planes, your game will occupy one of them and that leaves 3 for additional overlays.

You shouldn’t actually think of these as overlays though, application windows themselves can each be placed in a different overlay plane and drawn at independent refresh rates. This has benefits for web browsers and other applications where G-Sync traditionally wouldn’t work.

You also should no longer FORCE VSYNC policy in driver settings globally, because applications that never would have qualified for VSYNC OFF before MPOs were introduced are now eligible and will behave differently.

The TLDR from 1st quote is good advice. I upgraded to Win11 a while back to due the under-the-hood refinements my plumber told me about. Win 11 22h2 was 2 years ago.

This and your previous post are all fine and dandy, but doesn’t invalidate that people are in fact experiencing performance issues they weren’t before (whether this is actually because of EFS or not is up for debate), but removing a feature that was working to implement a new feature doesn’t make any sense.

As I said in my analogy, just because there’s a new controller, removing support for other controllers wouldn’t make any sense. Just because Borderless Windowed is equivalent to ESF now doesn’t mean removing ESF when it was already implemented makes sense.

I’ve always used Borderless Fullscreen due to my chronic alt-tabbing in games, but I would never advocate to remove a feature other people used just because Borderless is “viable” now.

3 Likes

Nobody said it did, and again, clearly more QA testing was needed. More QA is always needed in any company, and always lacking. FS needs to double it, triple it; they are sorely lacking and it’s infuriating.

As for removing FSE, sadly this is the right call going forward, they screwed the pooch a bit with how they went about it OFC.
Ironically AMD had a ~hand in it, people have been begging for more FSR 3+, FG in particular but AMD always has GD issues with their own crap. FG+FSE issues here ain’t it?

P.S. Ironically OP as a “streamer” is the perfect case of where “real” FSE should not be used.

1 Like

This works too Mr “I have more experience than you”.

“Too long didn’t read” … yeah I expect that from you. Also totally expecting you ignoring the parts where I proved you and your cherry picking wrong.

And then you try to use “streamer” as an insult, but I am supposed to take you seriously?

And you tell me that I am the perfect case for where FSE should not be used - even though I am here complaining because it’s not.

I don’t think I will block you again, it’s funny watching you get all irate because you think you’re smarter than everyone else.

2 Likes

I’m still using win10 and in my current experience it doesn’t seem like there is any frame rate difference between the two.
It’s likely that your frame rate loss is due to other reasons, and in this new version, Fatshark has reset all of my Darktide graphics settings. Luckily, I saved the previous settings file and I gradually restored all the settings without any change in the frame rate.
Maybe your current settings aren’t exactly the same as they used to be, and I suggest you take the time to adjust them.
I noticed in the settings file, apparently there are some new settings.

1 Like

Agree Windows 10 is not the issue though. I have used the update tool with the fresh windows10 partition on my newer PC to upgrade to win11 and the problem remained.

I have been making progress however;

image

This is a result of 4 days of screwing with settings, reducing the Worker Threads to the same as my physical cores, turning down shadow atlas sizes, and a few other things like turning off sharpening and the horrible film grain effect. Every single FPS improving trick I can find in the depths of Google/Stingray Autodesk etc has been done.

It is definitely better, playable in fact, but the low frame rate feel due to the stutters/tearing and texture pop in is still very noticeable, I’m currently experimenting with why without Vsync it can maintain 200-280fps with these settings but with vsync on it cannot maintain 165 to match the monitor - in fact dropping to below 120 again when I move the camera quickly and the stutters happen.

There is more to this than just settings.

1 Like

So all my testing was done with only MSI Afterburner and Riva statistics server in the background.

As soon as I start OBS in the background to stream, I lose over 100fps again.

It’s rendering the OBS preview in the background for no damn reason at all.

we NEED EXCLUSIVE Full Screen.

… Or you can go demand Microsoft fix their hot turd that is DWM - because it’s been causing people issues since its introduction.

Just google “DWM using too much” and cast your eyes over the hundreds of thousands of people who after a fresh, clean install of windows, have a DWM instance sapping their resources.

In an ideal world maybe borderless would be better, but we have Microsoft refusing to fix issues and dozens of hardware vendors with their own drivers and issues, and billions of possible PC setups with different software and hardware…

So just give us the OPTION of using real Exclusive full screen again.

How could it hurt anything? All it would do is give us the ability to play again without effecting people who use borderless…

It’s that simple.

1 Like