Window mode - Full screen mode

[ShadoWolf]

Hay all

I have recently set up a dual screen setup on my PC, for no particular reason, just because I can!

One thing I would like to use it for is to play a game on one screen and maybe surf the web etc on the other. The thing is if you have a game running you have to alt - Tab to get to the other screen, which I think makes the dual screen setup pointless!

The only way round this I have found is to run the game in window mode. This is all well and good but the title bar and window boarder are still in view, and i think this makes the game not look so good (what can i say? im a perfectionist!) so does anyone know another way around this problem to get the result i am looking for? or are there any programs out there which will allow me to run in window mode but make it look like full screen mode? similar to pressing F11 in web browser.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

[ajbrun]

How about hiding the task bar, and making the game window as big as the screen so the title bar/edges can't be seen?

[Paul Adams]

This isn't an easy problem to resolve, and really relies on the app/game using a window which does not have a border or title, then it can run maximized (rather than full-screen).

Making an app run in full-screen mode is designed to require a Windows key or alt-tab to switch back to the desktop - having multiple monitors only shows you the part of the desktop which is not "full-screened", as you have found.

You also encounter problems with apps that acquire control of the mouse - in order to move the cursor out of the window it needs to "release" the cursor, requiring a key combo.
If the app doesn't acquire exclusive control of the mouse, playing some games that use the mouse for pointing you in the right direction would keep losing focus when the cursor leaves the window.
(Stubbs the Zombie has this problem, plus a peculiarity that it still does this when full-screened on a multi-monitor setup such as mine).

It never bothered me enough to look for any possible 3rd party software that could modify the settings for windows of running processes to make the title bar hidden and remove the borders so they could run maximized.

I run WoW maximized on my primary screen and have a browser up on the secondary screen to the right, when i want to swap pages I alt-tab, do what needs doing, then click the WoW task in the task bar.

[Pup]

WoW does have the option to run fullscreened windowed mode, which is essentially what you are after, allowing you to use move the mouse right across and access stuff on the 2nd screen while leaving the first screen still running wow in full screen. It's the only game that I have seen to have that mode though, for other games I would just alt-tab as mentioned by the previous poster, but I never really looked for a solution to do it any other way.

[icanhazburger]

Depends entirely on the game if you can window mode or not, as for losing the title bar from the window, I know what you mean, maybe theres a utility that allows you to do it to program windows, but if there is, I've not seen it.