[pc] playing in fullscreen windowed mode, for crashless alt-tabbing

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4


posted this in the big thread on games forum, but figured it's so awesome it deserves its own thread where more people might see it

open the skyrim settings, set it to windowed and put it on the resolution for your desktop then drag the exe included in that download into your skyrim folder and run it

it runs the game windowed and there's no stupid borders around it so it looks as if it were playing in fullscreen, but you can alt-tab out of it as if it were a normal explorer window, quick easy and painless.

Tar.Aldarion

nice

Headshot

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4


posted this in the big thread on games forum, but figured it's so awesome it deserves its own thread where more people might see it

open the skyrim settings, set it to windowed and put it on the resolution for your desktop then drag the exe included in that download into your skyrim folder and run it

it runs the game windowed and there's no stupid borders around it so it looks as if it were playing in fullscreen, but you can alt-tab out of it as if it were a normal explorer window, quick easy and painless.

sorry for the newbie question but what does that mean ?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it means alt-tabbing out of the game is instantaneous, instead of having the screen go black for a second.. then desktop.. then when you alt tab back in the screen goes black again and then game

it makes alt tabbing out of the game or back in as easy and quick as if you were alt-tabbing between notepad and winamp, or explorer


if you care about achievements

go into the skyrim launcher options, set it to your desktop resolution and windowed mode.

run the TESV.exe and go into the game, then alt tab out and run the .exe included in the download

Tar.Aldarion

think he just wanted the bit in bold, put the file ending in .exe in the folder called skyrim on your pc. How does this affect achievs? Why 2 exes?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

oh, i missed the bolded part, yeah just copy the .exe file in the downloaded archive into your skyrim install folder.

if you just run the .exe from the download, it doesnt count for achievements but if you run TESV.exe first and then run the downloaded .exe, achievements work fine.

Tar.Aldarion

want those achievements man! some guy on a site i use got them all in 5 days...playing over a 100 hours :eek:

nesf

Only works with standard resolutions. If you've a big monitor you're out of luck.

Overheal

Well, with enough RAM you would be able to alt+tab anyway without crashing (in theory) but this is dead handy for 4GB or less.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's not just the crashing, it's the time

rather than having to wait 4 seconds to alt tab out and alt tab in, it's instant.

#1stworldproblems yeah, but it's still very handy to be able to instantly tab out, check email or irc and then tab back in

Overheal

1st world problems??? I'm going out of my ****ing mind waiting for me GPU's twin to show up from UPS today. Tell me about first world problems, I could have fed a village, but I'm gonna crossfire skyrim instead

nesf

Overheal wrote: »

1st world problems??? I'm going out of my ****ing mind waiting for me GPU's twin to show up from UPS today. Tell me about first world problems, I could have fed a village, but I'm gonna crossfire skyrim instead

Be warned only the beta drivers atm support Crossfire for Skyrim and these don't work if you use the 4GB launcher from what people have been saying.

Tested: I go from being maxed out at 60fps if I launch through Steam to back to old driver performance of mid 30s fps if I use the 4GB launcher. I haven't seen a way around this yet.

Overheal

Noted.... maybe I'll try Metro 2033 again instead

nesf

Overheal wrote: »

Noted.... maybe I'll try Metro 2033 again instead

Don't get me wrong, it's still perfectly playable above 30fps.

Overheal

yeah but its noticeably less responsive than a single card config.

If theres a way to hotswap between single and dual mode id love to hear it. but right now I cant even get CCC to run. I have a thread open in graphics about it :c

Gonna have to reformat the PC it looks like. This drive issue is driving me insane and its not like I dont have a bunch of crapware floating around my machine, per usual. Old poker games and ****, and OpenOffice. Why I still have open office hanging out I dont know, since MS gifted me a free copy of Office Pro.

This is about the time I learned Skyrim does not (yet?) support Steamcloud. Which is just a little bit lame, but its reasonable to expect it in a future patch.

nesf

Overheal wrote: »

yeah but its noticeably less responsive than a single card config.

If theres a way to hotswap between single and dual mode id love to hear it. but right now I cant even get CCC to run. I have a thread open in graphics about it :c

Gonna have to reformat the PC it looks like. This drive issue is driving me insane and its not like I dont have a bunch of crapware floating around my machine, per usual. Old poker games and ****, and OpenOffice. Why I still have open office hanging out I dont know, since MS gifted me a free copy of Office Pro.

This is about the time I learned Skyrim does not (yet?) support Steamcloud. Which is just a little bit lame, but its reasonable to expect it in a future patch.

You can turn off Crossfire in CCC. Beyond that, I'm not sure.

nesf

Found a solution to the 4GB + ATI patch problem: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2182

The mod solves it by making the graphics driver think TESV is launching when TESV.4GB is launching and so on.

Edit: Yeah, confirmed as working.

Tar.Aldarion

does 2gb -> 4 matter much? ive left it on default and it runs perfect

nesf

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

does 2gb -> 4 matter much? ive left it on default and it runs perfect

On 2 I crash to desktop on loading new areas every so often, usually and hour plus into the game. On 4 this never happens to me.

There's a memory leak somewhere that Bethesda didn't catch, which is sloppy of them.