Fullscreen vs Windowed vs Borderless Windowed: Which is Best for Gaming?

When you get a new PC game, the first stop must always be the settings menu. You need to customize it to suit your preferences, you need to choose V-Sync or G-Sync, you need to disable motion blur as soon as possible because you are a normal person. These are all important tasks.

However, it's easy to scroll past what could be a very helpful option depending on your setup and how many monitors you may have, it's usually called Display Mode, and this is where you decide between Fullscreen, Windowed, and Borderless Windowed.

Everyone's setup is unique and will have its own needs. So lets look at what these options do, and how they may benefit you.

Fullscreen mode, is just that, it is full screen over all (or most) other applications, lets look at the pros and cons of this mode.

The Pros

• The best for a fully immersive experience.
• Works well across multiple displays.
• Your graphics card will perform better than other modes.

The Cons

• Notifications can steal focus mid game, for example MSTeams/Discord popups.
• Alt Tabbing out of game can cause issues.
• Possible compatibility issues with older games at higher resolutions or across multiple displays.

Borderless Windowed is a happy medium of the three options. so again, let look at the pros and cons of this mode.

The Pros

• It is the best mode for streamers as you can easily switch between games and other applications.
• You will still get popup notifications, but they will not steal focus from your game.
• Great for multitasking as it allows for easy Alt Tabbing.

The Cons

• Notifications can get in the way.
• In some older games your cursor may run off the edge of your screen.
• Possible impact to performance as it will be rendering the game and your desktop behind it.

Windowed mode, as the name suggests means you can run the game in a window and move it around as needed. Once again, lets look at the pros and cons.

Pros

• Best for moving between multiple apps.
• Allows scaling to adjust games to work on lower resolutions.
• Best option for older games that cannot scale on high resolution displays.

Cons

• Possible flickering/tearing when moving the window.
• Performance impact due to rendering the game and other applications.
• Heavy memory usage as both the game and other applications.

This is going to depend on your setup and your goals. Each mode has its pros and cons so it will depend on what games you play, and what else you do.

Generally speaking, Fullscreen works best for gaming, as you can get the most out of your GPU and focus on the game. However, it's worth experimenting with the other modes, as the game in question might work differently depending on the mode.