Running Team Fortress 2 in Windowed

Demon Lemon

Hey guys,
I recently tried to run TF2 in windowed mode, now whenever I go to start the game and it goes through the opening sequences it crashed
Any help at all would be great. Thanks.

Arikado

Computer specs?

I run TF2 with 2 gigs of RAM and a ATI Radeon X1950X video card and I can only play maximized with background programs shut off in order to have 40+ FPS and 50-100ms ping on the PA servers.

Demon Lemon

2 gigs of RAM GTS 8800 and core 2 duo

LonestarRunner

This is almost offtopic but not quite

So, it's MORE taxing for a computer to run a game windowed?

Demon Lemon

yeah, I would assume so, because you can also see all the backround windows you have up.

That might not be the exact reason, but it is harder when it's windowed.

LonestarRunner

Hm, because I recently download a MMORPG that ran at an ALMOST playable rate when windowed, but I never tried fullscreen...

I wonder...

Xenocide Geek

nooo

nothing is being rendered while in windowed mode when you have the program selected.

things run better in windowed mode usually because: you're playing with it at a lower resolution, because you want it in a window.

if i'm playing a game windowed i'm shoving it down to, you know, half the size of my monitor, most likely. that's 1/2 the amount of pixels that need to be onscreen.

it's fairly obvious.

Demon Lemon

Well, would there be anyway I could change the video optiosn on TF2 without starting the game?
Otherwise, I think I would have to reinstall the game.

LonestarRunner

Xenocide Geek wrote: »

nooo

nothing is being rendered while in windowed mode when you have the program selected.

things run better in windowed mode usually because: you're playing with it at a lower resolution, because you want it in a window.

if i'm playing a game windowed i'm shoving it down to, you know, half the size of my monitor, most likely. that's 1/2 the amount of pixels that need to be onscreen.

it's fairly obvious.

That's what I had assumed, but, I came into this thread and it changed what I thought I knew.

Demon Lemon

so back to my original question.

Is there anyway I can fix my TF2?

splash

I saw some command line parameters you can type in to the .exe file like -fullscreen or -autoconfig which should make it launch the game in that mode. There's a long list of all the command line options at this developer wiki site. In XP it was easy to input this but what if you are using Vista?

Demon Lemon

Yeah i'm running vista.
I think I might just reinstall it.

Arrath

You could try adding "-dxlevel 80" to the launch options, I have to do that to run Portal/TF2.

Demon Lemon

got it working!

thanks splash