Significantly Better Performance In Fullscreen Than Windowed

[XacTactX]

This is an interesting phenomenon I just noticed. I just got a 9600GT, and wanted to run some mock benchmarks so that I can compare how much faster the 9600GT is, and I noticed something. Check it out. The first run each time was discarded, the next three results were recorded for each run.

Intel Core i5 750 (Stock)
2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 @ 10-9-9-24 CR2
eVGA 7900GS KO 256MB @ 518/689, ForceWare 266.58
Vista Ultimate x86, Aero On

Counter Strike: Source Benchmark
Maximum Quality Settings
1680 x 1050
0x AA / 16x AF

Readings
Windowed: 50.5 50.3 50.4
Fullscreen: 71.5 71.4 71.1

Average
Windowed: 50.4
Fullscreen: 71.4 (+41.2%)

 

[phide]

This isn't atypical. Usually the difference isn't that dramatic, but in some cases it can be.

 

[novadaemon]

it's almost always been that way. even in newer games you have Fullscreen(windowed) mode that fill is up like a full screen but lets you switch between apps as if you were running windowed, but you take a performance hit to switch fast like that.

 

[Raap]

Yeah, definitely remember this pretty much always being the case. Though I'm not sure exactly why; as long as there are no GPU-accelerated stuff going on( Aero maybe? Personally never used it though), I can't really see why there would be any real performance difference.

 

[XacTactX]

Yeah, definitely remember this pretty much always being the case. Though I'm not sure exactly why; as long as there are no GPU-accelerated stuff going on( Aero maybe? Personally never used it though), I can't really see why there would be any real performance difference.

Yes, I am running Vista Ultimate x86 with the Aero interface On. I'll add that to the OP for the sake of transparency. Thanks for the comment .

EDIT: Thanks to you all for your ideas .

 

[dragonhawke]

I notice in windowed mode Crossfire X breaks and the 2nd card throttles to 2D clocks which kills performance even worse than 1 card.

I'm gonna guess all kinds of things could be going wrong with the drivers trying to run a game in windowed mode.