Windowed vs Fullscreen -- consensus?

[Coldblackice]

I've searched far and wide on this, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus on the FPS-gain between these two modes --

Windowed vs Fullscreen mode (in games)

What's the word? Would using one over the other procure a higher FPS count (or at least, should it)? Are there other reasons a person might use one over the other?

 

[Nexillus]

I don’t think it makes much of a difference for nvidia or with single cards much. I like it for convenience however I know that for AMD crossfire does not work in windowed mode when using more than one card. This is not the case for nvidia though; there SLI does work in windowed mode.

 

[qbanb8582]

Biggest thing I think comes down to alt tabbing. I play WoW Windowed(Fullscreen) and it makes alt-tabbing alot better and faster.

 

[socK]

Full screen can be faster as it enables some optimizations, like presenting the back buffer can be done with a pointer flip rather than copying the frame.

 

[notarat]

Fullscreen if you need to eek out every last FPS you can get, and WFS if you like Alt-Tabbing.

 

[Camberwell]

I don't know that there is any real difference in fps, but when I'm gaming I like to be as immersed as possible on my single monitor, that means full screen

 

[Domingo]

Games that are prone to non-sync stuttering tend to be smooth in windowed mode.
Borderless WFS = my favorite when it's available.