Second Screen Gaming Wishlist on Steam

Borderless windowed vs fullscreen, and how to force it

Two monitors on a dark desk, a fantasy game filling the left screen edge to edge and a browser on the right

Borderless windowed is a frameless window that covers the whole screen: it looks like fullscreen, but you can alt-tab or click your other monitor without the game minimizing or the screen going black. Look for "Borderless" or "Fullscreen windowed" in the game's video settings, or try Alt+Enter. Many games have no such option, and the workarounds differ for every engine. Second Screen Gaming makes any windowed game borderless on the screen you choose, at every launch.

Make any game borderless on the screen you choose

Set the game to windowed once, turn on Second Screen Gaming's Run borderless on a chosen screen and pick the monitor. The frame is removed and the game fills that screen at every launch, and if the screen is unplugged the game waits for it. Nothing is loaded into the game, so it works with anti-cheat games too.

Some games minimize themselves even as a borderless window, usually ones that run their own fullscreen. Keep the game from minimising itself stops that for a single game. It loads a small helper into that game, so it is not offered where anti-cheat is detected. Open the app with the game running to see which options that game can take.

Wishlist on Steam

Borderless windowed vs fullscreen vs windowed

  • Exclusive fullscreen. The game takes over the display and can change its resolution and refresh rate. As soon as another window covers it, it gives the display back, which is why it minimizes and the screen flashes black when you alt-tab or click another monitor.
  • Borderless windowed. A frameless window the size of the screen, drawn by Windows like any other. Switching away is instant, and overlays, notifications and your other monitor behave normally.
  • Windowed. A window with a frame and title bar, at any size you like.

Is borderless windowed slower than fullscreen?

Usually not by much. When a DirectX 12 game, or a DirectX 11 game using the modern presentation model, fills the screen as a borderless window, Windows sends its frames straight to the display. Microsoft describes this as the same efficiency as exclusive fullscreen, with latency as low as one frame.

Older DirectX 10 and 11 games get there through a Windows 11 setting: Settings, System, Display, Graphics, Default settings, then turn on Optimizations for windowed games and restart the game. It also enables Auto HDR and variable refresh rate for those games in a window. OpenGL games and much older titles can still lose a few frames per second in a window.

Two settings to check:

  • G-SYNC. In NVIDIA Control Panel, open Set up G-SYNC and choose Enable for windowed and full screen mode. With full screen only, a borderless game gets no variable refresh rate.
  • HDR. A borderless game uses Windows' own HDR, so turn on Use HDR in Settings, System, Display.

How to force borderless windowed by hand

Each method works for one engine or one game, and some games overwrite the change when they start:

  1. Look in the video settings under every name it goes by: "Borderless", "Fullscreen windowed", "Windowed fullscreen" or a "Display mode" list.
  2. Try Alt+Enter, which switches many games between fullscreen and windowed.
  3. Unity games: in Steam, open the game's Properties and add -screen-fullscreen 1 -window-mode borderless to Launch Options.
  4. Source games: add -windowed -noborder to Launch Options.
  5. Unreal Engine games: in the game's GameUserSettings.ini, usually under %LOCALAPPDATA%, set FullscreenMode=1. Some games overwrite this on launch.
  6. Anything else: run the game windowed at your screen's resolution and remove the frame with a tool built for it, such as the borderless fit above.

Common questions

How do I tab out of a fullscreen game?

Alt+Tab or the Windows key leaves most games. In exclusive fullscreen that switch is slow, flashes black and often minimizes the game, and some games ignore it entirely. Switch the game to borderless windowed and tabbing out becomes instant.

Why does my screen go black when I alt-tab out of a game?

The game is in exclusive fullscreen. Leaving it switches the display back to your desktop's resolution and refresh rate, and that mode change is the black flash. In borderless windowed there is no mode change, so there is no flash.

Should I use borderless windowed or fullscreen?

If you use a second monitor while you play, borderless. If the game is all you do and every millisecond counts, try both: on most modern games the difference is too small to notice, while older or OpenGL games can run a little faster in exclusive fullscreen.

Does borderless windowed work with a controller?

Yes. The window mode does not change input. If the controller stops working when you click your other screen, that is a focus problem with its own fix: see controller not working after alt-tab.