Windowed vs. Full Screen

[Aeluned]

Are there any performance gains to speak of for running a graphics app in full screen mode as opposed to windowed mode?

I have a hunch that there should be some performance gain since the app no longer has to be shared and managed by the windowing sub-system.

Of course, this is completely ungrounded because I can't seem to find any comparisons or articles covering the topic.

Any insight would be nice.

[Swiftless]

Through trial and error when I started OpenGL I found that yes, Full Screen Mode does run faster. I didn't notice much difference in the Frames Per Second when I set the fullscreen mode to the same settings as my desktop was in windowed mode. EG: 1024 X 768, at 32bit depth, with Refresh rate at 85. I found this ran just a little faster than my current window. Although lowering the settings to 800 X 600 and even 640 X 480 cause incredible increases in the frame rate, although at the loss of quality to the picture.

In my opinion, I prefer the full screen mode. Although I do all my minor testing in Windowed Mode.