Discussion on frame rates, comparing full screen and windowed views.
Discussion on frame rates, comparing full screen and windowed views.
My windowed (or the game's name for full-screen mode) performance is significantly improved—180 frames per second compared to 60 FPS in full screen. Is this typical? Does it depend on the game? The system specifications include 64GB Registered ECC DDR3, a GTX 1060 with 3GB video support, and two Xeon E5-2643 v2 CPUs (12 cores/24 threads at 3.5GHz). This is the only game I currently play, Armoured Warfare.
Occasionally it hinges on the situation. Whatever suits you best, choose it.
It seems you're using v-sync in fullscreen, possibly with a 60Hz setting, and there might be variations depending on the game. As @A Gassy Gnome mentioned, different titles suit different display modes—some like fullscreen, others windowed. A noticeable difference suggests another factor is at play.
This was my initial reaction too, though it wasn't the case. The monitors aren't gaming setups, so I limited it to 60hz; the 60 fps looked fine. Only when I accidentally switched the game to full-screen windowed mode did the fps spike dramatically. It was just a bit of curiosity—I'd assumed the opposite, since in full screen the system could focus entirely on the game instead of managing Windows and other tasks. Clearly, I was mistaken.
It seems v-sync is likely active, possibly built into the game or the GPU driver. In fullscreen windows, the game can't directly access the screen anymore, so it stops relying on v-sync and operates at maximum speed. Still, Windows might continue to cap the refresh rate for consistency (typically 60 Hz). There was discussion about combining tools like Afterburner with in-game FPS counters, as they displayed different refresh rates when fullscreen was used.