Windowed Fullscreen work as intended for you guys?

[Naria]

So, on both my laptop and my desktop, Fullscreen and Windowed Fullscreen are the same thing. So I asked the Guru's on Twitter what the intended difference was and may have come across a bug in the game or perhaps a fault in my laptop.

Grant Rodiek ‏@SimGuruGrant 10m
@IonaShepard You can minimize the program in windowed full screen.

So my question is, does Windowed Fullscreen work as intended for any of you guys or is there an issue beyond my computer? Because there is no way to minimize for me.

[KhaineGB]

I'll check mine later, but I've just been playing full screen.

[Flynn Arrowstarr]

So, on both my laptop and my desktop, Fullscreen and Windowed Fullscreen are the same thing. So I asked the Guru's on Twitter what the intended difference was and may have come across a bug in the game or perhaps a fault in my laptop.

Grant Rodiek ‏@SimGuruGrant 10m
@IonaShepard You can minimize the program in windowed full screen.

So my question is, does Windowed Fullscreen work as intended for any of you guys or is there an issue beyond my computer? Because there is no way to minimize for me.

Hi, Naria.

I just tried it on my laptop. There is no visual difference in playing Fullscreen vs. Windowed Fullscreen - i.e. you don't see a traditional window border with the min/max/close buttons. Instead, the difference is how the game behaves when you do something like press the Windows key or the Alt + Tab combination.

In Fullscreen, when you press the Windows key, for example, the game window minimizes and you may see a flicker as the computer has to switch rendering modes before displaying the Start Menu/Screen. The game in fullscreen uses a separate mode than your desktop display, so that's why it changes.

In Windowed Fullscreen, the game is rendered on the same mode as your desktop. When you press the Windows key, you see the Start Menu over the game's screen in Windows 7. In Windows 8, the Start Screen is also Fullscreen and overlays the game screen anyway.

To get the window border and min/max/close buttons, you need to play in Windowed mode. Note in either Windowed Fullscreen or Windowed mode Edge Scrolling is disabled.

The description is very oversimplified, but the full technical details are pretty boring, heh.

Hope this helps, and happy Simming!

Flynn

[Pam]

I'm using Windowed mode and the best part was that I didn't have to choose the size for the screen!  It made it the max size automatically and I'm in love with this. 

[Naria]

I am not talking about Windowed mode. A guru specifically said you were meant to be able to minimize Windowed Fullscreen mode, but there is no minimize button anywhere. You can alt+tab and use the windows button to get out of it the same as regular Fullscreen mode, but no actual "minimize" button.

I was trying to sort out if this was a bug or not.

[Flynn Arrowstarr]

The only way I know of to minimize Windowed Fullscreen is to either Alt + Tab or press the Windows key to get out of The Sims 4. Then click either the minimize all button on the taskbar, or to click the button for The Sims 3 on the taskbar. There doesn't seem to be a direct way to minimize Windowed Fullscreen mode. The standard Windows border and controls only show up on Windowed mode.

However, it may still be possible if the Windows controls are hidden offscreen. If that's the case, you could try pressing Alt + Space to bring up the game's System menu. If that does show up, one of the options is to minimize. I can't test this right now as I'm away from my computer, but I'll try it out as soon as I'm able and let you know.

Hope this helps and happy Simming!

Flynn

[Missa]

I have multiple screens and when in windowed full screen my mouse cursor can go off the game and I can check something on the internet in a different screen without minimizing the game, then go right back to my game. When in fullscreen mode my mouse cursor would be "locked" into the game and I would have to minimize it to use another screen.