Tutorial: How To Run Any Game in Windowed Mode

[Moogie]

Hiya

I\'ve found myself asking this question many times over the years I\'ve been gaming... \"if it doesn\'t have the option built-in, how can I run this game in windowed mode?\" I\'m posting this guide to help other people in the same situation, as I\'ve looked all over the net, and never found the answers I was looking for.

Some games crash or lag-out when you alt+tab from their forcably fullscreen-ness. Some don\'t let you alt+tab at all! The convinience of running programs in windowed-mode is often overlooked in today\'s 3D games, for some short-sighted/odd reason. But fear not... there are two beautiful programs that will help you run any fullscreen-only games in windowed mode, and at the resolution of your choice.



The Programs

The first program you\'ll need is called 3D-Analyze. This is a tool designed to allow older video cards to run games which require advanced hardware rendering methods such as TnL or pixel shading. This program will give the \'Windowed Mode\' option.

http://www.tommti-systems.com/  (WARNING: This site is in German. Use AltaVista.com or something similar to translate it if you can\'t find the download).


Secondly, you may or may not want to get Windows Sniper. The problem with only using 3D-Analyze is that the window will be \'Always-On-Top\', unmovable, and unresizable. Windows Sniper will allow these things to be performed on the target window.

http://www.unhuman.com/WindowsSniper.html


How to use 3D-Analyze

First, run 3D-Analyze. Click the button to choose the exe file of the target game. Then click the checkbox next to \'windowed mode\'. Finally, click the other button to run the game. There are plenty more options here, but this is all you need for the purpose of windowing a game.


How to use Windows Sniper

This one is slightly trickier to use. When you first run the program, it may appear behind the 3D-Analyzed game window, and it\'s tricky to move if you can\'t focus on it to see what you\'re doing. In this case, run the program on it\'s own and then move the window to the side of your screen; thankfully, it saves its window position.

Now, while you have the 3D-Analyzed game running, load Windows Sniper. Drag the target icon over the game screen and release the button to target that window. Now, you want to click Encapsulate, and then click the Take Window Out button. This should put a menu and border around the game, and disable its Always-On-Top (very handy). You can also use Windows Sniper to change resolution and other things... experiment.




Issues

There is an issue with using Windows Sniper to disable the Always-On-Top of the game window. If you focus on another window and allow the game to disappear behind it, you may have to minimise all other windows on your desktop to get it back, because the game won\'t have a tray bar, nor will alt+tabbing aid you. I havn\'t come across a method to fix this yet, but I\'ll post back if I do.



I hope this is of use to some of you. I don\'t know how reliable these programs are yet, so please, post below if you try this and tell us how things went. If you managed to get a particular game running nicely in windowed mode with this, tell us which game and what settings you used.

Thanks for reading.

[Boldstorm]

Other things I have found that you can do is look in the directory the game is installed in and look for the cfg or settings files. Usually if you open enough of them in a text editor you will find one that controls your games screen size settings.

You will find stuff like:
Windowed = 0
Video.ScreenHeight = 600
etc.

Just messing with those settings like changing 0 to 1 or adjusting height width properties can do the same thing.

A word of caution though before messsing with these files if you do not know what you are doing make back ups before you change anything that way if you mess something up you can always go back.

[Moogie]

One extra thing to try is pressing ALT+Enter, but this method rarely works, especially for newer games.


Boldstorm: Thanks for that addition.

[hook]

and for you Linux users out there ...if everything else fails, you can always run another X session either on a separate tty, or nested into an already existing X session (by default as a window, but you can change the geometry or even

new X session:

Code: [Select]


X :1
DISPLAY=:1 startfluxbox


nested X session:

Code: [Select]


Xnest -ac -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo :1

DISPLAY=:1 startfluxbox


these two examples open up another X session (the second example a nested one) and run the Fluxbox window manager on it.
btw: the -fp flag with all those /usr/X11* entries isn\'t really necesary - it only loads up the correct fonts (just in case it doesn\'t do it by default) ...so, you\'ll probably be just as fine with just:  Xnest -ac

[John_Thazer]

Hm...neat...might come in useful some day...