Fullscreen or windowed...

I am curious at how people run secondlife... Do you run it in a window, having other tasks in the background, or fullscreen like many other games require you (grumble grumble) to do?

Me, I would never run Sl fullscreen.

Windowed - I usually have way to much other stuff going on at the same time..

Windowed... sized to full screen on the middle of three monitors on my desktop.

Windowed - but stretched full - so I can have PS and a browser running in the background. I actually run the browser in a smaller window that fits over my SL window so I can surf without going into AFK-mode.

Windowed is crucial for content creation, if you need to switch back and forth between SL and Photoshop/Sound Forge/etc.

Windowed! For several reasons. Before I got my new laptop it was because that was the only way I could run SL. Now with the new laptop, I still run it windowed, cause not only am I used to it, but I have been advised by many others in game that its the best way.

WINDOWED!!!!

how else can I run Msn, Yahoo, Winamp, Shoutcast, Photoshop, Forums, Sl00ts.com and .... *breaths*

Windowed, that way it is very easy to switch between SL and Gimp and Flash and Buzz and Audacity and whatever else I use to create textures and sounds. Oh yeah, I also use SciTE-ez (with Ezhar's LSL support) to edit scripts, that's practically mandatory if I don't want to spend forever scrolling up and down to find something in a big script.

Yeah... what they all said

I wonder why a default install of Secondlife runs fullscreen then...

Also.... wouldn't be cool if the IMs and Public chat could be dragged out of the SL window? Then I would get a full window of graphics and not have the chats cluttering it up...

I run it windowed - MrsJakal and I have the same laptop (as does FlipperPa Peregrine) - I run it full screen at 1680X1050. It makes it much easier to multitask between Poser, SL, email, Yahoo, etc.. - I generally have about 10 programs or more open at the same time. I don't know why you would run it full screen unless absolutely necessary for performance.

windowed is nice when i need to multitask; but i'm leaning toward full screen because i'm finding myself spending more and more time with sl running while i do other things.

i'm curious to know if i just won't start it at all if i don't have the easy option of clicking out of it.

Windowed, multi-tasking constantly.

Any game that supports windowed and if my system can handle it, I usualy run in window mode.

Windowed (but on OS X - does that do the full screen option?)

I usually have Safari, and Terminal running at the same time, and sometimes GraphicConverter.

Nice poll

I have a seperate computer for SL so I run it fullscreen.

Definitely windowed alla time. I usually have SL (maximized), Yahoo, Skype, IE, SAM ( or Winamp sometimes, depends on if I am DJ'ing that night or not), and PS/PSP open most of the time.... plus 1/2 dozen taskbar apps. It's a must for quickly switching apps. Indeed!

Arti

Could you walk me through step by step how to run SL windowed?

Because I find it the most annoying game or application I've ever run with other apps on the task bar. Every time I go to look at a jpeg or Yahoo messenger or whatever, SL force-opens up and gives me the restore line, and I have to wait for it to restore, pull up my av, rez the world, and then it finally lets me go, to try to return to my other apps.

What would I type in the "run" box to make it not do that perhaps? Or perhaps go into the program folders and run it from newview.exe?

I am so sick and tired of SL forcing me to stay in one window, and punishing me when I alt-tab out or press the start button to go to another application, only to be force-returned to SL unless I'm extra careful not to open up the other application full screen.

FS, but that's because i have been having serious problems with my compy handling it windowed... but that might have been because of webrebates.exe.. which ElectricCherry kindly removed for me the other day. haven't tried it since then

To make SL be windowed, when you log in, go to OPTIONS and click on the tabs at the top- somewhere in there is an option and you can choose if you want full or windowed.

and as for the three monitors, Korg... have you got a computer in your house running UNIX/LINUX as well? Cause anyone with that much resolution in front of them either has to be a computer geek or doing some serious 3D/Video editing. Either way rock on!

Windowed in Win98, because fullscreen doesn't work. Fullscreen or windowed in Linux, depending on whether or not I want the extra few percentage points of speed that fullscreen gives.

hmmm I didn't think SL even ran on a Win98 machine.... that was one of the reasons I couldn't do beta (that ant a crappy vid card at the time!)

Arti

Windowed baby yea baby yea.............

I have all those up too save for Msn (dont need), Photoshop (dont have yet), & Shoutcast (Whats that one???)........ But thats only for starters!!! LOL

Definitely windowed. I used to run games fullscreen a few years ago, but now if a game has a windowed mode, I use it automatically. I like being able to multitask, and when I run SL anyway I often have my browser + graphic software open too.

In the beginning, I ran SL. But then I found out about Windowed and have been using that ever since, 'cuz I have to multitask a lot. It's tuff tho, that SL can't seem to co-exist better with other apps, even in "-cooperative" mode because it takes considerable CPU mode. A background "sleep" or mode would be welcome. Sometimes there's a big lag before a web page loads and other times, it gets to it at about normal speed. I'm not quite sure why but I have been told it may have something to do with packet routing. Hmmm. :|

When you need other apps to get more share of resources, minimize SL. Seems the engine stops, and it frees up most of the resources it was using. I do this when I'm working on a sound or texture.