Does true full screen exclusive still exists in Win11?

[matrox-40]

Hello.

I'm struggling with old title called iRacing to get it smooth like it was for me in the past. Sometimes game is supersmooth, sometimes not, for no reason, for sure situation may change despite I dont change anything in my system. Just like launch-to-launch it differs in terms of smoothness.

But during all troubleshooting and contacting people with similar problem, after reading all those stories about presentation model, MPO enabled\disabled, how it may change driver-to-driver or windows-to-windows update, without much information I discovered one very simple thing: it seems like full screen exclusive (FSE) doesnt really exists.

One person mentioned, that when game is in FSE, when you press on keyboard "vol+\-" it should not even show volume bar, it shouldnt show anything except the game.

20241016_141030 volume.jpg (16.57 KiB) Viewed 10411 times

He stated, that anything that would like to show up on monitor, and doesnt come from a game, should "kick-out" game from FSE, so it turns into window, or gets minimized, and this process takes up several seconds. So I did try and I was surprised, that volume or even pressing windows key was appearing on top of iRacing game, like it was already windowed borderless. But its not (its selected full screen), but when I for example lauch explorer, then it will not go on top of game like menu start or mentioned volume bar, then it will kick-out iRacing to window, before explorer appears. So it seems like kind og "intermediate" mode.

I remember this kind of behavior to be kind of standard for many years that game which was full screen, nothing would appear on top of it.

So I installed Win10 1903 that was stated on forums to be the last one to have "FSE", after strange tries and messing up I got state, where game seemed to be FSE, and volume bar would not go on top. That, in the end would help me to get rid of stutters, as this old title likes FSE most.

Question that comes, is this "FSE mode" possible to get in Windows11, nowadays with 24H2 version ?

Also please correct me if I'm anywhere wrong with all that story about menu start and volume bar.

[RealNC]

The volume bar should indeed not be visible when in classic FSE. I don't have W11, but in W10 all you need to do to get FSE back is to disable FSO (full screen optimizations) in the properties of the game's exe file.

With that being said, MPOs are not used when the game is borderless fullscreen. Also, normally you could use Special K to make the game use the proper flip model to make sure it works properly in borderless, but with this being an online game with an anti-cheat, that's not really possible.

[matrox-40]

Hello.
Unfortunately even with "disable full screen optimalizations" in Windows 10 22H2, volume bar and menu start go on top of the game.

1903 was the version where I could get true FSE, but still it was mouse&cats game. With that option checkmarked it just didnt launch FSE. Many times checked\unchecked\checked + "change high DPI setttings" (somebody reported that only thn can getf FSE) to get it FSE finally.

Special-K is not welcome in iRacing. I was able to inject several times, but most of times game gets crashed during injection.

[RealNC]

Maybe it runs better in borderless fullscreen?

[matrox-40]

Nope >> even worse.
The best can be done so far is just full screen (as it is nowadays, its defenately not FSE), gsync=on, CAP via RTSS.

I wonder if there is some method to analyze frame times. Something that would log each frame time. Plots like from capframeX are not sufficent. I would need to log literally all frame times to get fundamental info if game engine is erratic or is this just about synchronization\display.

[Gias]

oh you also had this thread about iracing. i posted in your gsync / pendulum demo thread too.

anyway, the game with its fullscreen mode allowing only some things on top (like the windows volume overlay or gamebar widgets) is because of what i mentioned here about z-bands:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12139&start=10#p109120

technically FSO uses a borderless window that covers the whole screen, is using a flip model swapchain (and the presentation model may be "composed: flip" or "hardware: independent flip" / "hardware composed: independent flip") and is on the INACTIVEMOBODY z-band, while most apps / external windows are on the DESKTOP z-band

so games using FSO are on a higher z-band than regular apps that are in the desktop z-band; however, the windows volume overlay, gamebar widgets, and intel presentmon widgets are on a higher z-band than the one used by FSO. the windows volume overlay being on a higher z-band than FSO allows it to get on top of a game using FSO without the game minimizing etc

(and yep FSE would not allow the windows volume overlay or other external windows... basically only overlays you would have with a game using FSE are overlay that have been injected into the game like overlays from sk or rtss's default overlays)

i suggested this in your other thread, but yeah check the game's presentation model with intel's presentmon or rtss. with FSO i imagine your game is using independent flip for presentation, and then it's falling into a composed flip presentation when you put something on top like the windows volume overlay (unless you have 2+ MPOs to keep the game in independent flip... but i guess your display doesn't have access to MPOs).

FSE still exists in windows 11 and it could be used depending on the game. you could get it by launching a game with its fullscreen option after checking the "disable fullscreen optimizations" option from the properties of the game's executable. if that doesn't work, there was some windows registry method too that could work with some games where it wasn't enough from the properties of the game's executable; however, i generally wouldn't recommend going that route.

while the game is using independent flip for presentation, performance and latency should normally be as good or better than fullscreen exclusive. in fact, games using independent flip for presentation may use waitable swapchains (which can provide further latency reductions at least in some scenarios, and waitable swapchains are not supported in fullscreen exclusive).

also, sounds like that game doesn't use flip model with its borderless option... and in that case you could make it use flip model with windows 11's optimizations for windowed games option in windows 11's graphics settings. alternatively (especially handy if you're using windows 10), rtss also has a flip model override that you can enable and try (it's not enabled by default) and there's special k's flip model override (but yeah easy-anti-cheat normally blocks sk)

[matrox-40]

Thanks for valueable info ! Now I just run single screen, hardware g-sync (Dell AW3423DW)

I finally saw presentation model via RTSS. Thank you. Possibly now I know more what is going on, but nothing is goin on... At least this answers my questions why all settings I manipulate with, give no or little result. It seems presentation model remains the same all the time. Is this normal ?

"full screen" selected in iRacing >> independent flip
No change if "disable full screen optimisations" is selected or deselected. No change if start menu on top or not.

20241017_155926 full screen.jpg (208.81 KiB) Viewed 10162 times

windowed borderless & optimization for windowed games = OFF >> independent flip

20241017_154119 windowed borderless.jpg (197.11 KiB) Viewed 10162 times

windowed borderless & optimization for windowed games = ON>> independent flip

20241017_154319 - windowed borderless.jpg (184.72 KiB) Viewed 10162 times

Anyway, in full screen game is much better in terms of smoothness than windowed, but still stuttery. So I assume presentation model is not reason why sometimes it can or cannot be smooth. Thing is sometimes it will launch almost butter smooth.

So I don't really know what to do, to just try some other presentation model. You mentioned to override it by means of RTSS, how do do it ?

For Win10\11 FSE is not appearing even with registry change :
"GameDVR_FSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_HonorUserFSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000001
"GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible"=dword:00000001
...and some others found on internet.

I'm keeping up to that FSE mode, as I still hope possibly it will help that old game. Old or not, anyway, they advertise it serves nVidia reflex, so I assume game is "VRR compatible".

At this point maybe this is the point, what you wrote: since frames could still be rendered by the game with screwed timings, the game's physics may be simulated with wrong or improper timings, and gpu rendering as well as display time can also be factors that'd affect animation and perceived smoothness.

Thing is, that for example if I turn off g-sync, or I don't cap g-sync, smoothness is even worse, so all steps I did improved a lot, but maybe game indeed renders frames with improper timing, and this displayed on my side correcnly (without any sync issues).

Even if I just use only VSYNC, let monitor 120Hz (my system is capable of 500FPS), so I have huge headroom, gameplay is stuttery. This is something I really don't understand. Normally I wouldnt even care about g-sync, as I can deliver 120FPS all day long to monitor. I dont care about input lag. Even with 120FPS VSYNC its ok for me. I'm not an e-sports driver. But stutter\judder I just cannot stand at all. In fact this is constant microstuttering I would say, it feels choppy, it doesnt matter than 100 or 165 FPS, it all looks the same. I would even say that 60FPS looks better, as it somehow "masks" stutters.

[Gias]

Thanks for valueable info ! Now I just run single screen, hardware g-sync (Dell AW3423DW)

I finally saw presentation model via RTSS. Thank you. Possibly now I know more what is going on, but nothing is goin on... At least this answers my questions why all settings I manipulate with, give no or little result. It seems presentation model remains the same all the time. Is this normal ?

yeah. apparently your game actually already uses flip model natively in borderless.

Anyway, in full screen game is much better in terms of smoothness than windowed, but still stuttery. So I assume presentation model is not reason why sometimes it can or cannot be smooth. Thing is sometimes it will launch almost butter smooth.

full screen being better (let alone much better) in terms of smoothness makes no sense... considering your game in fullscreen is also windowed borderless (using FSO). you've already confirmed that the presentation model is the same, and from your screenshots i don't see much difference. maybe placebo is at play here, or your game just happened to be worse somehow when you tested windowed borderless but it may not always be ? you've also mentioned that sometimes game is supersmooth and sometimes not... =/

So I don't really know what to do, to just try some other presentation model. You mentioned to override it by means of RTSS, how do do it ?

i mentioned that rtss also has a flip model override that you can enable and try because it sounded to me like this game doesn't use flip model wiht its borderless mode. your screenshots appear to indicate that your game actually already uses flip model natively with is borderless mode, so rtss's flip model override isn't needed here.

For Win10\11 FSE is not appearing even with registry change :
"GameDVR_FSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_HonorUserFSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000001
"GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible"=dword:00000001
...and some others found on internet.

I'm keeping up to that FSE mode, as I still hope possibly it will help that old game. Old or not, anyway, they advertise it serves nVidia reflex, so I assume game is "VRR compatible".

yeah that's not the registry method i was thinking about. there was another method involving the game's directory in the registry and i don't remember the steps at this point. i don't think the presentation model is the issue here though. you're already getting independent flip presentation, which is basically as good or better than FSE / hardware legacy flip.

At this point maybe this is the point, what you wrote: since frames could still be rendered by the game with screwed timings, the game's physics may be simulated with wrong or improper timings, and gpu rendering as well as display time can also be factors that'd affect animation and perceived smoothness.

Thing is, that for example if I turn off g-sync, or I don't cap g-sync, smoothness is even worse, so all steps I did improved a lot, but maybe game indeed renders frames with improper timing, and this displayed on my side correcnly (without any sync issues).

Even if I just use only VSYNC, let monitor 120Hz (my system is capable of 500FPS), so I have huge headroom, gameplay is stuttery. This is something I really don't understand. Normally I wouldnt even care about g-sync, as I can deliver 120FPS all day long to monitor. I dont care about input lag. Even with 120FPS VSYNC its ok for me. I'm not an e-sports driver. But stutter\judder I just cannot stand at all. In fact this is constant microstuttering I would say, it feels choppy, it doesnt matter than 100 or 165 FPS, it all looks the same. I would even say that 60FPS looks better, as it somehow "masks" stutters.

did you also try enabling the "prefer maximum performance" option for the power management mode in the game's profile inside the nvidia control panel ?

like this:



that can actually help with performance in some games. in fact, the other day, someone else also had some stutters with their game, and apparently that was fixed after i suggested setting their game to use nvidia's "prefer maximum performance" option and they tried that. you can also check your gpu clocks. the gpu clocks for that other person where quite low when they were playing their game, and nvidia's prefer maximum performance option boosted their gpu clocks and apparently fixed their performance problem. it has also improved performance on my end with another game.

[matrox-40]

Hello.

In Win11 24H2, windowed vs full screen, despite all scenarios were showing "hw composed: independent flip" Full screen was much more smooth than windowed. Windowed was just unplayable, for sune no placebo. Even recorded with 240FPS camera and was analyzing in slow-motion.

I swiched to Win10 22H2 to see how it goest there, as its generally more smooth for me (I did tons of experiments before I started thread here), and here are findings:

I discovered something interesting that in windowed mode presentation model changes by itself: every several seconds I can see model name changes in that RTSS overlay, but change is so fast you cannot read whats there. I recorded video and then analyzed frame by frame and it was like below. In this situation there is stuttering. Also I found, that sometimes in windowed mode game will start as "composed: flip" and this is stutterfest, also what is very misleading in this scenario windowed gsync seems to be activated, monitor Hz fluctuates, g-sync indicator is on but game play is stuttermess.

20241020_195041.jpg (185.59 KiB) Viewed 9928 times

20241020_195022.jpg (176.68 KiB) Viewed 9928 times

In full screen I see constant "hw composed: independent flip", however when I turn on menu start, model changes

20241020_225459.jpg (176.08 KiB) Viewed 9928 times

so its different behavior vs Win11 24H2. However, when "hw composed: independent flip" is there permanent in full screen, I can get it very smooth with g-sync & frame cap via RTSS or ingame cap.

You said "independent flip presentation" = as good or better than FSE. Is this :
"hw composed: independent flip"
or
hw: independent flip" or any of these ?

What is the difference ?

I'm still manipulating a lot, so this is just in-between update. My target is to make is working smooth in tripple screen configuration.

Besides presentation model, do you think can there be some explanations why in Win11 I cannot get it smooth in any scenario, while in Win10 yes ? I was trying to replicate all settings from Win10 to Win11 and Win11 stutters.

[1000WATT]

23H2

1231.jpg (1.89 MiB) Viewed 9836 times

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