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[TheLastBanana]

Also keep in mind that plenty of people have firewalls enabled. If your game goes straight to fullscreen, the game might be locked out of network functionality because the warning pop-up went under the window. In a few particularly nasty cases, the game opens straight to full-screen and locked itself up trying to use network functions - at that point, you can't exit the game, you can't allow the firewall to unblock it, since you can't Alt+Tab to another window, and even Ctrl+Alt+Delete out of it because it's stuck in fullscreen. This has happened to me twice, and I've had to hard reboot my computer just to get out of it.

So, whatever mode you decide to open in, please make sure you don't do that.

[Average Software]

I prefer to ship a separate configuration program like this:




Considering that bad video settings can make a game unusable, putting the video settings within the game itself always seemed really dumb to me.  Either way, I never default to fullscreen, and most importantly, my windows are freely resizable.  It pisses me off when a game either won't let me resize the window, or only allows me to use certain specially sanctioned window sizes.  Let me adjust the window as I see fit.

[ThemsAllTook]

my windows are freely resizable.  It pisses me off when a game either won't let me resize the window, or only allows me to use certain specially sanctioned window sizes.  Let me adjust the window as I see fit.

Seriously. I can see some argument for choosing certain resolutions where the game's art looks good, but there are plenty of good ways to handle arbitrary sizes. Even worse is when full screen resolutions are a fixed list chosen by the developer, rather than the game reading the display's capabilities and making all of the resolutions it can display available. If I can't play at the native resolution on my LCD, I'm never going to put your game into full screen mode on my computer.

[rivon]

Also keep in mind that plenty of people have firewalls enabled. If your game goes straight to fullscreen, the game might be locked out of network functionality because the warning pop-up went under the window. In a few particularly nasty cases, the game opens straight to full-screen and locked itself up trying to use network functions - at that point, you can't exit the game, you can't allow the firewall to unblock it, since you can't Alt+Tab to another window, and even Ctrl+Alt+Delete out of it because it's stuck in fullscreen. This has happened to me twice, and I've had to hard reboot my computer just to get out of it.

So, whatever mode you decide to open in, please make sure you don't do that.

I think this was the case of WinXP. On Vista, CTRL+ALT+DEL has always worked for me and I think that on Win7 it works too.

[Netsu]

my windows are freely resizable.  It pisses me off when a game either won't let me resize the window, or only allows me to use certain specially sanctioned window sizes.  Let me adjust the window as I see fit.

Huh, I don't know why I haven't tried it before, for some reason I thought it wouldn't work well. But I just put it in, it took me about 3 minutes and it works flawlessly, at least on Linux. It might be worse in Windows, as it requires an OpenGL context reload on window resize.

[ThemsAllTook]

Huh, I don't know why I haven't tried it before, for some reason I thought it wouldn't work well. But I just put it in, it took me about 3 minutes and it works flawlessly, at least on Linux. It might be worse in Windows, as it requires an OpenGL context reload on window resize.

That shouldn't be. What window system API are you using? WGL and GLUT can certainly resize without having to reload anything.

[_Tommo_]

That shouldn't be. What window system API are you using? WGL and GLUT can certainly resize without having to reload anything.

this.
It only needed some hacking to enforce res > 800x600 and aspect between 4/3 and 16/9.
On mac it is straightforward, on Linux I'm using SFML, but looks like it's straightforward too.

Something that is an hassle instead is hot-fullscreen-switching: OSX won't really support fullscreen, so I resorted to a really big window (after all OSX is just as fast when windowed! gotta love quartzGL) and on Linux... on Linux it still hangs on random switches
And glXContextMakeCurrent closes my app without explanations, but that's another story.

[Netsu]

I use SDL, maybe the problem occurs only when switching between fullscreen and windowed? It is definitely there though, I remember loosing all textures and VBOs on Windows and having to reload them.

[Polly]

I remember loosing all textures and VBOs on Windows and having to reload them.

Don't destroy the window / context, change the window style during run-time using SetWindowLongPtr and SetWindowPos instead ( you might want to InvalidateRect when going from fullscreen back to windowed ).

[Average Software]

I can see some argument for choosing certain resolutions where the game's art looks good,

Personally, I don't think that's even a good argument.  If I'm the game player, the decision of at what size the art looks good should be mine, and mine alone.  Doubly so if I paid money for your game.

If someone wants to run my game in a 10x10 window at 2 FPS, that's their business, and I'm proud to support it.

[Klaim]

I'd say the right solution is askign the user, as other suggested.

As "default" state, I use :
 - windowed mode for most (little) games;
 - fullscreen for immersive games;


There is no point in having Skyrim in windowed mode.
Most WOW Players will use windowed mode to check online stuff while they play.

[Netsu]

Don't destroy the window / context, change the window style during run-time using SetWindowLongPtr and SetWindowPos instead ( you might want to InvalidateRect when going from fullscreen back to windowed ).

If I'm using SDL I'd like to avoid using platform-specific calls whenever possible. I currently reload the context upon changing resolution/fullscreen. Next time I'll check if doing so upon changing just the resolution is really necessary in SDL.

Personally, I don't think that's even a good argument.  If I'm the game player, the decision of at what size the art looks good should be mine, and mine alone.  Doubly so if I paid money for your game.

If someone wants to run my game in a 10x10 window at 2 FPS, that's their business, and I'm proud to support it.

I don't agree with this. If my game would only look good in 800x600 then I'd want the player to run it this way, at least when playing for the first time. When a player sees my game for the first time I want him to see it the way I intended. If it looks ugly there's a chance he won't like it even though he would if he run it differently.

[ThemsAllTook]

If my game would only look good in 800x600 then I'd want the player to run it this way, at least when playing for the first time. When a player sees my game for the first time I want him to see it the way I intended. If it looks ugly there's a chance he won't like it even though he would if he run it differently.

One of the big problems with this is that it's not futureproof. My current display is 1680x1050. That's large enough that your window would barely take up 1/4th of my available screen space, but too small to be able to pixel double it. Displays are only going to get higher in resolution, so your window will get smaller and smaller. If you change the screen resolution to 800x600, it'll look no better on an LCD than any scaling mechanism you could implement yourself.

Your game won't look the way you intended at a fixed resolution unless the player's display hardware matches yours, so unless you can ensure that somehow (like, say, developing exclusively the iPhone), you're usually better off making your graphics resolution-adaptive in some way.

[Netsu]

you're usually better off making your graphics resolution-adaptive in some way.

And that's what I do, but there are many pixelart games out there that have a harder time adapting to an arbitrary resolution, so I see why some people would want to restrict the choice of resolutions their game runs at.

[Core Xii]

there are many pixelart games out there that have a harder time adapting to an arbitrary resolution, so I see why some people would want to restrict the choice of resolutions their game runs at.

That's incompetence; Not an argument against resolution independence. Games used to be CPU-speed-dependent as well. Thank god we broke out of that... Now's the time for pixel art to do the same.