# Shift Window - A tool to play games windowed at your native res, without borders.



## LifeOnMars (Jul 20, 2011)

*Note - This only works if you're playing at the full resolution of your monitor.*

I started looking for a tool like this when I had problems a while ago playing Mafia 2 fullscreen. It basically jumped and jerked.....stuttering all over the place (Even though I had an i5 2500k and HD 5870 at the time). I tried it windowed and it was smooth as silk??
Problem was, I was left with borders and hated seeing even so much as a little bit of the top title bar whilst I was gaming. I also had to keep manually dragging it into place.



"Shift Window" is a nifty little tool which enables you to get rid of those borders/title bar and automatically centers it, effectively giving the same effect as playing it fullscreen.
I'm also aware of other games that have caused people issues whilst playing fullscreen, only to be perfectly fine once windowed. Hopefully this tool will help alot of you out there with some problem games.



*Credit goes to JediDwag *from the League of Legends Community for this tutorial -
"When you download and install shift window, you get a program box that looks like this -








When you start your game of choice (League of Legends in this example) you need to make sure the game is set to windowed mode, and that it's at your monitors native resolution. If you do that, your game window will have the bar at the top, and by using shift window we can get rid of it.

What you do is AFTER you have started your game, you load up shift window, and you hit the "Grab" button by window title. That'll open a little menu, and you select the "League of Legends (TM) Client" *whatever game it is you are playing*.







After that you hit the "trigger it" button and you should be all set!"



Here's the link - ShiftWindow
I tried it with Mafia 2 and it works perfectly  Hope it helps peeps


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2011)

The interest in this is overwhelming  Just giving it a friendly bump in case anyone missed this who could possibly use it


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## Ray_Rogers2109 (Jul 22, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> The interest in this is overwhelming  Just giving it a friendly bump in case anyone missed this who could possibly use it



I take it you prefer Pan & Scan and cropped from 2.35:1 for movies? OH NOES BLACK BARS!


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2011)

Ray_Rogers2109 said:


> I take it you prefer Pan & Scan and cropped from 2.35:1 for movies? OH NOES BLACK BARS!



Erm..yeh actually I do. Quite a few other people do as well, hence, the tools exist for a reason. Thanks for your input though


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## Ray_Rogers2109 (Jul 22, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> Erm..yeh actually I do. Quite a few other people do as well, hence, the tools exist for a reason. Thanks for your input though



So you can't stand black bars and would much rather have your screen filled? I'm glad you don't love movies and wanting OAR then.


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2011)

Ray_Rogers2109 said:


> So you can't stand black bars and would much rather have your screen filled? I'm glad you don't love movies and wanting OAR then.



Do you really find it so funny?:shadedshu I'm just letting people know of a tool that exists which can give you the fullscreen experience whilst a game is windowed. It also sorted out a technical problem I was having with Mafia 2, so that's a good thing right?

If other people can get use out of it then what is your problem.....other than a really poor sense of humour.


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## Ray_Rogers2109 (Jul 22, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> Do you really find it so funny?:shadedshu I'm just letting people know of a tool that exists which can give you the fullscreen experience whilst a game is windowed. It also sorted out a technical problem I was having with Mafia 2, so that's a good thing right?
> 
> If other people can get use out of it then what is your problem.....other than a really poor sense of humour.



My problem is this piece of shit pre-built Compaq can't even hardly play anything past 2006. I'm lucky this Compaq can even play Borderlands but it can't even play FALLOUT 3 or BoiShock well whatsoever.:shadedshu
Seems you need more RAM if it's stuttering and possibly a new GPU. Clearing the cache and even using the 4GB RAM program patcher thingy. Forgot the name of the patcher.


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2011)

Ray_Rogers2109 said:


> My problem is this piece of shit pre-built Compaq can't even hardly play anything past 2006. I'm lucky this Compaq can even play Borderlands but it can't even play FALLOUT 3 or BoiShock well whatsoever.:shadedshu
> Seems you need more RAM if it's stuttering and possibly a new GPU. Clearing the cache and even using the 4GB RAM program patcher thingy. Forgot the name of the patcher.



No. I had an i5 2500k with HD 5870 build previously and that had exactly the same issue. The game has a few issues for some people and configs, memory leak is one of them apparently. 

That said, some people can play it flawlessly with a dual core and an old GPU with 2GB Ram so it's one of those mystery issues unforttunately.


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## Ray_Rogers2109 (Jul 22, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> No. I had an i5 2500k with HD 5870 build previously and that had exactly the same issue. The game has a few issues for some people and configs, memory leak is one of them apparently.
> 
> That said, some people can play it flawlessly with a dual core and an old GPU with 2GB Ram so it's one of those mystery issues unforttunately.



For people such as myself, I'm playing MAFIA before I ever play MAFIA II. Habit which came about when I was younger. I won't be installing anymore games on the Compaq.
Perhaps the memory leak is the same as GTA IV?


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2011)

Ray_Rogers2109 said:


> For people such as myself, I'm playing MAFIA before I ever play MAFIA II. Habit which came about when I was younger. I won't be installing anymore games on the Compaq.
> Perhaps the memory leak is the same as GTA IV?



Quite possibly although ironically, I have never had any issues playing GTA IV. It is the nature of the beast. Mafia 1 was excellent and I have that in my Steam collection ready to be played through again at some point.


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## Ray_Rogers2109 (Jul 22, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> Quite possibly although ironically, I have never had any issues playing GTA IV. It is the nature of the beast. Mafia 1 was excellent and I have that in my Steam collection ready to be played through again at some point.



I hate to further derail the thread but when I do buy both GTA IV including Episodes from Liberty City, retail from Amazon.com, I fully intend to use the ENB mods.
I'm also a stickler for wanting to play firsts in a series then going through them in release order prior to playing the installment in the series I'm interested in. Going to do it for TOTAL WAR before I get to Shogun 2 (by the time I get to Shogun 2 there'll've been another TOTAL WAR title!), already did it for FALLOUT since I own the Trilogy DVD-ROM, Silent Hill will be tricky and will need to wait until I buy the launch 60GB PS3 and more. It's easier buying a series in compilation i.e. Command & Conquer: The First Decade, Age of Empires, TOTAL WAR Gold Editions, Game of the Year Editions for singular titles.
There are several games I've been wanting to play but this POS Compaq can't even play them. ESPECIALLY WOLFENSTEIN, which gave me the motivation to build my computer, BATMAN: Arkham Asylum, FALLOUT 3 on reasonably well settings, BioShock again on reasonably well settings. I used to be able to play OBLIVION quite fine but now it's going down the shitter.
Maybe I should also delete the game cache?


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## mrw1986 (Jul 22, 2011)

This is a common problem with a number of games. I've personally seen it happen where a game runs 10x better in a window than fullscreen. It has nothing to do with the "black bar" effect of movies. It's about running the games at native res.


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