How to Start Steam Games in Windowed or Full Screen [Easy Guide]

How to Start Steam Games in Windowed or Full Screen [Easy Guide]

If you want to run a resource-intensive Steam game on a low-end computer or have issues running a certain game, you may want to run it in windowed mode. This guide will show you several ways to launch Steam games in windowed mode.

Certain games may cause certain issues for the users, especially if the game has not been optimized yet for the PC. Additionally, a lot of users are trying to run a game with high system requirements on a low-end PC resulting in low-quality performance. Even with all of the graphic settings turned off or set to low, users sometimes still experience a lot of issues and they fail to get a playable frame rate which starts at 25 FPS (frames per second) which is considered to be the lowest acceptable frame rate.

Issues addressed in this tutorial:
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The Windowed Mode feature in Steam allows users to run some legacy games on their computer, which otherwise won’t launch. It is also helpful in playing certain games with high system requirements on a low-end PC.

Besides, it helps eliminate a range of errors. But not all Steam games can be opened as easily in Windowed Mode. Each may require a unique method, so you must know them all. Let’s find out!

This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops, and tablets running the Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Alienware, Razer, MSI, Huawei , Microsoft Surface, and Samsung.

[Linkfan]

I want to do full screen mode but it's still not working for me. I typed "-full" like you said and it's still cutting off the bottom in-game screen due to the grey bar on the window pop-up screen the game is in. I'm trying to play street fighter 6 and to display it on my TV screen from my laptop.

[KroozzUzU]

no freaking way, dude this is great I never knew this was an option, I tried for so long to make borderlands 1 windowed since i use multiple screens, such a relief thanks a lot

[MiniCrew]

I have a game, it ran in full screen when i first got it. Aftee using it on steam deck its no longer putting it in fullscreen (although I'm not sure if that's the direct reason so ye)


Using -full gives me this error -
'Unknown option: -full'
Any ideas?

[eldermartins]

Thank you. My Left 4 Dead 2 wasn't running on full screen and now I can play.

[BillyBob_McSanchez]

THANK YOU!!!! This worked. I just bought TitanFall 2 and it didn't come full screen, until I saw this video 👍👍👍

[KawaiiSkulli]

Having to do this cause trying to launch splinter cell Chaos theory with it already in full screen causes it to start spasming with the resolution- my laptop starts freaking out for some reason and it gets stuck in an infinite loop of switching display resolutions

[sofiaarredondo]

Hello, I'm trying to play OMORI on fullscreen but it isn't working for me even when I put "-full." The catch here is that I tried some advice from a commenter to press alt+enter when opening up the game but it leads me to have a blackscreen only and not loading up the game or even making it become full screen.

[Makoto-csgi]

Everybody keeps on saying to do this but windowed isn't working with any of the Steam games I try doing it with

[strawberrygaming]

disney speedstrom cannot run in windowed.

[ismailsajjade]

i start the game on windowed but it changes to fullscreen by its own and then crashes

[redjohniii]

Thanks for this video, helped me out a ton

[muhammedali-hwli]

SO to do it you have to press alt and enter and then you should have an black screen then it should be Windowed

[TheAlchemistOfAcid]

when I first got the game it was launching in fullscreen then I switched to windowed and now It won't change back

[InspoDailyDose]

Thank u, this worked perfectly for me!

[Itaholyspirits]

Can I play madden nfl24 now I just got it so hopefully it will work and I’m gettin a ps5 soon and a racein game like forza but I will probably get madden nfl24 on the ps5

[JFF]

Bro, thankyou so much 🙏🏻, this works at my game.

[ItsWither]

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