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A Proposal To Fix The Full-Screen Linux Window Mess

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  • #11
    This is something I hate about games on Windows as much as Linux. Please don't ever change my resolution for me. Your game should run at 1080p without issue... and if it can't, give me the choice (Before you change resolution) or put your game in a box with black border around it. Please don't automatically assume I want to run a game at 640x480 (Esp if it was written anywhere after 2005)

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    • #12
      ... and now let's make this even funnier by bringing in windowed borderless fullscreen mode!

      Or wait, wouldn't this fix some problems because then the game actually runs in a window?

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      • #13
        Performance wise this could get a little heavy however it could fix a ton of problems so I say stability first, performance second.
        Ummm... you are advocating making games slower? Linux is already bad performance wise. The interface idea sounds like it will tell KDE or other window managers that a resolution change is temporary and should save the location of its widgets, so that it can restore them when the change is over. That would take 4 integers per widget, with no performance hit for gaming.

        Windowed mode for many games, makes the game .... worse. Any game with scrolling (rts, strategy, anything with a scene bigger than the window.), menus that pop up when the cursor is at the edge of the screen (Sim games, theme hospital, etc) and any game with ui elements near the minimize and exit buttons on the window(you can accidently minimize and exit) would have serious issues with being played in a windowed mode. Not to mention its ugly (immersion matters!). Windowed mode is not an option for most games.
        Last edited by ua=42; 25 October 2012, 09:28 AM.

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        • #14
          It's nice seeing people trying to address Linux problems and yes, this bug, which is now many years old (in fact it's as old as the X system itself), is mentioned over there:

          "X.org doesn't automatically switch between desktop resolutions if you have a full screen application with a custom resolution running."

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          • #15
            What a "surprise" that Martin Gr??lin of all the people is opposing this. I really don't get his problem. He doesn't ever admit anything being wrong with KDE or KWin. Now he extends his anti-constructive attitude outside KDE.

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            • #16
              So, I'm not going to join that mailing list just for this discussion, and Martin may never read this thread, but as others have said, Martin's arguments are just not valid unless you have KDE blinkers on. On the odd chance that he stops by, or someone else cares, my thoughts...

              Originally posted by Martin
              I try to explain the problems we have with this from the workspace perspective. In KDE Plasma we have a desktop shell which is strongly widget based and our users arrange the widgets on the whole screen. Also windows are manually placed and so on.

              Now if a game changes the resolution this gets completely destroyed. The manual layout is completely broken and cannot be restored (!) once the screen
              resolution changes back. A resolution change normally does not happen automatically, but only after a user e.g. plugged in an additional screen and configured it.
              This says KDE is broken and should be fixed, and the proposal to hand resolution changes off to the WM first provides a path for this - _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN_EXCLUSIVE triggers workspace state save, followed by resolution change. When the application terminates or unsets _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN_EXCLUSIVE, reset to previous resolution and restore workspace state.

              Originally posted by Martin
              Also windows get completely messed up when the resolution goes down. Most likely too large windows will get maximized and they will stay maximized once
              the screen resolution is changed.
              Why are windows being maximized in the first place under these conditions? Another KDE problem.

              Originally posted by Martin
              Moving the responsibility to the window manager to change the screen resolution will not solve this issue. It just increases the complexity of what
              could go wrong (hello Intel drivers crashing KWin when going back from unredirection state about a year ago).
              Seems to provide a pretty good path to solving the problem, as above. And drivers crashing? Yes, things will go wrong at that point, live with it.

              Originally posted by Martin
              Also in the case of KDE Plasma Workspaces the window manager is not at all responsible for handling the resolution. This is done by a daemon called
              krandr. I will not add code to change the resolution as that is nicely handled by krandr.
              KDE has probably the worst resolution handling of any DE, check the KDE bug tracker for all the ways it's deficient, and maybe take this as an opportunity to fix those issues too (no memory of previous settings for external monitors meaning manual configuration every time a monitor is (dis)connected, no auto-configuration of external monitors on attach/detach, no reduction in virtual desktop size on disabling of a monitor meaning logout or shutdown is required to return desktop to normal functionality, etc). To say anything is 'nicely' handled by krandr is a joke.

              Originally posted by Martin
              Last but not least I have never understood the need to change the resolution. If the screen is larger than the resolution supported by the game, why not run
              in windowed mode? At least I (though I'm not a gamer) hate the pixel graphics I get when running a game which supports only 1024x768 on my full HD computer screen.
              The biggest joke of all. It's obvious that Martin does not play games, but windowed gaming removes all immersion, and not all hardware is capable of running all games at full native screen resolution (which is really the only reason anyone wants to change resolution when playing a game - to solve poor performance). The idea others have mentioned of doing software scaling is not really a solution for this very reason - that will suck additional processing in the very circumstance where the hardware is already struggling.
              Last edited by pdffs; 25 October 2012, 10:22 AM. Reason: Reduce email wrapping

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              • #17
                Originally posted by Weegee View Post
                ... and now let's make this even funnier by bringing in windowed borderless fullscreen mode!

                Or wait, wouldn't this fix some problems because then the game actually runs in a window?
                On my gaming pc (which runs windows), I always run games in borderless windowed mode if they have that option. combines some of the advantages of fullscreen mode and windowed mode, allows for instant alt tabbing, and removes tearing without a big performance hit (Although from what I see with the current state of some linux compositors they may give a bigger hit than aero)

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by Rigaldo View Post
                  The solution mentioned above for Wayland, by Kazade, sounds best IMO and less problematic and would probably satisfy Martin as well.
                  I'm very glad they're looking into it.
                  That solution (resampling each frame before displaying it) will slow things down, though. Resizing 2 MPixels with something reasonable (bicubic interpolation, for example) is not the most expensive operation in the world, but if you do it 30x per second it is not negligable.

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                  • #19
                    BTW, I agree that KDE should fix the resizing problem.

                    People change resolutions, period. At least for some of them, this is necessary. I have a multi-seat setup, where the two seats use monitors with different resolutions (I don't need to buy a new monitor, I have two perfectly fine ones, so I use that -- they just happen to have different native resolutions). I often change the seat, depending on which one is free at the moment (somebody else from the household might be using my preferred seat).

                    Each time I do this, it messes up the panel and widget configuration.

                    It's not just a "gaming" problem. It's a legitimate gripe for many people. I understand that it's a technical challenge for Plasma, the way it is coded right now, but it's still a legitimate gripe.

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                    • #20
                      been using KDE 4.8.5 and this SUCKS the same as Gnome 3. no wonder that the linux desktop is broken. Hopefully with wayland and some good DE tailored on wayland will have better response.

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