Boxee on Windows not true Full Screen

**fatalmuzza** · October 14th, 2010, 03:20 AM

I have accidently stumbled upon the fact that Boxee on Windows indeed runs in a borderless maximised window, and not a true full screen. This implmentation is no doubt due to multi monitor use flexibility. For HTPC - it has limited relevance.

Try it out, press windows key and watch the taskbar appear infront of boxee. Or use the magnifier tool and watch it follow your boxee mouse cursor.

This is fine for high end system, but has a gui performance penalty for systems like the Acer Revo. The gui on Windows is half as smooth as it is on Ubuntu thanks to this fake fullscreen implementation. This is also true for XBMC, fortunately in XBMC you have the option to utilise true full screen in the settings magically giving it a shot of silky smoothness in the gui.

Now not everybody sees the difference with 30fps vs 60fps, yada yada - lets not get into this debate, I can see the difference as night and day. The simple question stands as - is there any way to switch to true full screen in boxee?

**judgeschambers** · October 14th, 2010, 05:54 AM

If what you describe is factual, ((by that I mean I don't know if what you describe is what's occurring or not or there is some quality degradation)) I know of no way to "switch" modes in boxee.

Nonetheless, I personally don't see anything wrong with the video quality on my Revo and it plays just fine in full screen (flash, HD-mkv mp4, silverlight, etc) vs. other more high end systems I've run boxee on.

Honestly, I don't know if what you are wanting has any advantage or is even possible to program into boxee at all. I'm not a programmer. So, I can't really discuss it with any authority. Though, it sounds interesting...

You could post a request in the Feature Request thread and let others chime in on their desire for it.

**flynn** · October 14th, 2010, 03:00 PM

I like the fact that we don't get an extra mode change penalty when starting/closing boxee. And I don't feel the perf issues you do.

But I agree that an option to run in fullscreen exclusive mode would be useful - I don't know of any way right now.

Perhaps you can workaround this by speeding up your desktop performance. Disabling Aero and switching to a classic theme is one step, and there may be others that could help.

**judgeschambers** · October 14th, 2010, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by flynn

Perhaps you can workaround this by speeding up your desktop performance. Disabling Aero and switching to a classic theme is one step, and there may be others that could help.

Disabling Aero can actually hurt GPU acceleration on the Atom/Ion machines. ( I realize that makes no sense, but I've tested it)
In my sig, there is a link for my setup settings that I found provide the best performance for the Revo.

Though, I'm not so sure the OP'er is really concerned about his Revo, but the Boxee full screen mode itself.

**Prospero424** · October 15th, 2010, 12:37 AM

Yeah, I suggest you follow Judgeschambers' links and advice. I just don't think your performance problems are being caused by what you think is causing them.