How to Open Steam Games in Windowed Mode

How to Open Steam Games in Windowed Mode

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.

Some games don’t have built-in windowed mode support, but if you have games on Steam, you can configure it to launch any game in windowed mode.

The Benefits of running games in windowed mode:

• The windowed mode feature in Steam can help you run some old games that otherwise wouldn’t.
• It can help you run resource-demanding games with improved frame rates.
• Running a game in windowed mode is useful when having dual monitors. It allows you to multitask or switch to other tasks with no delay.
• Launching a Steam game in windowed mode is a useful workaround when experiencing performance issues.

Before applying any of our methods, go to the game’s in-game display settings and check if it has a windows mode option. Select it if it does and save the changes. If there’s no in-game windowed mode option, follow the methods below.

Video Guide on How to Open Steams Games in Windowed Mode

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Change Steam Game Launch Parameters
• Video Guide on How to Open Steams Games in Windowed Mode

Change Steam Game Launch Parameters

1. Open Steam.

2. In the Steam Library, right-click a game and select Properties.

3. In the Launch Options text box, type in –windowed.

4. If the game doesn't launch in windowed mode, try typing in –windowed -w 1024.

5. Close the Properties window and launch the game. The parameter will launch the game in windowed mode with a set resolution.

6. When you don’t want the game to launch in windowed mode, erase the –windowed parameter.

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