HELP! Cannot run game in windowed mode (Fullscreen mode is 100% fine)

[Ventus]

So this has been an ENORMOUSLY frustrating issue I'm having and desperately need help on. I've been able to play the game in fullscreen mode fine for the longest time on my laptop, but the windowed mode has never worked.

My reasoning for needing windowed mode so bad is so I can alt + tab and look at recipes, info, etc while playing without having to log out so it is quite a big deal I get windowed mode working.

I've already done the following to attempt to remedy this issue:

1. "Whitelist" FFXIV under NVidia control panel to perform at high performance settings and power mode at high performance

2. Updated Intel Chipset drivers

3. Updated nVidia at http://www.geforce.com/#/Drivers/Results/29659

4. Obtained DirectX SDK Update

Here are my specs:

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
System Model: Dell System XPS L502X
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6058MB RAM
Page File: 2522MB used, 9592MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
Display Memory: 1696 MB
Dedicated Memory: 64 MB
Shared Memory: 1632 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Wasn't exactly sure what was needed to help out so let me know if anyone needs more info about my laptop to help out, but essentially I put down (just to be safe) a lot of what I thought might help.

Thanks in advance guys and I appreciate all your help!

[origamikitsune]

Is a laptop, no? Any time you see "Intel" for the graphics, FF14 is going to have issue. The fact that you can run it at all is more than most people ever get, full screen or windowed. As much as I hate to say it, if that's all you have in it, I would take what you have and roll with it, and hope that windowed mode doesn't break as they update the game.

IF you have the nVidia Optimus thingy in there as well (and you might, depending on the exact model of the laptop?) then there should be some settings that allow you to force it to use the nVidia chip over the Intel. There's a few posts in the forums about it you can search for, or alternately see if someone else pops up with details, as I don't personally have experience with them.

[Ventus]

Is a laptop, no? Any time you see "Intel" for the graphics, FF14 is going to have issue. The fact that you can run it at all is more than most people ever get, full screen or windowed. As much as I hate to say it, if that's all you have in it, I would take what you have and roll with it, and hope that windowed mode doesn't break as they update the game.

IF you have the nVidia Optimus thingy in there as well (and you might, depending on the exact model of the laptop?) then there should be some settings that allow you to force it to use the nVidia chip over the Intel. There's a few posts in the forums about it you can search for, or alternately see if someone else pops up with details, as I don't personally have experience with them.

hmmm ok I've spent nearly 5 hours total trying to fix this problem but havent heard bout forcing nVidia chip so I'll try to find out how to, but if you find out how or anyone can let me know =/.

[origamikitsune]

I believe what you need to do is "whitelist" the the game in your nVidia control panel? If you just type "optimus" or "whitelist" in the search at the top of the forums, you should get a list of threads that can help you?

[Coldfire]

Problem is you can't completely disable the IGP as it forwards the nVidia GPUs output to the HDMI. Have no idea what nv thought when they decided to build this poop into laptops...

[DAOWAce]

What exactly is the problem?

Saying "window mode doesn't work" doesn't really state what's happening. ex. Is there an error message of any sort or does the game launch then close or does it not launch at all and sit on the desktop?

[Ventus]

What exactly is the problem?

Saying "window mode doesn't work" doesn't really state what's happening. ex. Is there an error message of any sort or does the game launch then close or does it not launch at all and sit on the desktop?

Intermittently I will get the "unable to detect directx device" error while in windowed mode. I turned off windows aero and its usually fine but now randomly get it sometimes.

[DAOWAce]

Intermittently I will get the "unable to detect directx device" error while in windowed mode. I turned off windows aero and its usually fine but now randomly get it sometimes.

Okay, so the same thing the other Optimus users are getting.

I was going to suggest to disable DWM, but someone already did.

Just in case, bring up task manager. If you see "dwm.exe" running then go to the services tab and find "Desktop Window Manager". Disable it.

Can also run services.msc and set it to manual in there to stop it from starting with windows, provided that solves the problem.

[Coldfire]

Try disabling windows aero.

[Ventus]

ok yeah I saw DWM on task manager and put it on manual. How does this usually interfere with the game? Either way I'll let you know if it helps. Hope it does =(