nxPascal

[LP]

So what remains is non-crossplatform ways, like directly using WinAPI. Maximizing window, showing it on top of everything and hiding taskbar.

You don't need to hide taskbar. Once you set window to cover the entire screen area, the taskbar is hidden by default.

1) Unfortunately maximizing window is not solution for performance. Full scrreen mode give more FPS and i think picture looks more "stable" (less flickering). For development this is not important, but in the final product would be missing. Bad if its possible only with third-party party libraries like SDL, glut etc. In future i will try it.

In our experiments, there is absolutely no performance difference between exclusive full-screen and non-exclusive full-screen modes. In exclusive full-screen mode you get one less copy operation, but even on Intel integrated cards this is not a problem. Most video players go non-exclusive route anyway as to not mess up with your display. So, FPS is basically the same. Regarding "stable" picture and flickering - as long as you enable VSync, it is exactly the same also.

Exclusive full-screen mode was important roughly 10 years ago when video card's memory was still relatively slow, so to save one BitBlt operation. Now, when you would use pixel shaders for advanced effects such as shadows and reflections, a single blit/copy operation's impact on performance is negligible. In fact, exclusive full-screen mode can be considered now quite intrusive as it can be harmful to multiple desktop configuration and switching between exclusive and non-exclusive modes can produce flicker and mess up with your desktop.

P.S. Although, doing rendering in very high resolutions and non-exclusive full-screen mode may still have quite an impact on video memory usage, and even on blit operation, especially considering retina displays getting common these days. But this is the same problem traditional non-full-screen applications need to overcome as well.