by Chris » Sat Jul 21, 2018 6:59 pm
If I'm playing a game like Doom, my focus is going to be on the game. Just because something may be physically visible on the screen doesn't mean you're actually seeing it. Tunnel vision is a real thing.
Personally, I have the game in a window, and use something notably larger than 800x600. My 1440x900 monitor is fairly small by today's standards (it's not even 1080p!), and I play GZDoom in a 1280x720 window. Gives a nice "standard def" resolution that covers most of the screen, leaving a little space at the edges I can see and click on. But most importantly, It leaves the taskbar visible at the bottom of the screen, so if something needs my attention (someone mentioned me in chat, etc), the taskbar will flash which is often good enough to distract me from the game (and if it's not, having a smaller game window wouldn't help; it might in fact make it harder since I'll have to focus more on the game window because the area is smaller). I don't need the other windows themselves wholly visible, the task bar and systray work just fine to show alerts and notifications, and if I notice something important, I can quickly pause the game and click away to see what's up.
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