Minimising Full Screen Games

[MetalheadGautham]

I play lots of games, like Urban Terror, UT2K4, etc on Linux. Me and my friends discuss stuff as to which server to use over IRC. So I need to often minimise the full screen game to show my desktop. I run KDE. Is there any way to do this ? And while Gaming, I run IceWM or Fluxbox.(every bit of the 256mb ram that I have is important to me while gaming )

[i92guboj]

I play lots of games, like Urban Terror, UT2K4, etc on Linux. Me and my friends discuss stuff as to which server to use over IRC. So I need to often minimise the full screen game to show my desktop. I run KDE. Is there any way to do this ? And while Gaming, I run IceWM or Fluxbox.(every bit of the 256mb ram that I have is important to me while gaming )

This usually depends on how your window manager do the things. Some of them just disable the ability to minimize this kind of windows. Smarter wm's like fvwm can do that. If the application request true fullscreen like some sdl games, you might need to configure it, if possible, to run in a window instead (neverwinter nights needs this, for example). I also remember that there was a patch for sdl the last time I checked to add the hability to switch fullscreen apps to windowed mode, though I don't know its current status.

[void_false]

You may run console IRC client such as irsii on one of your virtual terminals and switch between game and irc with ctrl-alt-f1 <> ctrl-alt-f7.

[MetalheadGautham]

er... so how DO I solve this problem on either IceWM or Fluxbox ?

[i92guboj]

Let us know what the problematic applications/games are.

[MetalheadGautham]

Let us know what the problematic applications/games are.

Urban Terror 4.1
Thats the ONLY game I play abusively in multiplayer.
(its awssome, and a freeware)

[i92guboj]

I am not familiar with that game, never used it myself but, if it's like most games, it surely is using SDL to manage such things like video modes.

To be able to minimize the program, it needs to be managed on a window, so the WM can actually do something about it. So, look on the configuration options of the program, in-game.

If you can't see anything to shut fullscreen off, you can still do many things:

1.- try to find a .ini or .cfg file, or something similar, in the directory where the game resides. Search on that file for something to allow windowed modes, or to disable fullscreen ones.

2.- look on the game forums and faq's, it might worth a check.

3.- Run the windows version under wine, wine is that good nowadays that, if you manage to get the game running under it it will work equally well more than probably. Still, I'd do this only as last resort, since I preffer to use native solutions when available.

I am sorry I can't give any more concrete answer, but as I said, I never tried this game.