Game starts in small window

[andy_93]

Hi,my brother has Dirt 2,he had it free with his GPU.Its played through Steam but when he wants to play it it always starts in a small window,he has to maximize it but the task bar is still visible,so its still not full screen.Now i have gone into the shortcut properties and where it says run i have selected maximized from the drop down box and clicked apply but the game will still not run full screen.The taskbar is not locked either,i have also tried to run it as admin but it will not run.I have gone through the Steam settings but i cannot find nothing in there.Does anyone have any ideas please.Many thanks.

 

[JDV28]

Hold Alt + Enter at the same time

 

[andy_93]

Ok,many thanks for the reply,ill tell him to do that,but any ideas as to why its doing it?

 

[JDFan]

Ok,many thanks for the reply,ill tell him to do that,but any ideas as to why its doing it?

In your My Games\Dirt2\hardwaresettings\ folder find and open hardware_setting_config.xml (this is your config file) - in it find the graphics card section and make sure under fullscreen= it says "true" and not "false" ("true" will set it to full screen on startup ! For Example this is from my file : ( I have a 5770 but force it to DX9 mode because I like more FPS over the DX11 eyecandy !!)

<graphics_card>
<directx forcedx9="true" />
<resolution width="1680" height="1050" aspect="normal" fullscreen="true" vsync="0" multisampling="4xmsaa">

 

[andy_93]

I did look in some config files and i am sure fullscreen is already set to true,but i cant be 100% so i will have another look.Can you change the config file as it is or do you have to open with another program to edit the file.Thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

[JDFan]

I did look in some config files and i am sure fullscreen is already set to true,but i cant be 100% so i will have another look.Can you change the config file as it is or do you have to open with another program to edit the file.Thanks for taking the time to reply.

It is an .xml file so just be sure to save the changed file with that extension and it should work fine ( I use Adobe Dream weaver to open and edit xml files so am not sure but I believe notepad can be used to open and resave the file as long as you keep the .xml extension).

 

[JDV28]

Yes notepad works just fine.
And did you try alt+enter?

 

[andy_93]

No i have not tried alt+enter yet as i have not been able to get in touch with my bro,but as soon as i can i will tell him to try both suggestions,and thanks again guys for taking the time,much appriciated,ill let you know if it works,well i am sure it will.Cheers.