Project Zomboid puts players’ wits to the test, throwing them into an unforgiving, apocalyptic environment with almost nothing. The challenge of surviving all that is already tough on its own, which is exactly why players don’t need other issues getting in their way. Unfortunately, that might be exactly what you get because of a problem with playing Project Zomboid in full screen.
If you’re encountering an issue where the game doesn’t run properly in full screen, switches to windowed on its own, or simply presents other similar problems, we’re here to help. Given below is a detailed guide of everything you can do to troubleshoot the issue, so make sure to try each step so that it won’t bother you anymore.
Dealing With The Full Screen Problem In Project Zomboid
- Disable Steam Overlay
If the game works fine for you in borderless or windowed but acts up when you try to play it in full screen, it might be something to do with the Steam Overlay. So, before getting down to anything too serious, simply disable this setting and restart the game.
Even if you didn’t enable the setting for Project Zomboid specifically, it might be allowed on its own. So, go to the game’s steam page in your library and then head to settings. From here, navigate to in-game settings, after which you’ll see a box for Steam’s overlay. Just uncheck this and you’re ready to hop in. As a bonus, you might find that the game runs much smoother than normal too, as Steam Overlay can hamper performance.
- Edit The Options.ini File
It’s safe to assume that things didn’t go your way with the first solution if you’re still reading this. Well, things can’t ever be too easy, can they?
So, moving on, a handy fix you can try is to edit the game’s settings manually. This is possible thanks to the Options.ini file that you’ll find inside your User Directory. Instead of taking the long route toward the .ini file, make things easier for yourself by using Windows Run. Press the Windows button + ‘R’. In the prompt that opens up, type ‘%USERPROFILE%/Zomboid/options.ini’.
Click enter, and you’ll be right where you want to be. Now, open the file to edit it and make your way toward the display settings. Here, set full screen to false, and borderless to true. Save your settings and restart the game to see if it will run in full screen for you now.
- Windows Display Project Settings
This next solution is for people that use a computer with multiple monitors, so you can skip ahead to the fourth one if you aren’t one of them. If you do use multi-screens, change your display project settings and things should be fine.
To change these, hit the ‘Windows button + P’. When playing Project Zomboid, what you’ll want to stick with is ‘Computer Screen Only’. Click on that specific option and your computer will take care of the rest for you. After you go through this, the game should be working fine even on full screen, and you can just repeat this process if the issue ever presents itself in the future.
- Disable DPI Scaling
Lastly, it could be that your system-wide DPI settings are what’s messing with the game’s full-screen mode. This happens to anyone using a DPI setting other than 100. Now, a simple solution would be to revert the setting to default. But, you’d have to adjust the way you use your computer entirely because of that.
Instead, a much simpler solution is to disable DPI scaling, which would make Project Zomboid ignore system DPI settings and stick to what makes it run easier. To change this, you’ll have to navigate to ‘%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid’.
Right-click each of the ProjectZomboid.exe files and then go into properties. Switch to the compatibility tab, where you’ll see an option for disabling DPI scaling. Select this, and the game will run full screen without anything causing problems for you.
Final Words
These are the best ways to solve problems with Project Zomboid’s full screen. Go through each of them and you’re sure to find one that helps you solve the problem!