How Do I Make Skyrim Fill My Screen?

Do you fondly remember picking up The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on 11/11/11, rushing home, installing it and then being startled when it only took up a small window in the center of your monitor? I sure do! Getting Skyrim to run fullscreen should be simple right? Well even 11 years later, maximizing Skyrim‘s display still trips up newcomers and veterans alike.

Not to worry my friend! In this expansive guide from a dedicated Dovahkiin modder, you‘ll learn everything you need to run Skyrim at unconventional resolutions, customize it to your monitor, remove borders, and generally make it less ugly. Grab some alto wine, roast a leg of goat over your campfire, and let‘s dive deeper into the arcane arts of Skyrim tweaking!

What Does "Fullscreen" Mean for Skyrim?

When we talk about running Skyrim "full", what most people mean is they want Skyrim to take up their entire monitor without any Windows borders or edge. This helps you get pulled deeper into the experience.

The two main ways to accomplish this are:

• Fullscreen Mode – Skyrim takes exclusive control of your monitor and fills it edge-to-edge.
• Borderless Window – Skyrim runs windowed but seamlessly spreads to remove borders.

By default however, Skyrim runs in a standard Windowed Mode which means you can see your Windows taskbar and can click outside of Skyrim even while you play.

Let‘s learn how to switch to the other modes!

Quick Fix: Launcher Settings

The easiest possible fix is directly in the Skyrim Special Edition launcher menu:

1. Launch Skyrim SE
2. Open the Options page
3. Under Display, turn off Windowed Mode and Borderless Option
4. Start Skyrim normally

This forces "exclusive" fullscreen which gives Skyrim direct control of your monitor. If you have multiple monitors, Skyrim will display on your primary monitor.

Downsides: Switching to other apps is cumbersome by design in this mode. You have to Tab ↹ out instead of simply clicking outside the game window.

Recommended: Borderless Gaming Tools

More advanced gamers tend to prefer "borderless fullscreen" over standard fullscreen, because it combines the best aspects of windowed mode and exclusive fullscreen:

✔️ Skyrim fills the entire display
✔️ No borders or distracting elements
✔️ Easy alt-tabbing to desktop and apps

The Special Edition launcher does have a Borderless option, but it‘s fairly primitive.

Instead I recommend excellent third party tools like Borderless Gaming which can force any game into seamless borderless mode, custom resolutions, and much more.

And it‘s completely free! Here‘s how I have it set up for Skyrim, which only takes seconds:

1. Download and install Borderless Gaming
2. Launch Skyrim in Windowed Mode
3. Open Borderless Gaming settings
4. Select Skyrim and Force Borderless

Boom! Borderless fullscreen Skyrim, even on multi-monitor surround setups. Other advanced functionality like hotkeyed resolution swapping makes Borderless Gaming invaluable.

So while Skyrim SE technically has borderless built-in, I don‘t recommend actually using it – grab Borderless Gaming instead!

Extreme Measures: INI Edits

Say you want to do something really wild like run Skyrim at 4K resolution for glorious screenshot vistas. Or you have an ultra-wide 21:9 monitor that Skyrim doesn‘t properly support. This normally won‘t be possible through the UI and require .INI tweaks.

To manually set custom resolutions and aspect ratios:

1. Open Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SkyrimPrefs.ini
2. Edit iSize H/W to your desired height/width resolution
3. Save changes and set the file to Read-Only
4. Launch Skyrim for custom resolution!

For example:
iSize H=2160
iSize W=3840

I don‘t recommend less savvy tweakers mess around with INIs too much, lest you break something. But once you know what you‘re doing, the level of control here is amazing. You can even modify ultra-specific settings for just how reflective wood chopping blocks are!

Community Mods Expand Options

The Skyrim modding scene has been busy these past 10+ years creating fantastic tools that give us greater customization than Bethesda ever could alone. Once again, mods are there to save us!

Some popular display mods include:

• UltraWide Skyrim SE – Fixes interface and conversiation zoom issues on 21:9 monitors
• Nvidia Inspector Wrapper – Unlocks downsampling, custom resolutions, bezel correction and much more via Nvidia Inspector integration
• Borderless Windowed Mode – Alternative to Borderless Gaming for forced borderless display

While this guide focuses on the base game settings, we‘d be remiss not discussing how mods continue expanding possibilities years later. The Skyrim mod scene remains incredibly vibrant in 2024.

Parting Words

Hopefully now you have all the knowledge you need to run Skyrim in beautiful fullscreen on that shiny monitor of yours! Whether you just want to fix the default windows behavior or really push the boundaries with custom resolutions, we have you covered. Here‘s a quick recap:

• Simplest Option: Use Skyrim SE launcher settings
• Recommended: Borderless Gaming for enhancements
• Maximum Flexibility: .INI file resolution edits
• Community Expansions: Consider mods for further customization

Drop any remaining questions in the comments and let all your Skyrim hours be fully screen hours! Talos guide you.