Comment 13 for bug 162151

I can confirm this issue as well, but only if I'm using a custom resolution.

For instance, if I use my default resolution (1280x1024), then bzflag works. However, if I adjust it down to 1024x768 in the catalyst control center, then the error appears.

I had another computer with an nvidia card that had the same issue and the way I corrected it was by setting it to 1024x768 in the nvidia settings and then telling it to make and save the xorg.conf file. I suspect what is happening is that SDL is attempting to query the available resolutions in xorg and it's going by what's stored in the default and not by whatever the user was set. A bugzilla report on RedHat seems to confirm this: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=426011

To work around this, first set bzflag to a lower resolution in windowed mode:

$ bzflag -window 800x600

Then, go to Options and change the resolution. For me, after I did that, it went to fullscreen. However, I have to do that whenever I start up bzflag.