Alt-tabbing problems?

[Pavlos]

Hi all,

 

I was playing with a friend in multiplayer and it appeared that whenever one of us wanted to alt-tab out of DCS to do something else, we were unable to ever get back to the game. The controls and everything were responding as if we were still in the game (sound too), but we could not get the picture back to the screen. Tried switching with the task manager to no avail...in the end we had to terminate the process.

 

It happened to both of us, and the odd thing is it happened even before getting to 3D screen (when alt-tabbing from the pre-flight screens after connection was achieved).

 

It did not appear to be a system resource issue as he has a super system and mine did not appear to be craving for more power at the time of the crash, as the CPU and RAM utilisation percentages were OK.

 

He's running Vista 64bit and I'm running WinXP Home 32-bit, for what it's worth.

 

I have been able to successfully alt-tab out of the game and then back in countless times whilst in single player. I also believe I have managed to do it in other multiplayer games but I am not sure how correctly I recall that.

 

Anyone have an idea about what might be causing this?

[eV1Te]

I have seen the same problem as well as a friend of mine, ether you have to stay in game all the time or play in window mode to be sure it doesn't crash. But in window mode the FPS is reduced drastically so that's not an option for me...

[71st_Mastiff]

you do realize that there is 2 programs running in the system for this game. I suspect that is the very reason for it not working with alt-tab. You have the GUI launcher and then the simulator it self.

[LoyalNine]

It works fine for me in Single Player... Multi Player missions it is an issue and I cannot get back in game. FWIW I am running Vista64.

[FedEx]

You know it is funny this only happen to me in some servers not all, I was playing in the 159th Server and alt-tab out and i could not get back in the game, like you explain nothing would get me back in the game.

 

I don't know but It could be that it has to do something with some vehicles in the mission. I try adding a ship to a mission that I was able to alt-tab out of and when I add it a ship that happen to me, I don't know I may be crazy but when I add it the ship i could not get back in the game.

[USSR_Rik]

We recommend to play in windowed (not fullscreen) mode if you want to switch to another application and back.

[Vitesse2l]

I have found I cannot alt-tab unless the virtual memory is set. Using XP, btw.

[Pavlos]

Interestingly, the one mission I could not alt-tab back to it, had ships in it. I think the other one, where I actually could alt-tab back to it, had no ships.

 

1. @Vitesse2l, you mean you must have the virtual memory set to a fixed size instead of having Windows control its size?

 

2. @GFMastiff, I thought that once you are in the 3D world the launcher.exe is killed so as to free up resources (see here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=568712.)

 

3. It is odd in that it has only happened to me in multiplayer so far. I will have to check out the ship thing..

 

UPDATE: About (2) above, is the GUI launcher even running when in multiplayer mode? When I launch multiplayer, I only see the DCS.exe process running.

 

Now here is the interesting thing, I actually went in and tested the ship theory. And lo and behold, I can alt-tab out of the game as desired if the mission does not contain ships...add a ship, and there's no alt-tabbing any more. Not even from the pre-flight screen where you select your chopper. Odd, isn't it? I can understand a game not being friendly with alt-tabbing (e.g. Falcon 4 AF) at all, but why it has do with whether it's a ship is present or not is quite intriguing :)

 

I see there has been some discussion on it already here and it is mentioned as a confirmed bug:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=37723

 

Lastly, I tried windowed mode but it gives quite an FPS hit as eV1Te stated. Not an option for me either...I guess, if it can't be fixed, then I simply must not alt-tab if a mission contains ships. :)

UPDATE #2: Looks like the alt-tab problem in a mission where ships are present, also exists in Single Player mode.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Pavlos
News..

[Vitesse2l]

Hi Pavlos,

 

Looks like you have found the problem - If I think of it I will see if ships are a problem for me too.

 

With the Virtual Memory, I meant having it set to System Managed or a specified size, instead of having no virtual memory.

 

Cheers!