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for years ive been wondering about alt+tab issues in openarena

for some reason i cannot alt+tab and stay away from openarena (having it minimized) for more than 5 seconds or even less

whats the problem with this and what is the solution if you know of any?


is there a program?


or what?


please reply its kinda weird why it will crash my openarena from a simple alt+tab

Can't stay away from openarena minimized window any longer then 5 seconds?

Answer: You're too addicted to it. This obsessive behaviour might point out counselling could be a good idea.

Greets and good luck

dude why are you answering with non sense?

im trying to get help for myself and others with same problem

Not here.
Works fin on Win and Lin.

ps: was a funny joke, S.Creamer! ;D

answers only no answers it wont be read

The only issue with Alt-Tab from OA within Win is when you get back, gamma must be readjusted or a vid_restart is needed if you not use the defaults. Which is AFAIK an OpenGL stuff.

It's certainly from an external source. But I'm not that good in program interactions, because everybody runs different ones.

Oh, and silly capitalization with wtf grammar and punctuation with rude comments will make you be considered as a retard. Think about that.

look im looking for answers im not here to joke around i just need help

i honestly dont care how i am viewed (u see my cakes?)


i just want to know how to fix this

Some more information would help a lot.  For example, I use OpenArena on both Mac and Linux, and cannot Alt-Tab out of it.  It's not something I really consider a problem, but if you are talking about those platforms, I'd love to know how you're even doing it.

Even for something like Windows, Vista and 7 are very different from XP.

Another question would be: what are you alt-tabbing to?  If we don't have that program running, it could be very difficult to duplicate the behavior.

Currently, all we know that you have SOMETHING on your (unknown) system that likes to switch you back to OA.  It could be your video driver, the application you switch to, or something else.

hmmm well i only switch to go to irc or browser

but on other computers i use i do the same and its no problem

From the lack of postings in the Forum over the years regarding this issue, the most likely culprit of your troubles is your own system (perhaps a video driver update may help).  I have OA running on an embarrassing number of systems at home and at my Company and have no issue using ALT-TAB on those that run WinXP SP3 or Win7 SP1.



I asked some of my Clan Mates and none of the ones who use Windows XP/7 have this problem.  We have experienced gamma issues when we had a game crash or had to force a firewall to close but we have had no gamma issues* simply switching between OA and other Apps.  So I don't see this as a general OpenGL issue (more likely a video driver implementation).


* Occasionally after I ALT-TAB to an App and then try to ALT-TAB back to OA it won't open.  However, if I simply use CTRL-ESC and click the running OA process on the taskbar it's fine.

That tells me it's something about your computer.  Details?

hi wii :)

and its xp comaq computer im having issues on

There are a lot of models of Compaq... including desktops and laptops...  Details?

I can alttab from and to OA on a Windows XP desktop and a Windows 7 laptop. Both 32 bits versions. If I remember correctly, I also tried Windows 7 x64 on my desktop once and that worked fine as well.
One problem I got when the game is minimized on XP (not sure if it occurs on 7, I nearly never game on my laptop) is that whenever I click another window on the taskbar, the game seems to focus (but doesn't come up on the screen, only the taskbar button looks like I clicked it) and my mouse cursor jumps to the left top of the screen. If I continue to click on the taskbar on the program I want to open, it does so after 2 or 3 attempts. All other attempts the mouse jumps to the left top corner and OA stays or gets focussed. I'm not sure if it's focussed as in I can give input, but the button on the taskbar shows it is on the foreground. Alttabbing between programs always works flawless.

Also on my desktop (though this too might be on my laptop as well, I'm not sure) I have a program installed called Autohotkey. It's amazingly handy for creating hotkeys and auto-corrections for all sorts of stuff (when i type 'servre' for example it autoreplaces with 'server', and windowskey+space opens Google in a new Firefox tab, or opens firefox if it wasn't opened yet), but it also un-fixed one of the few things OA-0.8.5 fixed on Windows: I have to double-type the ` (so the ~ without shift) to open the console. In 0.8.1 this was too, but 0.8.5 got this fixed. In both 081 and 085 I could close it with a single `, but now I have to type it twice to close as well.
But I don't care actually, it doesn't need fixing and I can imagine OA devs are like "some other program breaks our game, that's their fault and their problem".

In this case, instead of clicking directly on the minimized app, right-click and select open.  Otherwise, you can actually launch OA twice (this has happened to me on Win7 and could be the reason for the short delay to re-launch).  I know that's not the way it's supposed to work but we all must adjust to the idiosyncrasies of our favorite Operating Systems (OSs) and their programs.



I would agree with the OA Devs.  It's difficult enough releasing a relatively bug free program without having to fix what another program/utility breaks.  Although, there are a few exceptions like when OSs release hot-fixes/updates that change a previous behavior (ala WinXP SP2 and SP3 or the Red Hat PAE kernel package that broke laptop suspend behavior - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=571367).

I blame SDL.

I fail to see the advantages of what SDL brings to the windows version


Q3 wasn't exactly friendly with alt-tabbing either

In Q3 allttabing doesn't work at all for me, iirc.

My mouse jumps in the left top corner and highlights all the icons on my desktop whe i have desktop icons on  >:( >:(