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Firefly2442
Firefly2442
Join Date 03/2003
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Alt-Tab freezes game

March 22, 2006 10:15:54 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Hello. I was playing Gal Civ 2 and I got an IM message in Windows. Gal Civ 2 automatically got minimized and I went back to windows to see the message. When I clicked back on the application to bring it back up it goes to a black screen with the cursor. I can Alt-Tab between programs running and so on. The only way to get out is force quit Gal Civ 2 and start it up again. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks.
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Firefly2442
HEEGZ
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #1 March 23, 2006 12:56:23 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I'm not sure if there is a fix. Maybe check that your drivers are up to date. You could post your debug.err info too.
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Firefly2442
LordSloth
Join Date 11/2004
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Reply #2 March 23, 2006 1:14:19 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well, general alt-tabbing works fine for me without any tweaking.

However, have you tried windowed mode? That may be of some help to you. In general gaming, that often helps solve my alt-tabbing problems, though not all games support it, GalCiv2 does.
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Firefly2442
BladeVenom
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #3 March 23, 2006 1:15:43 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I use alt-tab a lot, and so far it hasn't caused me any problems.
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Firefly2442
Josh_88
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #4 March 23, 2006 1:16:48 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
i've had this happen too, but... how long have you waited? sometimes when it minimizes after i've been playing for awhile and everything is pretty warm i get that black screen with the cursor, and it just takes awhile for it to kick back in.
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Firefly2442
AW Trespasser
Join Date 07/2005
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Reply #5 March 23, 2006 1:43:11 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Due to some memory saving tricks they use, when you alt tab it will take a long time to get the game back up

The black screen with coursor is normal, just wait. Depending on your PC, it could take anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes.
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Firefly2442
Whillowhim
Join Date 07/2004
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Reply #6 March 23, 2006 2:47:06 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
The same thing happens to me as to the original poster. About half the time I get the usual black screen, wait 15 seconds and it'll reappear. However, the other half I end up with a black screen that never comes back (at least in the 3 or so minutes that is the limit of my patience) and I have to alt-tab back out, pull up the task manager and kill it. Graphics drivers are up to date and I've updated some other drivers as well (though I suppose its possible I missed one or two and they're causing problems).
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Firefly2442
Midnightsun
Join Date 04/2003
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Reply #7 March 23, 2006 3:28:57 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Why don´t you simply run the game in windowed mode?
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Firefly2442
ben_sphynx
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #8 March 23, 2006 5:32:07 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Was also going to sugest windowed mode; it will still use your whole screen (if your windows resolution is set at the same as your game resolution), and alt-tabbing becomes very fast and easy.
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Firefly2442
ender1983
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #9 March 23, 2006 6:20:12 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Depending on your computer's memory and memory speed, and the map you play on, reloading all the texture nodes can take a long while. Sometimes up to minutes on my pc.
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Firefly2442
Firefly2442
Join Date 03/2003
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Reply #10 March 23, 2006 7:31:30 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Ok thanks. I will try the window mode and see if that makes a difference. It seems odd that because of memory management it would take a long time though. Other programs are very easy to switch between. I suppose there is a lot of information to save in RAM especially on the larger maps. Would there be a way to increase the amount of RAM available to the program if that was what was slowing it down? Thanks.
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Firefly2442
HEEGZ
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #11 March 24, 2006 2:11:22 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
The only way to increase your RAM is to buy more and add it to your machine. You can increase the size of your paging file (virtual memory), though I'm not sure that it will reduce the ALT-TAB load times.
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