Slow Alt Tabbing....

[curtisbouvier]

X1900XT, A64 3700 & 2GB Crucial Ballistix.

Alt tabbing is lighting fast everywhere, this computer is lighting fast, however when ever i alt tab in and out of games, its worse than my old thunderbird 1.33 ghz with 512 ram.

the alt tab its self is actually instant, but windows freezes for 2 seconds, with a flicker of picture and a scratch of sound, Then its complete.... and the same thing back into the game occurs, i'm also running the same resolution in game as in windows, which usually helps make alt tabbing 100% instant...

any ideas?

 

[Jeff7]

I've never had good luck with Alt-Tab and games. Some games will just crash or exit if you try to switch away from them in any fashion. Some will even just blue-screen.

 

[curtisbouvier]

its gotta be a windows thing, becuase the sound flcikers with the picture itsself, maybe its the ati video drivers too, not sure...

 

[DerelictDev]

I have a 1900xtx, e6400, 2gb @ cl4 and alt+tabbing is still as ****** as its always been. Its only a select handful of games that alt+tab instantly, the rest go through some weird process to pause and minimize and return back to windows.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: curtisbouvier
its gotta be a windows thing, becuase the sound flcikers with the picture itsself, maybe its the ati video drivers too, not sure...

It might have to do with DirectX and OpenGL. There's some kind of mode switch or something that goes on when Windows displays a game in full screen mode. Games do best when they are the only thing that wants the attention of the hardware. That's why gaming consoles should be able to run games so well - they're only purpose is to run games. Windows games need to be more tolerant of background noise, in the forms of other processes, and they even may be programmed to be tolerant of being told, "You're not in charge of the hardware anymore, give it back, another program needs it." Not all games like to give up their exclusive control of the video and audio hardware.
This is why you have the audio and video dropouts when Alt-Tabbing. The game is either giving up its resources, or is having them forcibly taken away. When you switch back into the game, it has to try to pick up where it left off. Not all games can handle this.