Game hangs after alt-tabbing

from GalCiv2 Forums
I don't think I've ever been able to successfully return to the game after alt-tabbing. I get music and a black screen. Which wouldn't be soooo bad ("just don't alt tab") except any number of programs can grab focus and force me out of the game (AIM being a huge offender). Is this a known issue, and is there some way around this?
6,096 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I get this too. You just have to be patient. The image will return eventually but it takes a little while.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had exactly this problem. I tried running the program in window mode and it works perfectly. Sometimes it takes some seconds to work fine.
TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
if you did wait longer it would eventually pop back, it takes a long while though, but if you are going to be jumping back and forth a lot they suggest you should really run it in a window. that would fix the problem
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know of a number of games that don't support alt-tab (if one bothers reading readme files). The best thing to do is avoid it. Run GalCiv2 in a window, like others have suggested.

-HM
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It can depend on video game drivers, so what may work for one person may not for another.

-HM
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm...I can alt-tab out, but getting back in takes a realy long time;
i.e. the screen might be black for ~5 min depending on the map size.
Guess the comp has to reload up all the ships and such.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also which version of the game are you running? The original release version had a bug that would cause it to crash when it tried to recover from alt-tab. This was fixed in 1.0x I believe.

However yes it does take a good bit of time to return since the game has to reconstruct all of the game surfaces lost in the alt-tab. You can wait upwards of two minutes or more I think depending on how much was lost.