Widescreen Gaming Forum

ALT+TABbing out then into a game kills the FPS until the game is quit then restarted, anything you guys have to advise would be appreciated.

I seem to remember seeing somewhere that this is an SLI issue... :?

Well I did more reasearch, and I suspect it may only apply to source games namely CS:S. No one has posted a solution...

I know it is not areo because disabling it had no affect, neither did compatibility mode.

I will try turning off SLI.

Unless you're talking about an alt tab framerate issue that's specific only to sli then It's not an SLI issue, it randomly happens to many people using any video card/configuration/sli/non sli.I've only heard of this happening to 2 people using ATI cards and both people I know irl. That's why some developers disable alt-tab/windows-key so that people don't keep going to desktop and then when the random bad framerate shows up they start to freak out or start complaining to a company for various reasons.

Though, It seems to happen more often with Nvidia cards from what I've seen. Since it happens on both it leads me to believe the problem lies in the OS/DX or any combination such as that, but I can rule out that it's not just Nvidia or ATI that has this problem.

I don't understand the exact cause but it can be fixed by repeatedly going back from desktop to the game and the framerate will fix itself most of the time. I've explained this to many many people and sadly literally no one knows why this happens. It almost seems as if the process priority has changed b/c backgrounds programs seem to speed up.

Think about this, developers know about the issue and have known for many many years hence the disabling of alt-tab in some games. It also itself proves that the problem doesn't soley fall on the video card designer b/c I assume if it was related to 1 and only 1 brand of cards it would of been fixed.

I've seen this problem personally on Nvidia cards ranging from the 5200 series all the way to the 7800 series on XP and in literally over 30 games using various engines and rendering types *OpenGL/D3D* *I haven't owned an ATI card since the literal first Radeon card so I can't state any personal facts about it happening with ATI cards except for the few times I've seen it happen on my friends pc's that have ATI cards as well as the countless people online saying the same thing as the original poster and they have ATI cards too.

In summation It's one of those "side effects" that just straight up happens and simply put we have to just deal with it

It seems to be unique to CS:S, I get problems in Lost coast but they are nowhere near as pronounced.

This is strange... I love CS:S

Please re-read my post, I've edited it a few times

Okay I guess I am missing something, what was it in your post you wanted me to see?

Not everyone has this problem, which implies that there is a way to fix it, I contacted EVGA and they gave me a few tips, including a fresh driver install, running memtest86 and 3dmark06 to see if either comes up with problems. I will do those things now.

Not everyone has this problem, which implies that there is a way to fix it, I contacted EVGA and they gave me a few tips, including a fresh driver install, running memtest86 and 3dmark06 to see if either comes up with problems. I will do those things now.

That's just a bullshit explanation companies give, it won't solve anything unless as I said it's a new specific SLI only alt tab problem you're talking about b/c as I said it's been happening to people for over 8 years.It doesn't happen to everyone, I can alt tab 3432432 times out of a game and it's fine but then it randomly happens. It's completely and utterly random

My main point is this

I've seen this problem personally on Nvidia cards ranging from the 5200 series all the way to the 7800 series on XP and in literally over 30 games using various engines and rendering types *OpenGL/D3D* *I haven't owned an ATI card since the literal first Radeon card so I can't state any personal facts about it happening with ATI cards except for the few times I've seen it happen on my friends pc's that have ATI cards as well as the countless people online saying the same thing as the original poster and they have ATI cards too.

Universal point = it's not your card/configuration, nothing can be done to fix it

If it were completely random it wouldn't happen every time I alt tabbed out of CS:S Ive done it at least 12 times and it has happened each time.

There is a way to fix this problem, and the fix is probably simple, it is just finding it that will be the problem.

There is a way to fix this problem, and the fix is probably simple, it is just finding it that will be the problem.

No, there isn't.. well there is but it would imply not ever using Windows which would basically stop you from gaming. b/c I promise you the main cause is Windows on some level, or you could play in windowed mode in games that support it which is the only known way around this but it's not a fix.

I'm tired of repeating this too, the alt-tab issue is completely random granted it does have a habbit of of occuring more often in certain games than in others which logic dictates it's a combination of the game/engine/os/drivers. it's as simple as that and no fix has ever been found EXCEPT for playing in windowed mode which is unacceptable in most games. I can play a source game and alt tab 45 times and it won't do it then it randomly happens and i try 1 hour later and it could happen every other time.

It does happen much more often in source games, BUT that's also on any configuration/os/dx version Keep in mind this still randomly happens in many other games.... just leave it as a side effect you have to deal with.