Alt+Tab, Windowed Mode, and Me.

[Tharwen]

One fantastic thing about the Mac version of WoW is that it has a hotkey to enter windowed mode (cmd + m, I think). It's reliable, it's effective, and it means you can listen for when a patrol runs into your group while looking up tactics for the next boss fight without completely minimising it.

 

[The Lawn]

All I know is that TF2 takes TOO FUCKING LONG to alt tab back into.

Sometimes you get that anoying "oh you can hear everything, but all you get is a frozen image to look at until you restart, so take that" thing, which pisses me off to no end.

All the other games I play in fullscreen work fine, save Modern Warfare... and maybe Battlefield.

 

[Jazzyluv2]

people obviously need to learn the wonders of tf2's alt-tab fixes. Called windowed mode without borders. Google it, it's good shit.

 

[Andytizer]

It's possible to run any game that can be run windowed as a maximized full screen with no border. I have a guide here: http://www.shinyhacks.com/2010/08/how-to-play-any-game-in-windowed.html

 

[Catalyst6]

I've always assumed that it's because games are such a resource dump, but when you alt-tab you take priority away from them and screw with the process order (as in game functions are secondary to firefox, whatever) which would cause major problems for complex games.

 

[Outright Villainy]

-novid -console -windowed -noborder
In every source game, and I agree with our OP mostly.

Except you're pretty much stuck with the size of the window denoted by the resolution then; I mainly use full screen so I can play on lower resolutions.

I wonder if it's even possible to stretch it in a window...

 

[Andytizer]

-novid -console -windowed -noborder
In every source game, and I agree with our OP mostly.

Except you're pretty much stuck with the size of the window denoted by the resolution then; I mainly use full screen so I can play on lower resolutions.

I wonder if it's even possible to stretch it in a window...

If you use ShiftWindow you can do it, it will shift the size of any window so that your 800x600 will stretch into whatever size window you want.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

The steam overlay does a pretty good job of handling those problems. I can browse porn and then send the links to my steam friends without closing the game.

I know right? So useful!

 

[mad825]

meh, ALT+CTRL+DEL and windows start button does nicely tbh.

 

[Kajt]

Windowed mode is awesome when you have two monitors. I cover the first screen with the game (which is set to slightly smaller than the screen so that I can see the taskbar) and use the other for web browsing and IRC.

Fallout 3

Step 1: Press esc.
Step 2: Alt + tab out of Fallout 3.
Step 3: Do whatever you were going to do.
Step 4: Alt + tab back to Fallout 3.
Step 5: Continue playing.

Works perfectly for me.

 

[Ze_Reaper_Of_Zeath]

Team Fortress 2 Window Mode is annoyingly fuck all useless.

I alt-tab to watch a video about TF2?

I come back. BAM. Frozen.

EDIT: 12000[sub]th[/sub] post.

 

[Amnestic]

Fallout 3

Step 1: Press esc.
Step 2: Alt + tab out of Fallout 3.
Step 3: Do whatever you were going to do.
Step 4: Alt + tab back to Fallout 3.
Step 5: Continue playing.

Works perfectly for me.

I actually recently started playing FO3 again and I can confirm that this does not work for me

 

[Kajt]

I actually recently started playing FO3 again and I can confirm that this does not work for me

Just tried it and it worked perfectly. How odd.

 

[Amnestic]

I actually recently started playing FO3 again and I can confirm that this does not work for me

Just tried it and it worked perfectly. How odd.

I have noticed that - in the case of FO3 - if I get 'interrupted' while playing (something pops up and steals my window) it does let me back into the game, but if I try to alt+tab out myself, it does not.

*sigh* Dammit Bethesda. I hope Obsidian does better.

 

[Abengoshis]

For some reason things like MineCraft run MUCH faster on windowed mode for me (although it runs smoothly on both modes there is a noticable difference) but ALL valve games of mine are worse in windowed mode, meaning to access things like the internet (steam overlay sucks) I have to use my laptop (going into windowed mode from fullscreen tends to make it crash).

 

[pigsnoutman]

I communicate with friends by smoke signals; while which do interupt gaming, avoid having to use Alt+tab.

 

[strum4h]

I play wow windowed and use my other screen for various things.

 

[illas]

TL;DR:

Developers need to copy WoW's fullscreen windowed mode and stop copying Bethesda's allergy to the alt+tab function.

/agree, but I would imagine that the engine the game runs on would impact performance to a significant extent, rather than simply lazy coding.

Regarding architecture, for example, WoW's engine is largely "draw on demand" (as I understand it) whereas iirc, the Source engine preloads a significant amount of geometry/texturework - hence requiring a longer time to resume the state that it was in... perhaps.

Fingers crossed someone knowledgeable in this field comes along, since you do raise a good point.

 

[Flames66]

All Valve games (that I am currently playing) have the option for "Borderless windowed mode", which seems to pretty much fit exactly what you described in your WoW section. To activate it, put "-noborder -sw +r_hunkalloclightmaps 0" in the games launch options.

 

[loc978]

Much as the game gets old pretty quickly, the best alt+tab functionality I've ever seen was in City of Heroes. I was actually able to watch a video in a browser window while monitoring in-game chat or teammate's life bars.