Matrix Games Forums

sometimes i can alt+tab easily, sometimes not...
but there's a way to make it work:
ctrl+alt+del (Task Manager)
then Windows key (2 times if it doesn't work at the first try)
then right click on CoG in the TManager and Minimize it

it works for me..

My solution is the following one. It is worth trying ... even if it seems strange. I was able to replicate it many times so I am sure now that it works for me.

1) I close all useless prgrams like ICQ, MSN to free a max of memory
2) lauch tutotial manual in a window but not full size (not sure whether it's important but I tell you exactly what I do)
3) start the game with "quick start"
4) esc to skip intro scenes
5) load the scenario
6) launch the game
7) when the strategic map shows-up choose "end game" from "game menu"
8) answer "yes, exit"
9) a window with optins like "save game" etc show up. click on "cancel" in the bottom and you are back at the main game menu.

from now alt.tab should be working (with the manual which runs in background).

10) load again the game and play

This time alt.tab works...

Don't ask me why. Just try it. I hope it will work for you too ...

Releasing this without an option to alt-tab into the Acrobat tutorial/manual is one of the worst bodges I've seen in a game.

ALT-TAB is not an "option" or "feature" you program in a game. It´s a basic Windows feature which is heavily depending on your system, RAM, running background applications (especially virus scanners), graphics card, Windows page file etc. etc. And last but not least if it´s Acrobat Reader or the full Acrobat application.

ALT-TAB works fine on my PC and Latop.

If you RAM is allready pretty much used up for running the OS and the game application then Windows has to outsource to the Hardisk, which makes ALT-TABbing extremly slow.

ORIGINAL: Hertston

ORIGINAL: jchastain

100 sheets of printer paper - $3
1 half inch binder - $1
1 3-hole puncher - $12

Printing out your own manual so that you don't have to alt-tab out - Priceless

You forget the "two new ink cartridges - $80" [;)]

Don´t know where you buy your cartridges, but a simple b/w refill kit (for refilling up to 5 times) is like 8 bucks [;)]

There's no Windowed mode presently because of the way we use the buffers in DirectX -- a Windowed mode would involve writing new lowest layers of the graphics engine. It's something we'll consider doing if there's enough demand for it, but it would involve a bit of work.

Alt-tab is a feature of your Windows OS; it's not something that an application supports or doesn't support. We don't run in system-modal mode, and alt-tab works fine on all but my low-end test machine. There may be a few things I can do to make alt-tabbing work more smoothly. I'm pretty sure there's a Windows message that passes through the application when the user alt-tabs; I can try catching this message and suspending game timers. I'm guessing that problems alt-tabbing might have to do with systems that are running with not much leeway between the timers (as probably happens on my low-end test machine).

One thing you may try is using the Windows feature of <windows key> + 'd'. This toggles between desktop and the current set of applications. Once you get to desktop you should be able to maximize COG. I'm at Origins right now and won't really be able to work on this til I get home next week, but I'll keep in contact with the forum and try to help work this out.


Eric

Nukkxx hilarious ten point plan of action for a player to be able to view the manual actually works - so many thanks to Nukkxx!

All other suggestions such as windows+d failed. This sytem is fairly new - just over 12 months old 3ghz etc, using adobe reader 7.02. on XP home. It certainly isn't low end. I can alt-tab perfectly well on the dozens of other applications and games on here. If they can all run fine I hope that this one can be tweaked also.

It's taken a few frustrating hours but I actually have a chance to do the tutorial now. Thanks for the responses.

Running XP and Windowskey +d doesn't work.

Let me be more specific:

In the game, both alt/tab and windowskey/d bring the taskbar to the bottom of the screen. However neither left nor right clicking on the manual app does anything; the map stays on the screen.

ORIGINAL: Montrose

Nukkxx hilarious ten point plan of action for a player to be able to view the manual actually works - so many thanks to Nukkxx!

...

It's taken a few frustrating hours but I actually have a chance to do the tutorial now. Thanks for the responses.

)))))))))

LOL

Good it works ! enjoy the tutorial and manual while playing

ORIGINAL: Montrose

Nukkxx hilarious ten point plan of action for a player to be able to view the manual actually works - so many thanks to Nukkxx!

It does indeed. Hoorah !!

I would really like to see a solution to this problem. I have tried all the various suggestions without success.

It is a problem as it requires printing out a manual or a very good memory. But it is more. The game loads slowly. For me to return to windows, I must shut the game down. The idea of quitting and then waiting through a restart each time I have a need to return to windows is not appealing

Hopefully it can't be too difficult to make some workable option for returning to windows without quitting the game each time.

Don't give up on trying to drop into windows. This morning I cranked up the computer, started the game and just for the hell of it, I tried "windowskey-d". It worked!!! And it is working right now.

The only thing I can think of is I shut my computer down last night. So I started this morning after a reboot.

Weird...

ORIGINAL: Becket

ORIGINAL: Alan_Bernardo

GGWaW doesn't have windows' mode
Alanb

Check again. W@W has a windowed mode, both in the options menu and using the -w shortcut.

I cant find options menu from Grown of Glory , found it but there's nothing about running the game windowed
What does the -w shortcut mean ?

[&:]

ORIGINAL: Jagger2002

Don't give up on trying to drop into windows. This morning I cranked up the computer, started the game and just for the hell of it, I tried "windowskey-d". It worked!!! And it is working right now.

The only thing I can think of is I shut my computer down last night. So I started this morning after a reboot.

Weird...

Yes, it doesn't appear to be entirely consistent. 9 out of 10 times, I can alt-tab out with no problem (other than the game stays in the 1024x768 reso) but during one game, it didn't work at all and I never could determine why that time was different than the rest.

For those of us who have widescreen monitors, fullscreen 1024x768 looks terrible, my monitor makes the screen fit a 1280x800 screen distorting the text badly. Unfortunately a showstopper for me as I would really like to buy this game.


Daniel

Yea, a windowed mode is pretty much becoming a requirement these days. I run two monitors, 20" 1280 x 960 (normal aspect) & 23" 1920 x 1200 (wide aspect).

All the newer laptops coming out are switching to wide screen displays to pick up on the DVD player market. It is becoming a core market requirement to support either wide screens or a windowed mode. I understand this is more work on the development side, but it does translate to more sales.

Couple this to hardware LCD panel makers seem to have become fixated on strange resolutions such as 1280 x 1024 or 1280 x 768, none of which scale nicely. I'd settle for a windowed 1024x768 fixed res vs an adjustable res.

Yep. My LCD looks ugly at any other resolution other than 1280x1024...I can play, and I can read...but it plays havoc with my eyes after a while.

I don't know why or when game developers decided to lock resolution. It appears to be a new thing, as I don't recall having the problem in the past.

Work Desktop:

768mb paging file
512mb ram
2.6ghz processor
Intel82865G video with 96mb ram

Work Laptop:
1500mb paging file
1g ram
1.6ghz processor
Radeon9000AGP video with 32mb ram

Home Desktop:
1500mb paging file
1g ram
2.8ghz processor
Radeon x800 Pro video with 256mb ram

I can't alt-tab out of CoG with any of those machines.

ORIGINAL: Bismarck

Running XP and Windowskey +d doesn't work.

Let me be more specific:

In the game, both alt/tab and windowskey/d bring the taskbar to the bottom of the screen. However neither left nor right clicking on the manual app does anything; the map stays on the screen.

This is exactly what it does for me. I'm running a 1.8 Ghz Athlon with Win2K and 756MB of RAM and Adobe Reader 7.02. So probably somewhere middle-of-the-road.

I was frustrated by this, but I wanted to play so much that I finally gave in & printed the manual. But I have a slow printer, so it took maybe a couple hours to print (since I wanted to print front & back). So ... I finally set it to run while I slept. Since this was about 4:30 or 5:00 am and I'd printed the tutorial manual, then had to play at least that much.

But general comment - FABULOUS game! Good balance of a lot of things. Now if I can just figure out how to mod and add another general to Sweden ...

Alt tab and window key + d never works on the first turn for me, but after I run the game a turn or two I don't generally have a problem getting both to work.[&:]

Well, some game programmers manage to write games that alt-tab just fine. Others never seem to figure it out. On the same computer. Usually a company is very consistent. Either they always have trouble writing games that Alt-Tab, or they never have trouble.

Something weird is going on with this one, because it seems to come and go. It doesn't work, it does work, back and forth.

BTW, there's something weird with your dialog boxes when Alt-tab does work. Any open boxes in the game will be open over top of the other programs after you alt tab. And its not just an image. You can click Close to get rid of the box and it doesn't bring the game program back to the top like clicking on an element of the program probably should.