Alt-tab: Unable to return to the game.

[rolsku]

They have leaked versions and beta versions out, iirc you can get serials from microsoft's site too :)

 

It's pretty near release, almost everything runs without problems, only some older _older_ applications refuse to work without some hassle. I prefer it over vista ;)

[white_dragoon_x]

ahh ok i though the full version was out i knew they were outside beta testing. well ne way ive done some research and from some of the reports that i have read from beta testers i quote one "its like vista with a name change and a few extras." so far i havnt heard anything positive (aside from corporations that are in microsofts pocket) but im not one of those people who would snub their noses based on opinion so i guess ill just have to try it out and make up my own mind then.

[osterac]

I apologize for resurrecting an old thread, but I thought it was better than making a new one. I had the same problem, on windows 7 X64. The solution I found was to disable the page file completely. If you have enough RAM, about 4GB+, do it. It will speed up other things as well.

I tried alt-tabbing out of the game, starting a video encoding, going back in during the encode, back out, wait for it to finish, then back in. Works perfectly.

I've tried various other things as well. So if you have the RAM, do it! And if you don't, you have no choice but to buy more RAM just so you can alt-tab out of this game.

You see, when you eliminate the page file, all of your programs are stored in RAM, instead of just most of them. When you minimize Fallout 3 and have a page file, windows starts caching Fallout 3 to the hard drive to free up RAM. Fallout 3 doesn't like that at all.

 

Note: 32-bit operating systems can't see more than ~3.3GB of RAM. You may be able to scrape by on that with no page file if you don't mutitask a lot, but 64-bit is really the way to go.

 

Windows 7 and Vista: Right click on "Computer" icon, properties>Advanced System Settings>advanced tab>Settings (button) (in performance field)>change button>no paging file (radio button)>set (button)>OK. Restart.

 

XP:Right click on My computer, Advanced tab>Settings (in Performance field)>Advanced tab>Change (button)>no paging file (radio button)>set (button)>OK. Restart.

 

Thanks for reading, children!

[Baelkin]

I believe this issue is highly system specific as my Fallout 3 alt+tabs fine most of the time using only 4GBs of memory on a Vista 32-bit Ultimate (ie. ~ 3.3 GB effective memory). Usually I don't have a lot of other memory hogging software running in the background (other than Vista itself) though, so if you are running a lot of additional programs/services and encounter this issue, try killing off those that you are certain aren't currently being used (Daemon Tools, Punkbuster, STEAM, Open Office/MS Office quick start etc.) and check if that allows you to alt+tab.