Something keeps minimizing my game.

When I play games with a gamepad (this has happened to both Splinter Cell Blacklist and Assassin's Creed 3, both Ubisoft games interestingly) the game minimizes every 5-10 minutes.

It seems like it isn't actually the games fault and it's either some other software or windows causing it. It doesn't happen when I am playing the same games with mouse & keyboard. I have tried changing the properties of the launch, but that doesn't help.

I couldn't find anyone else having the same problem.

No other window actually comes to focus, but the game just minimizes itself.

As you said, those two games are from Ubisoft and as such one can only guarantee that what you have is an unfinished/unoptimized and poorly coded Console port of a game.

Have you tried playing any other non-Ubi game? this will tell you whether is your pc, your gamepad drivers conflicting with the games or the ubi games.

Also, perhaps going to the UBI forums yield better results? I am betting you will not be the only one with those issues. Why would you want to play with a gamepad and not a mouse is not really the question here, although, I am curious, hence, why I ask but again, if you visit those forums, I am sure, others have the issue and a possible answer.

I would start by updating all my drivers and checking to see if that solves the issue, but I strongly believe the easiest of the test is to play a different game first.

Other games are fine.

Turns out the issue isn't just about the gamepad (it worked fine a few times with mouse & keyboard so I just assumed that was the problem), but now it crashed with M&K too. But thenI did a clean boot without starting any programs and started the game right away and it didn't minmize.

So the problem has to be some program that keeps taking the focus, but not showing itself.

And I think I found out what it was, Microsoft Security Essentials. It doesn't like some files that go along with both of those games and keeps trying to secretly quarantine the files or send them or something. But it does this in the background.

So I guess it's kind of solved. Even though I would really like MSE to just stop doing that.

As far as why I would play with the gamepad, neither of those games benefit from the accuracy of the mouse (I don't play Splinter Cell as a shooter), but do indeed benefit from the analog stick movement. In Assassin's Creed it's much easier to do the platforming with a controller for me. And for example in Splinter Cell Blacklist the characters speed depends of how much you nudge the analog stick. You need to move really slowly if you want to creep up on enemies undetected.

Mustkunstn1k said:

Other games are fine.

Turns out the issue isn't just about the gamepad (it worked fine a few times with mouse & keyboard so I just assumed that was the problem), but now it crashed with M&K too. But thenI did a clean boot without starting any programs and started the game right away and it didn't minmize.

So the problem has to be some program that keeps taking the focus, but not showing itself.

And I think I found out what it was, Microsoft Security Essentials. It doesn't like some files that go along with both of those games and keeps trying to secretly quarantine the files or send them or something. But it does this in the background.

So I guess it's kind of solved. Even though I would really like MSE to just stop doing that.

Had MSE in a few computers but had to let it go, not enough options for me to choose or never was able to understand where to go to fix those issues.

Perhaps you want to start a new post on the correct forum here to find answers for your issues or perhaps, it would just be easier to uninstall MSE and get the FREE Avast AV, that's what I did

Mustkunstn1k said:

As far as why I would play with the gamepad, neither of those games benefit from the accuracy of the mouse (I don't play Splinter Cell as a shooter), but do indeed benefit from the analog stick movement. In Assassin's Creed it's much easier to do the platforming with a controller for me. And for example in Splinter Cell Blacklist the characters speed depends of how much you nudge the analog stick. You need to move really slowly if you want to creep up on enemies undetected.

Fair enough...

Never played any of the AC games before so I can comment but I did play the first SC game and liked it, didn't care more for the previous one where they tried to go all gung-ho rambo style shooter so I figured this one was more of the same... glad to hear is back to being sneaky and slow movements, perhaps I should check it out when I can get it for about 5 cheeseburgers, that is as much as I am willing to pay for a UBIsoft game.