Games: screen jumps back to desktop

[BuddyCasino]

I got a weird problem with running new games on Win7. Sometime, while playing Mirror's Edge, the screen jumps back to the desktop. The game is still running. I can hear the sound and the engaging enemy. Then after a few seconds the screen switches back to the game and I can play on.

Sometimes it happens serveral times in a row, sometimes I can play for hours without a problem. That is really annoying, especially because most of the time the gamecharacter won't survive this short absence of control.

It also happens while playing ArmedAssault, but rarely.

Yesterday I downloaded the new Fear2 demo and this screenjumping was getting worse. I can't play for 20min without jumping back to the desktop. Unfortunately now the screen won't jump back to the game anymore. I hear the sound, but all I can see is my desktop. All I can do then is killing the process - and reboot the system manually - because when I start the game again (or any other 3D application) the screen will switch immediately back to the desktop.
Haven't tried other games so far.

My Sys-specs:

C2D E8400
8GB 800MHz Ram
8800GTS 320Mb
Gigabyte P35 DS3

Temperatures are normal. I doublechecked the Ram. I updated the graphicdriver with WindowsUpdate. No error-messages are generated (well at least no error-icon appears). ME and ArmedAssault are running on WinXP without any problems.

I googled around for a few hours and maybe I found a solution but i can't get it to work. What I found is a problem with the "Timeout Detection and Recovery" tool. This tool recognizes when the framerate drops to zero for a timeamount of 2 seconds and then reboots the graphicdriver.

The solution is simple: turning of this tool by changing values in the registry.
Here is the link to the official microsoft-website:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx

my problem now: I don't have this certain entry in the reg they want me to edit.

What can I do? Any suggestions? Other solutions?


BuddyCasino

 

[kbk1008]

same problem

I see this original post is dated 02-16-2009! Hopefully there's a fix already!

I have the SAME exact problem. I have Win7 64-bit and everything is running awesome. Granted, I've only had Windows7 installed for 2 weeks now but have had zero problems at all. I download Mass Effect via Steam and have the exact same issues as you describe: the game pops out to desktop (anywhere from 1-4 seconds) and then back into game. It can do this right away or tease me and let me play for 10 minutes before doing it. I can play through it a few times but it seems after the 4th or 5th time, my system locks up, requiring a hard-reboot.

Very frustrating. I hope there's an easy fix that I just haven't found yet. Help

 

[Frostmourne]

Update your drivers including chipset and BIOS. Use driver sweeper when you update your sound + video drivers.

 

[kbk1008]

will try this when I get home tonight. I'll post my findings...

as far as BuddyCasino's inability to find and edit the file for the 'fix' he found (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...m_timeout.mspx) is because it's a Vista fix and not Win7 fix I assume?

 

[Zoran69]

I see this original post is dated 02-16-2009! Hopefully there's a fix already!

I have the SAME exact problem. I have Win7 64-bit and everything is running awesome. Granted, I've only had Windows7 installed for 2 weeks now but have had zero problems at all. I download Mass Effect via Steam and have the exact same issues as you describe: the game pops out to desktop (anywhere from 1-4 seconds) and then back into game. It can do this right away or tease me and let me play for 10 minutes before doing it. I can play through it a few times but it seems after the 4th or 5th time, my system locks up, requiring a hard-reboot.

Very frustrating. I hope there's an easy fix that I just haven't found yet. Help

Not sure if this is the same problem my old roommate had happen this weekend, but he got a new video card a XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB DDR5 (the same one I am/was getting next week.) He installed new drivers I'm not sure if they are newer than the ones I have but I'm not upgrading my drivers as everything works right now. He drops back to the desktop in some games you can hear the game playing. Sometimes it will freeze and he has to just turn it off as he can't type in lockout.. I don't have much more info as he lives on the other side of the city and it stumped me so he's just uninstalled the card/drivers and went back to his 4870x2 until we can figure out what is going on. All his drivers everything is updated as daily as possible. He's a nitpick for keeping things upto date and sometimes I am. Now that Fear2 demo is probably about the time this started, if anyone else has a high end or newer ATI card that experiences this and finds a solution can you let us all know. I'll put off my upgrade until I know if this is a card or game issue that is causing this.

Thx in advance

Zoran

 

[kbk1008]

Not sure if this is the same problem my old roommate had happen this weekend, but he got a new video card a XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB DDR5 (the same one I am/was getting next week.) He installed new drivers I'm not sure if they are newer than the ones I have but I'm not upgrading my drivers as everything works right now. He drops back to the desktop in some games you can hear the game playing. Sometimes it will freeze and he has to just turn it off as he can't type in lockout.. I don't have much more info as he lives on the other side of the city and it stumped me so he's just uninstalled the card/drivers and went back to his 4870x2 until we can figure out what is going on. All his drivers everything is updated as daily as possible. He's a nitpick for keeping things upto date and sometimes I am. Now that Fear2 demo is probably about the time this started, if anyone else has a high end or newer ATI card that experiences this and finds a solution can you let us all know. I'll put off my upgrade until I know if this is a card or game issue that is causing this.

Thx in advance

Zoran

When it popped out to desktop, did it pop back into game on it's own? Or did it alt-tab on it's own, making your friend have to ALT-TAB to return to game? For me, it did it all without any interaction from me - no alt-tabbing or anything. It will just jump out of game, and 1-5 seconds later, jump back into game exactly where it left off at. However, after a few times, the system would lock up.

It's discouraging that I'm not finding a lot of similar posts anywhere with this problem as this leads me to believe its rare and therefore a more difficult fix.

 

[kbk1008]

I updated my BIOS, geforce driver, and ran Driver Sweeper and no improvements. In fact, I think it may have worsened. Now it jumps to desktop, keeps playing the game music, but windows is unresponsive. Had to hard-reboot. UGH.

 

[kbk1008]

I've made posts in Steam forums, Mass Effect Bioware forums, geforce forums, windows forums.... nobody has a solution. Just ideas: update update update. I've done the updating, and the problem persists. Can my problem truly be this rare? I find it very difficult to believe.

I guess the only real solution is to go back to XP. :sarc:

 

[eldritch09]

I experiencing the same problem too.Some games that I play automatically quit when it jumps to the desktop but some you can return by alt-tab or just clicking it.

please fix this problem because it affecting our gaming experience...

 

[Jaq]

Intresting problem! I had a similar problem with COD4 in multiplayer mode - although my system is a little different.
The cause was the sound card using HD audio on the front port.

This might not work but try putting a mic in your front port (mic only, not headphones), restart the game.
The permanent solution was to set my front port to AC97, or disable the front panel jack detection in the sound HD Audio Manager.

It might not work, but it's worth a try.

 

[lnxtinman]

i started using steam games in windowed borderless mode......especially in l4d2 and it helps a lot. game looks same to me as full screen mode.

 

[eldritch09]

does not work for me..

 

[sleek]

For those of you whos games are minimizing on its own and you are using AVG AntiVirus, disable it (if you can, dont think you can in latest ver) or just uninstall it.
Theres an issue with the latest version of AVG where the app forcefully takes focus every 30 mins, minimizing whatever you have full screened.

I currently no longer have AVG for this reason.

 

[catalin66]

problem not solved (

So the problem is not solved. It started recently. I don't know what changed. I have kaspersky, latest updates on graphic driver. And I would rather solve the problem then reinstall windows. The problem seems to be that when I click the mouse it selects the desktop. It might be a layer problem?

 

[Frostmourne]

So the problem is not solved. It started recently. I don't know what changed. I have kaspersky, latest updates on graphic driver. And I would rather solve the problem then reinstall windows. The problem seems to be that when I click the mouse it selects the desktop. It might be a layer problem?

Try modding a desktop driver.

 

[catalin66]

solved

As a temporary measure one could close and / or delete dwm.exe ( C:\Windows\System32 ). In treats the jump and I didn't see any negative effect. But I don't know.

 

[Acom]

I have the SAME exact problem. I have Win7 64-bit and everything is running awesome. Granted, I've only had Windows7 installed for 2 weeks now but have had zero problems at all. I download Mass Effect via Steam and have the exact same issues as you describe: the game pops out to desktop (anywhere from 1-4 seconds) and then back into game. It can do this right away or tease me and let me play for 10 minutes before doing it. I can play through it a few times but it seems after the 4th or 5th time, my system locks up, requiring a hard-reboot.

Exactly same problem

My pc was in big problems, diddent start up anymore.

Now new hardware:

Mobo: P5KPL/1600
Videocart: 285GTX
Soundcart: Xonar DX
Powersupply: 650W
Hardisk: 1T fast one

Installed Windows7 64Bit, had Vista home premium.

Now have same problem as above. Tell me there is a anwser:shock:

 

[Acom]

Hi all i have a fix,

Problem with my jumpbacks was the software from the videocart. I have a 285 GTX and it has Gamers osd software and a program to overclock your cart.

This program(s) makes your game unstabel, installed xp and had bluascreen when started game! Uninstalled all software and Now its all gone!!!

 

[zilog]

Well this post is 308 days old according to the forum.. but..

To all of you here with this problem. "You are not alone.."

I have been around "Google Snoop" and in many forums..
many stating the same with a variety of system configureations.

The only common to all of this is "Windows 7" 32 and 64 bit.

Many fixes have been tryed .. / Posted Updating drivers..
Registry Hacks ect..

I too have the same problem, and not with Killer games either..

Old games like "Microsoft Battle Flight Simulator 2"
and "Zuma Sparkle" a stupid little marble shotter game. (Just to kill time)

Some times they work, some times not.. "It's a puzzle" for sure.

What I have done "For my self" is..

If you have any "Gadgets" this includes "7 Sidebar"
Shut them down..

This worked for me.. (Just a pain) to turn them all back on again.
(I may decide not to have any).. too bad, cuzz some are nice.

I assume if any of them decide to take focus.. the "Gadget"
or "7 SideBar" Auto Minimizes the current game..

As for Anti-Virus I use Microsoft Security Esentials.
I did not have to turn that off.

I don't think you can blame "AVG" either.. From what I remember
it has "Game Detection" and should disable it self for the moment.

Any way.. Try killing your "Gadgets", to see if this would be the common cause..

If it does "Come back" and post that it did.. Then maybe Microsoft
can be informed of the probelem.. so they can "I hope" fix this.

With a patch to pause the "Gadgets" when games are launched.
or, "If we all have" -- "7 SideBar".. we could get them to patch the app.

Something is common that's for sure..

 

[brando]

I had the same problem with old games. Disabling Aero fixed it in my case. Right click the desktop, click Personalize, and choose "Windows 7 Basic" under the "Basic and High Contrast Themes" section.

Hopefully that will solve the issue for you too.