what 'ho gents,
after installing Tripico 3 off steam (finally) the game seems to freeze up everytime i attempt to alt tab out.

I get back to deskstop but try as i might to bring up the game again nothing seems to work , im forced to kill the program everytime.
I cant even change graphic settings that cause the game to restart without this problem occuring !

any help or information in regards to this issue would be most appreciated.

im running windows 7 pro 64 bit and needless to say performance of my machine is not an issue.

cheerio and thanks !

Michael.

I don't have any issues with alt+tabing on my laptop running Win7. Might be something video hardware related. What video card are you using, and do you have the latest drivers?

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 295 and yeah 191.07 drivers that came out a few months ago.

i tried running in different compatibility modes with no success , still at a loss as to what else to try.

I'm running W7 64-bit with a nVidia 9800GX2
I have no problems alt+tabbing out of the game although I get a small black box in my top left corner of the screen, however when I try to alt+tab back in the only things that happen is that the sound from the game resumes and my cursor disappears. If I brought up the menu before I alt+tabbed I can hear the sound of the mouse going over the different menu options when moving it around.

So the game never freezes for me and this indeed seems like something video related. But knowing how bugs in software and symptoms relate this probably has something to do with the settings of the sound or the local time, who knows...

(15-11-2009 02:28 PM)rizzon Wrote:  I'm running W7 64-bit
I have no problems alt+tabbing out of the game although I get a small black box in my top left corner of the screen, however when I try to alt+tab back in the only things that happen is that the sound from the game resumes and my cursor disappears.

So the game never freezes for me

Same as above (quoted).
It seems like something steals focus, though I see nothing, and then I can't get back in. First few times this happened I was able to get back in to the game.
Also this happens both in the "game world" and on the presidente setup screen.
I have the Steam version on the game.
The game is great otherwise so hopefully I can fix this glitch.

Other PC specs:
CPU: q6600 (OC to 2.9ghz)
Ram: 4GB DDR2 800
MB: Asus Maximus II formula
Display: Dell 24" (Wide screen) Res 1920x1200
GPU: Nvidia GTX295 (All settings maxed) Driver 190.62 (8.16.11.9107) (27/09/2009)
Audio Soundmax (Card bundeled with MB).
Anti Virus: AVG, current version.


Update:
I have tried closing excess applications, and Disable Desktop Composition, and themes. Didn't fix the problem.

Installed Nvidia 191.07 driver. Didn't fix the problem. This is the latest, non-beta, driver released.
I doubt it would be audio since I have had no audio glitches.

Next: Check for any Windows updates.

I should point out that it happens by itself, in addition to the alt-tab problem.
I did have the audio loop glitch whan I first installed, but that hasn't reoccured.

It works fine for me apart from when I do alt+tab the music continues, but it gets stuck on the same 2-3second loop.

Resumes fine afterwards though.

No issues with Alt-tab here. I play before work in the mornings and I'll have a web stream of mike and mike playing in the back ground. Some times the audio stream craps out so I'll have to Alt-Tab to the desktop, and stop and start the stream then its good...

Its not instant by any means, but it only takes a few seconds from ALT-Tab press to app or desktop. Most games don't like Alb-tab, but in my case Tropico 3 doesn't seem to mind.

Vista x64 Ultimate
Althon X2 6400+
4GIG Corsair XMS RAM
5850 Radeon HD
WD Raptor 10k RPM 150GIG HD

I'm using win7 64-bit, no issues using alt-tab at all.

edit: using AMD cpu, Geforce video card right now.

(19-11-2009 07:36 PM)specvtuner Wrote:  No issues with Alt-tab here. I play before work in the mornings and I'll have a web stream of mike and mike playing in the back ground. Some times the audio stream craps out so I'll have to Alt-Tab to the desktop, and stop and start the stream then its good...

Its not instant by any means, but it only takes a few seconds from ALT-Tab press to app or desktop. Most games don't like Alb-tab, but in my case Tropico 3 doesn't seem to mind.

Vista x64 Ultimate
Althon X2 6400+
4GIG Corsair XMS RAM
5850 Radeon HD
WD Raptor 10k RPM 150GIG HD

You have and AMD CPU, and Radeon GPU. So that is probably why you haven't had this issue. What Audio do you have?

(20-11-2009 03:29 AM)computertech Wrote:  I'm using win7 64-bit, no issues using alt-tab at all.

What hardware do you have?

If this indeed hardware/driver caused then it would be handy to know if anyone with simular hardware doesn't have this issue.

I am going to install the Nvidia 195.55 BETA drivers to see if they help. (Released 17-11-2009)
Couple of ideas:
1. SLI related
2. Nvidia GPU related

I'm using Realtek HD on board audio with a DFI DK 790 Series mobo, in 5.1 surround.

The Beta Nvidia drivers haven't helped. I will check to see if Asus have newer MB/Audio drivers out, their site is offline at the moment.

UPDATE - I have been able to fix the issue on my PC, by disabling my anti-virus (I am running AVG - Latest version 9, version 8 had the same issue).

I have read that some other antivirus applications have the same effect in other games.
I have had problems with other games when running anti-virus running.

I have not changed any drivers/applications since my last post.

I can't alt-tab either when SLI is active. I have the latest Nvidia drivers.
When SLI is disabled, I can alt-tab just fine. Music keeps on looping tho'.
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
- Q6700 Quad 2 Duo on 3Ghz on an ASUS P5N-T Dlx
- 8GB Ram
- Two Nvidia GTX260 OC (now in not-SLI mode)
- Nvidia 196.21 driver
(BTW for the others people in this thread: the GTX 295 is a 'SLI' card aswell)

Please fix this, as I want to see the maximum beauty of Tropico!
Thanks, D.

i got that same music looping - no app crash though and music continues fine after alt+tab back to the game

I alt tab here at work and at home with no troubles at all, not even any music loop. Both machines are xp based, one amd, one intel. One nvidia, one ati. Both use avast antivirus (not disabled ever)

I use the steam version of the game.

There is rarely even any delay in my alt tab and I do it dozens of times per scenario.

Know this is an old thread but this might help someone bumping into this issue. I started to have some alt-tabbing issues now when i reinstalled the game. And as far as i remembered i did not have this issues when i played the game a couple of months ago. So i started playing around with the settings, disabling SLI etc etc. Nothing worked.

Though then it hit my that i changed the refresh rate in game to 60 hz since this is what my screen is supposed to be able to handle. The problem is that Windows 7 does not agree and sticks it to 59 hertz (even after changing it to 60 hz in windows it bumps back to 59.
So i set the refresh rate in the game back to 59 (had to delete the UserConfig2.lua in the Appdata/Roaming/Tropico 3 directory otherwise the game would go out to desktop when changing back and forcing you to alt-f4 the game and thus the change would not be saved. Letting the refresh rate staying the same as the desktop refresh rate eliminated to problem and now i am able to alt-tab the game. This might also be the case if you run the game in a different resolution than the desktop one.
Also using Anti-Aliasing messed up the alt-tabbing for me unfortunately :/
Hope this will help someone!


Cheers

59 hertz.....hmmmm......seems like a driver issue with the monitor. Try getting newest driver for video card and monitor, see if that helps.