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old Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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Before you yell at me, yes, I'm aware this has been posted multiple times before. And yet, in all my searchings, I've never found a reliable fix.

For those of you unaware of the problem (probably under a rock, eh?) when playing Stranded II in Full Screen, all the terrain and some various other textures will turn black after Alt-Tab'ing out of the game. Playing the game in Windowed (running Stranded II-win file) fixes this, but I personally find the windowed version very disorienting to play, for various reasons that don't really matter to this discussion.

I know there is a fix to this glitch somewhere, because I accidentally download a mod claiming to be a "fixed" version of the Massive Mod, and this glitch was gone. However, the user was banned before he was able to explain what he did to fix it.

I've no aversion to tinkering around in the game-files to fix this glitch, but being rather computer illiterate, I dare not do something like that without someone holding my hand through the process; e.g., you guys!

Spoiler >



Spoiler >


CONFIRMED FIXES
file stranded2 Compiled Source Code of SII... (Works on Vanilla SII)

CONFIRMED NON-FIXES
1: Changing to Windowed mode, minimizing, then returning to Fullscrenemode.
2: Windows key. Ctrl-Esc, Alt-Enter
3: OpenGL
4: Windowed Mode
5: Not Alt-Tabbing
edited 4×, last 15.01.13 10:20:45 am

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

palomino
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Can you set the mode in-game? If you can, you can play the game in full-screen mode, then switch to windowed, and then to full-screen again when you continue playing.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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That crossed my mind, but the game requires a restart to change from Full-Screen to windowed. And even so, I'd have to save the game, quit, and go to the options/graphics menu from the main screen. At that point it's simply easier to close the game when I need to view something else.

Besides, what I'm looking for isn't an alternative to using Alt-Tab, it's a fix so that I CAN Alt-Tab.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I'm looking to use Alt-Tab so I can stream the game in an active chat, and still take part when someone pings me with a question or anything else important. So, without Windowed mode being an option, as far as I know Alt-Tab is the only thing I can do without getting a second monitor set-up.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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For what it's worth, I DID try the Windows thing, and it didn't work either. Does minimize the game correctly, but still blacks the terrain out.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

palomino
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user Sabowulf has written
@user palomino: because you don't look to understand what is the problem...

seem*, not look

Now, what do you mean? I understand the problem quite well, in my opinion, that's why I told him to do those things, as they might've helped him.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Sabowulf
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Thanks for the correction (really).
And the thing is that when you change from Stranded 2 fullscreen "window" to anything else (desktop included) some textures will become black when you return to the game. It happens (happened) to me too, and I've played stranded with 4 different computers so far (intel i3 notebook, a celeron D desk, an amd and another one wich I don't remember).
I do believe that it's a common game bug that happens to everyone. Test it yourself.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

palomino
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@user Sabowulf: Or maybe it's a GPU specific bug. What GPU do you and the OP have?

Also, no problem.

EDIT: Also, try the official SII Win7 fix.
edited 1×, last 13.01.13 02:23:53 pm

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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user mafia_man has written


This fix does seem to work with the vanilla version of the game, but I can't seem to use it for my Survivalist/Massive Mod version, which is a different file/setup/etc. entirely.

I'll link it in the OP regardless, in case it helps anyone else.

@user palomino

To my knowledge, nobody has commented on any of the (many) threads brought to light on this subject stating that they indeed did not experience this glitch.

That leads me to believe that the bug has nothing to do with specific hardware, and more to do with something or other common to ALL (virtually) individuals who play the game.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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The difference being that I've run this game on multiple OS's and rigs, from XP to 8, and run into the same problem on each. If I'd run into a user or two saying they were able to play Vanilla without this glitch, that would grant a bit more leeway to your idea, but the fact that (apparently) no one has NOT experienced this glitch suggests that it's not something hardware related. Your idea also seems to assume that the only up-to-date processors people use are Intel. I personally have an Nvidia GPU and roughly 20% of users will have an ATI.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Hurri04
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to shorten this:

http://www.unrealsoftware.de/forum_posts.php?post=282138&start=0#post282148

took me literally half a minute to search.

> if this doesnt work, nothing will.

only "solution" would be to prevent this from happening in the first place by either using McLeaf's version of the exe, by playing in windowed mode or simply by not saving after this happened.
you could try to load the autosave file but this only will work if you have not slept yet after this happened.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Stranded_Guy2910
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As MC Leaf said in the "Compiled Source Code of SII..." thread, what causes this bug is the compilation of Stranded II with the newest Blitz3D version.

Since Massive Mod has an edited source code, you would need to have an older version of Blitz3D and the source code of Massive Mod in order to fix this bug. What you can do is ask for the mod creator to try fixing this.

Have you tried using Alt+Enter to switch between windowed and fullscreen mode? It works in lots of games, but I never tried it in Stranded II.

old Re: Full Screen Alt-Tab (Again)

Totentag
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@user Hurri04: I had discovered that fix for repairing saves, but as my mention of that issue was just an aside, I didn't think to edit it. I'll do that now.

@user Stranded_Guy2910: I went hunting for a copy of an earlier Blitz3d when you said that, but on my first search the BlitzBasic website was down entirely. Now when I search through their products, it would appear only version 1.62 is available. Perhaps they were attacked or otherwise shut down and had to revert to an older cache, but at the moment there doesn't seem to be a V1.95 around. Piracy aside, of course.
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