CTD after Alt-Tab in Twilight of Arnor

from GalCiv2 Forums
Just purchased and downloaded Twilight. So far so great. Alt tabed out of it for a moment and when I came back the game got an illegeal error message. You know the one, it asks if you want to send or not send the info to Microsoft. I tested it again and it happens every time. I'm not that savy when it comes to finding bug text files so if there is some info please let me know where I can find it.

I am running Win XP Pro with SP2. All previous Gal Civ2 games have run fine.

Just a heads up.
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Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Run it windowed (uncheck "full screen" in options) and you won't have that problem, GC2's never been a stable alt-tab game in full screen. You can even run "windowed" with your full screen resolution and the game will look full screen but allow you to tab back and forth smoothly.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For me too. XP SP2 Dualcore PC
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alt-Tab is just the kiss of death for a lot of games. I agree with Vinraith.

-HM
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you run a game windowed, in my experience it isn't running at it's full potential. So that's not an ideal solution.

This is the first game I've run that outright crashes when I try to return back from the desktop. I can honestly say I have a LOT of games installed, and not ONE locks up or crashes when I come back from the desktop. Closest I get is Team Fortress 2 and other Source based games that take a while to come back up, but they DO work after about 30 seconds.

Having the game die simply by alt tabbing (which could occur simply by hitting that bloody stupid Windows key, which I've already ripped off my keyboard) isn't acceptable.

XP Pro SP2, nVidia 8300gs graphics.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well windowed mode does seem to do the trick. But like UncleDrood said, I haven't had a problem alt-tabbing a game since the DOS era.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Same issue in Vista X64.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

We have fixed the crashes with ALt-Tabbing that do not give you the message Invalid Call.  We'll try to get the update up as quickly as possible.

Running in a window will get rid of the Invalid Call bug when alt-tabbing, but we need some more time to fix that.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've always run in full screen. What are the disadvantages to running in windowed mode? Is it slower?
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've always run in full screen. What are the disadvantages to running in windowed mode? Is it slower?


Actually, windowed mode is faster. You can tab in and out of the game with minimal delay. The only disadvantage is that you have to run it at your desktop size for it to look full screen. I don't know why you would do it any other way...
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I got the "Invalid call" msg box while running TA in a window. It was after leaving the computer for over 20 minutes, and it had gone into power saving mode, so it might be the same error as the alt-tab bug. The crash happened as soon as I hit the shift key to wake up the machine.

I do not see a debug.err file in the TA directory, and SmartException did not catch the error.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hate to do a year and half old thread necro, but also hate to start a new thread when one describes the problem perfectly.

Is there any actual fix to this, other than running windowed? (Which is less than optimal).

(I actually have the base game, gold, and now the ultimate edition, the latter of which I am having the problem with. I don't know how to add my serial number, when I try it just runs impulse and I get a long loading screen in its web brower, then my internet goes off -  bad internet is the reason why I bought ultimate edition instead of the Twilight expansion download, since I can rarely stay connected for more than 2 minutes at a time)