Game Keeps Minimizing

[Hebelecan]

I've recently rebought BF2 from the Origin sale and installed PR 1.0.

When I launch the game it minimizes itself. If I try to go back by alt tab or by clicking on the task bar icon it just minimizes again after 2-3 seconds. If I try for like 20-25 times, it sometimes works flawlessly unless I alt tab manually which starts the whole loop of auto minimizing. I know the game works (rarely) so I have no idea what the problem is. I thought maybe it was running out of VRAM by using my integrated card (I have a laptop with 2 video cards) so I set it to run on the more powerful card manually but it still keeps happening. The only time I got it to work on purpose (as in, not trying over and over again) was when I turned off Aero but when I stopped playing and restarted the problem was back.

Playing on a MSI GE60 laptop with the following specs:

OS: Windows 7 64-Bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 3610QM
Memory (Ram): 8GB
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 650M GDDR5 2GB

All drivers, PB and game are up to date.

[Hebelecan]

Anything? I really don't feel like playing because it takes me 20 restarts to just start and even then I can't alt tab at all...

[LITOralis.nMd]

There is no way that it is PRLauncher.exe, PRBF2.exe or PRMumble.exe that is causing this.

I am saying it is a third party program that is doing this.

Are you running any type of monitoring software,
like afterburner, CPU-Z, or the like for hardware monitoring
or firewall monitoring
or virus monitoring
or overlay programs,
or

Do you have your power management settings in windows power manager and the Asus power manager set correctly?

Is your CPU throttling?
is your GPU set to the 650M and not the integrated GPU?

[Hebelecan]

There is no way that it is PRLauncher.exe, PRBF2.exe or PRMumble.exe that is causing this.

I am saying it is a third party program that is doing this.

Are you running any type of monitoring software,
like afterburner, CPU-Z, or the like for hardware monitoring
or firewall monitoring
or virus monitoring
or overlay programs,
or

Do you have your power management settings in windows power manager and the Asus power manager set correctly?

Is your CPU throttling?
is your GPU set to the 650M and not the integrated GPU?

I have one overlay program and no anti virus or any firewall software other than the default Windows one and that is turned off. I have tried turning off the overlay but it didn't do anything. I do not encounter this issue with any other program or game.

What do you mean about the power management settings? What should I do with them?

No CPU throttling and I have set it manually to the 650M, it was using the integrated one.

[LITOralis.nMd]

What do you mean about the power management settings? What should I do with them?

Make sure you have windows power management set to Performance Mode,

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/downloads/UWT.zip << Ultimate Windows Tweaker, a Tweak UI for Windows 7 & Vista
This is a freeware TweakUI utility titled Ultimate Windows Tweaker. There is an option to configure it - probably in the Taskbar properties - to stop all windows focus stealing.

Also, some wireless usb dongles and wireless cards come with connection managers, those manager programs are the usual suspect for focus stealing. TP-Wireless , Belkin, etc.

[Psyrus]

My friend who plays starcraft had this kind of issue (not saying it's the same) and I helped him troubleshoot it. Basically he was playing on a dell laptop and everytime he accidentally hit the caps-lock button it would minimize him to desktop. This is because dell preloaded some junk on the computer to make a big obnoxious UI popup to inform the user that capslock was activated (as well as numlock and scrolllock).

Once we figured that out, his issues stopped.

Something else you can try is running it in windowed mode to see if anything on the desktop is happening when it pulls the window out of focus.

[Hebelecan]

LITOralis.nMd;1941963']Make sure you have windows power management set to Performance Mode,

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/downloads/UWT.zip << Ultimate Windows Tweaker, a Tweak UI for Windows 7 & Vista
This is a freeware TweakUI utility titled Ultimate Windows Tweaker. There is an option to configure it - probably in the Taskbar properties - to stop all windows focus stealing.

Also, some wireless usb dongles and wireless cards come with connection managers, those manager programs are the usual suspect for focus stealing. TP-Wireless , Belkin, etc.

Yeah it was set on performance before, it's all okay there. About other stuff stealing focus; wouldn't they do the same with other programs? Wouldn't they do it every time?

My friend who plays starcraft had this kind of issue (not saying it's the same) and I helped him troubleshoot it. Basically he was playing on a dell laptop and everytime he accidentally hit the caps-lock button it would minimize him to desktop. This is because dell preloaded some junk on the computer to make a big obnoxious UI popup to inform the user that capslock was activated (as well as numlock and scrolllock).

Once we figured that out, his issues stopped.

Something else you can try is running it in windowed mode to see if anything on the desktop is happening when it pulls the window out of focus.

I've tried windowed mode and nothing steals the focus that way. The problem I have is that when I try to play in 1920x1080 borderless, the window reshapes itself to adjust for hte taskbar. That screws up with the localization somehow I think because I need to click a few cm's above the actual text for it to register. If I could somehow get borderless windowed mode set properly, I should have no more problems.

[LITOralis.nMd]

I am not very well informed on borderless windowed mode gaming, but people on this forum have strongly suggested using one of the choices on this page:
Borderless fullscreen windowed - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

specifically the ShiftWindow option here: Borderless fullscreen windowed - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

[Psyrus]

I've tried windowed mode and nothing steals the focus that way. The problem I have is that when I try to play in 1920x1080 borderless, the window reshapes itself to adjust for hte taskbar. That screws up with the localization somehow I think because I need to click a few cm's above the actual text for it to register. If I could somehow get borderless windowed mode set properly, I should have no more problems.

What I've done is adjust my vertical resolution to compensate for the taskbar (I use a double-sized one) so my resolution is 1920x985, works quite well for me

[Gracler]

What I've done is adjust my vertical resolution to compensate for the taskbar (I use a double-sized one) so my resolution is 1920x985, works quite well for me

Iv'e been doing pretty much the same thing except my taskbar is on the side so I went from 1920x1080 to 1680x1050, but I'm still afraid of flying since "windows" will switch "focus" and then i have to mouse-click the window (and i'm using a joystic) to bring back the focus.

Is there no way to "force" focus on one particular program like in the old days. Im using windows 7.

the biggest issue is that when i "lose focus" nothing is shown apart from the desktop is the "active window". Quite difficult to troubleshoot when I don't know which task is making the problem.
Does windows 7 have some sort of "debug" mode where I can see which program has the focus?

I didn't have this problem before 1.0 but that could be a coincidence.

[Psyrus]

Is there no way to "force" focus on one particular program like in the old days. Im using windows 7.

the biggest issue is that when i "lose focus" nothing is shown apart from the desktop is the "active window". Quite difficult to troubleshoot when I don't know which task is making the problem.

Learning AHK or Autoit (very simple) will provide the functionality you're looking for