Project Reality Forums

Hello community,
I haven't played much PR since I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago but I'm already addicted to it - much to the Misses' chagrin. There's one issue though I fail to solve in PR 0.957:
After starting Mumble, I start BF2/PR. I connect to a server and switch to Mumble to switch to the correct server there, too. Then after I join a game some admins ask me to join team 1 or 2, which I'd like to do, but if I alt-tab out of BF2 and modify my settings in Mumble, alt-tabbing back to BF2 won't work. I hear everything of course, but the screen stays black. It only happens when I alt-tab out of the game while a map is loaded, from the game settings/intro part up to the map loading screen it's ok, in-game though not.
I've googled around and found 2-3 threads where others had the same problem. One solution was said to be ESC in the game, then alt-tab to Mumble and alt-tab back. Doesn't work for me (I'm still on an ancient WindowsXPSP3 system, perhaps that's it?). In another thread, anti-aliasing was mentioned as being a problem. I have it on 2x currently, changing it to OFF didn't work. If the screen doesn't turn black now though BF2 crashes completely and I have to cancel the process via task manager. What can I do?
best regards,

Valsimot

As far as I know this issue occurs when your computer can't render the game world fast enough to display immediately or sometimes can't display it at all. I assume that there is some sort of extra strain happening when switching to a resource hogging application like games. I'm probably wrong but I think when you alt-tab out the system dumps the graphics it was just rendering and then when you switch back it has to construct the game world all over again (but don't take my word for it.)
You can fix it by upgrading your computer, but of course that can be costly. What settings do you run at? If you can and are willing to, try lowering some settings so that maps can be loaded faster. I'm not sure but running in windowed mode might help as well if you can handle that.

I experience this on one of my computers too. I agree that it's very annoying which is one reason why I think that all servers should use only one channel in Mumble so that you don't have to go through the trouble of finding out which team you're on. I already run on minimum settings so there's not much I can do but a while back I had downloaded Game Booster and it completely eliminated this plus increased my frame rate. Unfortunately I noticed it taking a while to reload the game window recently and am pretty depressed since I can't upgrade until next year.

Happens when you are low on ram memory. When you switch to windows it makes room for windows it self. At least thats what think.

I used to have this same problem. Try hitting Esc to go to the menu before you alt-tab. I used to get the black screen all the time, now i never get it. Hope this helps.

I don't think it's from running out of memory since in the computer it happens to me on there is 6GB of memory. The only bad part in mine is my integrated GeForce 9100.

my **** vista does it all the time and it sucks. I have everything on lowest settings and it still wont work =[

How long do you wait for it too return to BF2 R? Mine stays black for a while too but it eventually does load it all. After upgrading my graphics card from a 9800GT to a 250GTS it doesn't take as long though. So maybe wait a while longer. It might take up to 1 minute depending on your PC.

Do you have the "Battlefield 2 Update 1.50 ALT+TAB Fix" installed?
This should help the problem: Battlefield 2 Update 1.50 ALT+TAB Fix download on Fileplay (RendDX9.zip)

Doesn't that get installed along with 1.5?

whatshisname55 wrote:Doesn't that get installed along with 1.5?

Apparently not.
Did it fix your problem?

Ye, sounds like my problem back in the days, alt tab fix is the way to go.