So there’s this weird bug that if you alt+tab out of Overwatch too fast the game just freezes. You can still hear all the sounds, but the game absolutely refuses to show anything. I’ve lost AT LEAST 5 comp games because of this GAME BREAKING bug. Also, the game won’t let you close it normally when this happens, so you have to open Task Manager and manually close it, which is a pain.
As implied, if you alt+tab slowly, nothing actually happens, and everything is fine, but if you do it too fast the game breaks. This has never been a problem for me and is EXCRUCIATING to lose 50 SR for being a leaver when In reality it is 100% the game’s fault.
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A lot of games crash when you alt-tab. It’s not a game bug, it is a hardware bug.
I am looking up info about it, and apparently when a game(or anything really) is in full screen, it takes complete control of your graphics, and it gets rid of anything in the background to increase performance in the game. when you alt-tab, your computer has to load in everything else, minimize the game, and the game has problems. the real problems, however, start when you tab back to the game. the game has to restore itself and regain control from your computer. most games coding have a lot of problems with this, and it crashes.
You know how long it takes for your computer to boot up the main screen of Overwatch, imagine if it had to boot up mid game.
For now, avoid alt tabbing. it crashes most games.
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Use windows borderless. It’s likely a hardware bug when swapping resolution/refreshrate.
I’ve recently been experiencing this issue with a new laptop (running older hardware) but the hardware of this laptop is just about a notch or two lower than the previous one; spec-wise that is. Still, I never had an issue alt-tabbing on the previous machine; quickly or otherwise, whereas with this one, that is the issue.
Previous Laptop Specs:
GTX940MX w/ 2GB Dedicated VRAM
16GB DDR4 Memory
Quad Core i5-8250U 1.6GHz
256GB 7200RPM SATA
Current Laptop Specs:
GTX940MX w/ 2GB Dedicated VRAM
8GB DDR4 Memory
Dual Core i5-7200U 2.5GHz
1TB 5400RPM SATA
EDIT:
I’ll even add that before this, I played back in 2016 on an exceptionally weaker machine (A Macbook Pro with Windows 10 Bootcamp, no dedicated GFX Card, and 8GB RAM) and I never ran into this issue then. Whatever this is, this is recent and; strangely, not that public. That leads me to believe it can’t just be “a common hardware issue with all games” - I’ve never even gotten this issue while running say, The Elder Scrolls Online and alt-tabbing; a game that’s a lot more demanding than Overwatch; I assure you.