Alt-Tab Crash

joshwithguitar · 2013-07-28 10:15:56

Hello, I'm new to the game and have been having a lot of fun but I have one bug that has become an issue.

Whenever I press alt-tab to go to a different window than the game the game crashes. Also, any other activity which shifts the screen to the desktop does the same thing. This was not too much of an issue until I was doing quite well (compared to previous games) and suddenly my laptop gave me a warning that my batteries were low crashing the game whilst I was in the middle of a robbery. This of course led the server to kill me off for exiting the game whilst robbing.

I am running Windows 8 and when it crashes I get the following report from windows:

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: CastleDoctrine.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 51eebdce
Fault Module Name: ig7icd32.dll
Fault Module Version: 9.17.10.2817
Fault Module Timestamp: 5009cc64
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000189e8
OS Version: 6.2.9200.2.0.0.768.101
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Information 1: 5861
Additional Information 2: 5861822e1919d7c014bbb064c64908b2
Additional Information 3: f3d5
Additional Information 4: f3d5be0cad2787556264647dc02181c3

Has anyone else come upon a similar problem?

Cent · 2013-07-28 10:42:03

Actually, I find that alt tabbing can sometimes lock you out of the game, because it puts you into the escape pause menu, but the alt-modifier is still being held (and cannot be cancelled), so pressing escape again does nothing, and you're forced to quit. If you're in robbery mode, that's GG.

colorfusion · 2013-07-28 10:55:58

I haven't had this myself. You can change "fullscreen.ini" to 0 in the settings folder and then set the width and height to your monitor resolution if you want a temporary workaround until Jason solves this.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-28 13:02:23

Yeah, I've had issues with alt tabbing a couple times as well. It caused a crash once for me too. Usually it work all right though.

bey bey · 2013-07-28 15:39:57

I had the same issue and lost a very expensive house to it. I found that running window mode OR using my secondary graphics card for the game fixed it. Seems like the default windows 8 graphics driver interferes with the game in fullscreen.

joshwithguitar · 2013-07-29 23:38:10

Thanks guys, I'm just running it in windowed mode for now and haven't had anymore issues. Deaths are purely my own fault now .

jasonrohrer · 2013-08-11 15:04:54

Yeah, sorry about this!

I think it's some kind of Windows 8 issue, though I haven't figured out what is causing it, exactly.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to Windows8.... I've thought about setting someone who is experiencing this problem up with a debugger to catch the problem in the act.

If you're up for trying this, please email me: jasonrohrer@fastmail.fm

joshwithguitar · 2013-08-11 22:23:00

I'd be up for this, I'll send you an email.

Noshire · 2013-08-12 00:11:02

It doesn't crash for me when alt-tabbing, but if I do, my windows explorer tends to crash - I have to completely kill and restart it to get my taskbar working again after playing Castle Doctrine. I'm on Win7 64bit.

joshwithguitar · 2013-08-12 00:30:05

Cent: Since playing the game in windows mode I've noticed that alt-tabbing now causes the alt key to be held, this can be an issues when creating a map as holding 'alt' activates eye-dropper mode, the same as ctrl. I've found this easy to fix, though, as just pressing the 'alt' key once resets it.

Cent · 2013-08-12 01:33:06

Yea sometimes pressing Alt again clears it. In windowed mode, it seems to clear it every time. If you were fullscreen though, sometimes it won't and it'll be permanently stuck. I've since stopped playing in fullscreen.

jasonrohrer · 2013-08-12 21:36:36

Yeah, the stuck alt key is a strange one.... it's like the key-up event never gets sent. But if that's the case (a simple problem), then hitting ALT again later should clear it up (which would send down and then up events). There may be a bug in SDL here...

dalleck · 2013-08-13 02:18:02

Isn't there a 'is down' function you can call instead?

jasonrohrer · 2013-08-13 06:47:03

Yeah, actually, for the eyedropper, the game is already doing it that way. I call SDL_GetModState() to check if the ALT key is held down.

Thus, I'm pretty sure is an SDL bug:

http://forums.libsdl.org/viewtopic.php? … a70cbba1c1

Also, Josh just did the debugging work on his end, and the Alt-Tab crash was found to be in part of Windows. Also, this is a known issue for other games:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s … ?t=1517550

Which means, sadly, that I don't really have power to fix these things...

largestherb · 2013-08-13 09:40:38

defaulting the settings to windowed mode might help!
maybe it is just me, but i really don't know anyone who plays any game in true fullscreen.. unless they are on a laptop with a tiny resolution and sad 3 year old integrated graphics..

but anyway, i think the castle doctrine looks quite good in a 1024x768 window!

jasonrohrer · 2013-08-13 09:56:30

Thoughts on this? Should the game ship in Windowed mode by default? How many people play in fullscreen all the time?

The problem, of course, is what window size? Maybe it should auto-pick a size based on the current screen size.... one size less than the current screen size. So, it would be 640x480 on an 800x600 screen, and 800x600 on a 1024x768 screen, and so on.

colorfusion · 2013-08-13 10:59:37

I've always changed it to window mode in the settings; being able to click out of it is a lot easier and faster than alt-tabbing out for me.

ukuko · 2013-08-13 13:04:15

I play at 640x480 windowed on a variety of screen sizes — 13" to 27".

Cent · 2013-08-14 02:01:28

It's a slower paced game, it should default to windowed, since you're not too worried about accidentally clicking outside of the window, but leave an obvious fullscreen option in the options...
Also, since the viewing window is squarish, so it makes sense to just play it windowed on widescreen displays.

jasonrohrer · 2013-08-14 09:21:59

Yep, makes sense! Will do it.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-07-28 10:15:56

Alt-Tab Crash

#2 2013-07-28 10:42:03

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#3 2013-07-28 10:55:58

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#4 2013-07-28 13:02:23

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#5 2013-07-28 15:39:57

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#6 2013-07-29 23:38:10

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#7 2013-08-11 15:04:54

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#8 2013-08-11 22:23:00

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#9 2013-08-12 00:11:02

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#10 2013-08-12 00:30:05

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#11 2013-08-12 01:33:06

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#12 2013-08-12 21:36:36

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#13 2013-08-13 02:18:02

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#14 2013-08-13 06:47:03

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#15 2013-08-13 09:40:38

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#16 2013-08-13 09:56:30

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#17 2013-08-13 10:59:37

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#18 2013-08-13 13:04:15

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#19 2013-08-14 02:01:28

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

#20 2013-08-14 09:21:59

Re: Alt-Tab Crash

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