Can't do anything else while game is running

[Aerrin Longheart]

When I start this game, it basically locks my computer. While I can alt tab out and try to do something, I can't move my mouse, and I can't get windows to react to anything I'm doing. Last time I alt tabbed out of south park, it took me over 15 minutes just to get back into the game so I could kill it since windows was basically frozen solid.

Is there some way I can have windows able to react to my mouse/keyboard while south park is running?

[Aerrin Longheart]

As a possibly important note, I'm running an i7-6700k at 4ghz (4 core) with 16 gigs of ram, and windows os is contained completely alone, on a MyDigitalSSD Bullet Proof eXpress SSD.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Yes. I saw it on sale at ebgames store, and bought a copy. Due to something this game is doing, it is freezing my computer. Not even my newest most graphic intensive games cripple my computer this much. (I use an NVidia GTX 1070). What should I do?

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

Yes. I saw it on sale at ebgames store, and bought a copy. Due to something this game is doing, it is freezing my computer. Not even my newest most graphic intensive games cripple my computer this much. (I use an NVidia GTX 1070). What should I do?

By the sounds of it, it seems you bought a used physical copy (if it is physical) and a damaged one at that... or your computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements to run the game.

MINIMUM:
OS: WindowsXP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 (both 32/64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180 @ 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ @ 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8800GT or AMD Radeon HD2600XT (512MB VRAM with Shader Model 4.0 or higher)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 6 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers

RECOMMENDED:
OS: WindowsXP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 (both 32/64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core2Duo E4400 @ 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ @ 2.3 GHz or better
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 9800GT or AMD Radeon HD4870 (512MB VRAM with Shader Model 4.0) or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 6 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers

[Aerrin Longheart]

It's a PC game that came with an unused steam key. It was in a sealed box, and while it was on sale, it didn't say used on it. I'm quite certain it was a new physical copy of the PC version of South Park, the stick of truth. This surprised me greatly since the game was old. It's tough to find a store I can walk into and buy PC games these days. EBGames stores tell me they don't sell used PC games though, so, that's another indication that this is an unused game.

This is a quad core i7-6700k @ 4.0 Ghz with 16 gigs of ram running windows 10.
Graphics is a nVidia GTX 1070.
DirectX I don't know. Probably 11 or 12 by now.
Storage: Plenty free.
Sound card: Sound works great, so no doubt it's fine.

My question however is, what can I do to fix this problem? I've done my best to move my mouse to the task manager I have to lower the process priority of south park (since that might fix the issue), but I can't even move my mouse outside the game. Keyboard commands, like alt-tab take a few minutes to respond. Not even ctrl-alt-del has an effect. The game runs fine if it's in the foreground, but it isn't letting anything run in the background.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Ah, good one Cursed Hawkins - you fooled me big time.
I just now realized that the game can't be damaged because it's 100% downloaded from steam. XD I'm too used to the olden days when there was a risk diskettes could be damaged.

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

Ah, good one Cursed Hawkins - you fooled me big time.
I just now realized that the game can't be damaged because it's 100% downloaded from steam. XD I'm too used to the olden days when there was a risk diskettes could be damaged.

I put in symbols (if it is physical) meaning that its a 50/50 if it was or not.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Indeed, I did buy a physical copy.

[Aerrin Longheart]

I have verified all the files via steam. After running this verification, South Park behaves in an identical manner.
I put South Park into a window, and if South Park is not the foreground application, the mouse becomes disabled 1 second after changing to a different foreground window. Bringing South Park back to the foreground enables the mouse after about 1 second, although it's a bit jumpy for a second or so. I can't click, and keyboard commands barely work. I have managed to bring the task manager to the foreground, and look at south park.
South Park doesn't use much CPU - it's about 17%. Desktop Window Manager uses about 25% CPU - this is odd since desktop window manager usually runs at 0.4% cpu or so.
However, while South Park isn't the foreground application, I can see all attempts to move the mouse make the mouse cursor move in the south park application, and then the mouse cursor in the south park application moves back to the same place it was before. Basically, it's as if South Park is resetting the position of the mouse back to where it was before I tried to move it. This is effectively locking the mouse in position unless south park is the foreground application.

All this testing was done with south park running in window mode.
This is a bad bug, and I don't know how to fix it.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

When I start this game, it basically locks my computer. While I can alt tab out and try to do something, I can't move my mouse, and I can't get windows to react to anything I'm doing. Last time I alt tabbed out of south park, it took me over 15 minutes just to get back into the game so I could kill it since windows was basically frozen solid.

Is there some way I can have windows able to react to my mouse/keyboard while south park is running?

Identical problems and even identical attempted problem solving steps. Also of note, couple of times I could wait a few mins to get back in the game, if I did the unthinkable mistake of trying to do a single other thing on the computer while game is running, but most of the time the whole system was bricked and I had to do a hard reset.

config was windows 10 comp, i7 and 1050TI with 16g ram.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

Yes. I saw it on sale at ebgames store, and bought a copy. Due to something this game is doing, it is freezing my computer. Not even my newest most graphic intensive games cripple my computer this much. (I use an NVidia GTX 1070). What should I do?

By the sounds of it, it seems you bought a used physical copy (if it is physical) and a damaged one at that... or your computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements to run the game.

MINIMUM:
OS: WindowsXP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 (both 32/64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180 @ 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ @ 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8800GT or AMD Radeon HD2600XT (512MB VRAM with Shader Model 4.0 or higher)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 6 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers

RECOMMENDED:
OS: WindowsXP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 (both 32/64bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core2Duo E4400 @ 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ @ 2.3 GHz or better
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 9800GT or AMD Radeon HD4870 (512MB VRAM with Shader Model 4.0) or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 6 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers

Mine is digital yet same exact problem so we can take the physical copy damaged theory out of this. What I am curious to know is, did this problem exist back in 2014 or is it a more recent issue? I feel pretty confident that this isn't a hardware issue (as in any of the parts don't meet requirement or are damaged). But I'm stumped, ultimately, as to what the issue is. So basically when it comes time to playing the game, it gets my full dedication since i literally can't do anything else while playing lol.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

I have the same problem. I'm playing in Windowed mode and it completely screws up the mouse if I try to leave the window. I tried hitting ctrl-alt-delete and now it's just stuck on a black screen with a loading indicator. I couldn't even alt-tab the window back

[Aerrin Longheart]

Yes. It does the same to me. It messes with the mouse, and slows down windows to the point keyboard commands are delayed a good 15-30 seconds minimum each (and they stack up) on my very fast computer. If you pressed a lot of keys, you'll be waiting many minutes. I suspect it's fantastically poor programming, but I haven't found a way to fix it since I can't do anything outside of the game while the game is running. This code would make a beautiful virus!!

[Aerrin Longheart]

I now hate this game. I tried to start the game, and somehow I got back to windows with the game running in the background. I don't know how I got to windows, but the game disabled my mouse movement, mouse buttons, and keyboard presses. Whenever I tried to move my mouse, I saw my mouse be put back in its original position. So, best I could do was jiggle my mouse a bit. After about 45 minutes, I had to press the reset button and lose all my unsaved documents because this stupid game disabled my computer just because I tried to run it, and it got put into the background.