Game pauses on Alt+Tab (in background)

[Karsui]

Any solution? Changing in-game options and adding -windowed to properties doesn't help.

[Winneh]

Ofc the game pauses when its not in main focus ... ?
Why would it keep running unpaused?

[Karsui]

Originally posted by Winneh:

Ofc the game pauses when its not in main focus ... ?
Why would it keep running unpaused?

Why would it pause, if I don't pause it myself?
A lot of programs and games doesn't just freeze when they are out of main focus.

[Winneh]

Originally posted by Karsui:

Originally posted by Winneh:

Ofc the game pauses when its not in main focus ... ?
Why would it keep running unpaused?

Why would it pause, if I don't pause it myself?
A lot of programs and games doesn't just freeze when they are out of main focus.

Whats the point?
What would be the benefit of the game to keep running?

[Karsui]

2 monitors usage? Streaming reasons? Benchmark tests?
There is plenty of reasons why would someone don't want to make program/game to just freeze when cursor isn't hovering over it.

Dunno why such investigation questions even... If I'm asking for such basic function, then there is surely a reason I need it.

[Winneh]

I asked because I am genuinely interested in the reasoning behind it?
The game does not freeze when you leave your screen, it pops up the menu and pauses.
I dont have to leave the screen with my mouse during streams, im using hotkeys (not even a streamdeck) and any form of benchmarks need to be done with the game in focus anyways?
I do stream and have a 3 monitor setup and I can not make sense of your reasoning.

Borderless Fullscreen is probably the closest you gonna get, unless theres any launchparameter or ini line they introduced with the NG patch.

[Wendy]

What is it that you dont understand? If youre watching a cutscene it would be great to let the cutscene play if you need to tab out and do something else. If youre streaming it would be good if you want your audience to still see the cutscene while you are doing something else on another screen. How cant you understand the reasoning behind it? What do you mean with "Any form of benchmarks need to be done with the game in focus anyways?"? If you got a really good pc it shouldnt be a problem with the game running in the backrground anyway.

[ozz]

Originally posted by Karsui:

Any solution? Changing in-game options and adding -windowed to properties doesn't help.

its supposed to pause 99% of games do

[Winneh]

Originally posted by Wendy:

How cant you understand the reasoning behind it?
What do you mean with "Any form of benchmarks need to be done with the game in focus anyways?"?

Benchmarking was listed as one of the things that should work without pause in the previous comments, when you are doing whatever on another screen .

You cant run benchmarks in the background since your Pc is diverting processing power to whatever you are doing on another screen and away from the benchmark, which defeats its purpose.
Benchmarks simply dont work that way.
Therefore that argument does not make sense - which answers both of your questions.

[AceSim]

Originally posted by Karsui:

2 monitors usage? Streaming reasons? Benchmark tests?
There is plenty of reasons why would someone don't want to make program/game to just freeze when cursor isn't hovering over it.

Dunno why such investigation questions even... If I'm asking for such basic function, then there is surely a reason I need it.

I'm shocked that you are shocked thats a thing. Many games pause when the game is not focused. From my experience the only games that give you the option to change this behaviour are strategy games. You are basically out of luck for W3

[Goat Popcorn]

So is there a way to do it or no?
Its actually a legit question

[16GB Zune HD]

Man, found this from google because I want it to keep playing when I alt tab, and I'm shocked that the only responses are people arguing that you shouldn't need to.

If you dont have anything helpful to say, then just leave.

[|UGA|PatPeter]

Originally posted by AceSim:

Originally posted by Karsui:

2 monitors usage? Streaming reasons? Benchmark tests?
There is plenty of reasons why would someone don't want to make program/game to just freeze when cursor isn't hovering over it.

Dunno why such investigation questions even... If I'm asking for such basic function, then there is surely a reason I need it.

I'm shocked that you are shocked thats a thing. Many games pause when the game is not focused. From my experience the only games that give you the option to change this behaviour are strategy games. You are basically out of luck for W3

Factually incorrect. Most games do NOT pause when out of focus, and those that do almost always have an option for it that is disabled by DEFAULT.

Let me repeat that: the default setting for the vast majority of games is to continue when tabbed out.

Even when it comes to multiplayer games, there's an option to "play audio when not in focus". The default setting is to play the audio even when tabbed out.

Honestly don't understand why the OP was subjected to the Spanish Inquisition just for a simple question.

[R4zen]

I think that could be done in some programs that let you set allways on top to any window and configure them to be active on top only when choose window is focused/choosen.

I didn't tried to configure programs that way but it may be possible. If I get more time I will try it and let you know.

But if you just want to use other programs windows to be seen in another monitor screen, then there is no problem, so set them to be allways on top when you are playing in w3 windowed/orderless mode. Just try tu use one of this programs
https://www.itechtics.com/10-tools-to-always-on-top-any-app-in-windows-10/

[cgillmore85]

Witcher 3 is the only game I've ever seen that auto pauses when tabbing out.

[DessIntress]

Such behavior is standard nowadays.
On the one hand, it pauses the gameplay. (It may also be that a pop-up from a firewall, messages or something else suddenly opened with focus... depends on the system settings)
On the other hand, it usually saves a lot of power when complex processes are stopped when they are not supposed to be displayed anyway. (Depending on the game, such a pause menu consumes the same amount of power if it is unoptimized, or it is almost at desktop level in terms of consumption)

In addition, this "feature" is so old and popular that since Windows 10 you can generally force some kind of pause for all apps.