Curious problem with game swapping with desktop

Arizona_Willie

I have the latest drivers for my video card according to the Gforce update app.
But, yesterday I was playing along and suddenly every time ( or almost every time ) I moved my mouse the screen would switch between the game and the desktop.

Move once wham in the desktop ... move again ... wham ... back in game.

Then today it did fine for a couple of hours and then it started again.

Only seems to do it while playing ESO.

ASUS's monitor program says my motherboard temp is only 118 degrees Farenheit and the CPU is 114 degrees.

Computer is water cooled and all fans are running.

Temps seem to be good.
Batteries in mouse are good according to Logitech game software and that is up to date.

Any ideas what is causing this?

BornDownUnder

It is not your hardware, definitely nothing to do with your hardware temperature either.

What it sounds like is happening is something running in the background is grabbing priority which is minimizing/putting in the background the game.

Have you done any software installation just prior to this occurring? If so, I would take a look at that first.

If you have AV software running in the background, make sure you have them set to no pop-ups if possible when in 3d/full screen mode. This is generally one of the most likely causes for this type of issue.

Note: Ironically when I play Battle Field 4 I get the same issue every first map load, I click on the game and it goes to a small window, then I re-click and it goes back to full window.

Arizona_Willie

No I haven't installed any new software other than Java updates.

I doubt my AV is causing the problem because I have been using the same AV for a long time and all during the time I have played ESO.

So far, today, it hasn't happened. Perhaps the root scan I ran with AVAST did the trick, dunno, really too soon to tell.

Phinix1

Avast has an option to turn on "silent gaming mode" which suppresses any popups it generates, though it is usually better to turn off your AV when gaming (disable all shields permanently). Just remember to turn them back on after!

As others have said, anything that creates popups can cause that problem. You generally want to have nothing else running when you game other than that which is essential to gaming. That includes things that live in the system tray down by the clock. I have nothing running there because my system is an artistic exercise in minimalism and security, however you can usually right-click and close those things as well, since they just come back when you restart.

Also, running true fullscreen as opposed to windowed fullscreen now that we have the option can help prevent other things from taking focus, though alt-tabbing can be a little jerkier.

Arizona_Willie

I'll try the " silent gaming mode " although the problem didn't happen while I was playing today --- so far --- if I get back to playing --- darn real life keeps interrupting demanding I actually do things.

I have been running in windowed full screen mode for the convenience of being able to pop into my browser to hunt for solutions to problems via google and here.

I'm curious why the problem just recently started and then, maybe, went away.

Thanks for the quick response and suggestions.
*****

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

Avast has an option to turn on "silent gaming mode" which suppresses any popups it generates, though it is usually better to turn off your AV when gaming (disable all shields permanently). Just remember to turn them back on after!

As others have said, anything that creates popups can cause that problem. You generally want to have nothing else running when you game other than that which is essential to gaming. That includes things that live in the system tray down by the clock. I have nothing running there because my system is an artistic exercise in minimalism and security, however you can usually right-click and close those things as well, since they just come back when you restart.

Also, running true fullscreen as opposed to windowed fullscreen now that we have the option can help prevent other things from taking focus, though alt-tabbing can be a little jerkier.