Alt+TAB and fullscreen games

[Ishayu]

This is not a Linux gaming forum.

No, you're right.

It's a forum dedicated to Linux/FreeBSD/GNU benchmarking and 3D-applications.

This subforum is only used for Linux/FreeBSD/GNU 3D-applications using a specific set of hardware and software that's specifically designed for gaming or rendering other forms of home entertainment.

Unless you're talking about the workstation stuff but almost nobody does here, so effectively it is a gaming forum.

Not in the direct sense. This isn't a forum about discussing games, but rather discussing how to make them work.

[RealNC]

So why questioning my presence then?

[Ishayu]

So why questioning my presence then?

"But that's OK; I don't intend to play games on Linux."

What other program than a game uses fullscreen 3D-rendering that in any way might require alt+tabbing?

Yeah, I thought so.
And even if there were, this question would be relevant to those as well.
So even if you have a reason to be on the forum other than trolling, you DEFINITELY had no reason to be in this thread other than trolling.

You can quit trolling me now anyway as I'll be going. I've got my answer. Someone else on these forums were having practically a monologue with himself because everyone else were so unhelpful. He asked the question and 3 days and no replies later he comes back with the answer. Turns out it was the same question but it had been rolled off to page 7 and he replied to himself just after I made this thread.

The source of the problem is thoroughly shameful for AMD and their driver team, but then again that's really nothing new:
The game must run as root.

I'm outta here.

[NiBu]

"But that's OK; I don't intend to play games on Linux."

What other program than a game uses fullscreen 3D-rendering that in any way might require alt+tabbing?

Yeah, I thought so.
And even if there were, this question would be relevant to those as well.
So even if you have a reason to be on the forum other than trolling, you DEFINITELY had no reason to be in this thread other than trolling.

You can quit trolling me now anyway as I'll be going. I've got my answer. Someone else on these forums were having practically a monologue with himself because everyone else were so unhelpful. He asked the question and 3 days and no replies later he comes back with the answer. Turns out it was the same question but it had been rolled off to page 7 and he replied to himself just after I made this thread.

The source of the problem is thoroughly shameful for AMD and their driver team, but then again that's really nothing new:
The game must run as root.

I'm outta here.

It has nothing to do with ati drivers in this case. I have nvidia and have the same problem playing some or maybe all wine games. For example playing starcraft it is not possible to use alt + tab to minimize the window out of the fullscreen mode. The most good programmed native games like altitude do not have this problem.

[Ishayu]

It has nothing to do with ati drivers in this case. I have nvidia and have the same problem playing some or maybe all wine games. For example playing starcraft it is not possible to use alt + tab to minimize the window out of the fullscreen mode. The most good programmed native games like altitude do not have this problem.

I just wanted to come back and confirm a bit.

I do not have this problem with the NVIDIA drivers on my NVIDIA computer, so I am fairly sure it is related to FGLRX in some way. Especially since it happens on ALL Linux games, also on things like HoN, Minecraft, Altitude etc.

Maybe there are two overlapping bugs - one with X.org permissions and Wine, and one with the FGLRX stack. It can get pretty jumbled like that.

I am not very keen on running my programs as root. Especially not Wine. It can cause permission problems. Wine actually says ".wine is not owned by you" so I have to change its permission. And then the drivers start displaying artefacts instead. Change it back to my own user, and the artefact goes away, and the alt+tab probelm reappears.

What was so funny is that I really had it working for no apparent reason at all. All of a sudden I was running World of Warcraft in full screen, I could alt+tab, and it wasn't in admin mode. That's why I made this thread - incase someone knew.

I think it's safe to say they didn't. :P

[Saner]

I have the same issue, so if you do find a solution please post it here, and I will do the same.

Its annoying because the only game I play runs like poop with the open drivers, but I cant play and read the net (its a slow game) with the fglrx ones.


Running as root sometimes shakes the problem, and it sometimes still exists, similar (although) not as bad as running it normally.

[AnonymousCoward]

...well, you could try unrawing the keyboard. Alt-Sysrq-R

not sure what result that will give you in a fullscreen gl app. have fun

[MiUNX]

Okay, so I've always had this problem where it's impossible to alt+TAB out of fullscreen applications. Most applications that are native to Linux use SDL, which overrides it anyway, but Wine doesn't for example, so let's look at that.

If I alt+TAB, all that happens is that the screen flickers a little bit, the game still overlays the screen but if I click anywhere, the OS behaves as if the window I wanted in front is in front, so clearly only a display issue.

I had pretty much accepted this problem. It would never go away I thought.

But then, today, magically, it went away.

2 hours later, it came back.

So now I want to ask what the hell I did. Maybe someone knows exactly how to make it work, persistantly? That would be great.

Reason why I'm posting here?
I use FGLRX, and I do not have this issue with the MESA-drivers. (They, however, just perform terrible. )

In KDE make sure you have the "Show Desktop" widget in your tray (normally it's there during install). In the properties set shortcut to WINDOWS+D (META+D) combination. Now every time you want to get out of a game or full screen, just use this combination.

[Pfanne]

i have the feeling that most people misunderstand the problem the op has.
the issue with fglrx is that as soon as an opengl window has the same size as your screen resolution it seems to render directly into the output buffer without redirecting the window first
the only fglrx driver that doesn't behave like this is 10.7
you may want to try that one

[Saner]

the only fglrx driver that doesn't behave like this is 10.7

Out of interest does anyone know what the newest kernel and xorg version 10.7 will run on ?

Its an annoying problem, that I want to get around, but I have a pretty new kernel and xorg so I need to research this before jumping in head first