Since I installed the new patch the game keeps doing what it happens when you press alt+esc during online races. The game does not pause or anything, so when I come back in the game I've crashed. The sound does not stop. It's really annoying, is there any way around this?

Thanks a lot.

The game never pauses when you alt-tab or alt-esc out of it. You have to stop the car or (in single player) pause manually.

That is the way it has always been as far as I know.

For example, if someone IM's me and the window so annoyingly pops up and minimizes my LFS... I hear loud screeches, a few wall impacts, some honking horns, and yeah I know I've pretty much crashed hard . If I come back in the game, yup nothing was paused obviously... since it was 'live' in multiplayer.

Singleplayer however, I don't know if it has paused automatically or not, but I don't think it has ever done that. Would be nice if it could I guess.

I know I can't pause online and I don't want to, the thing is the game minimizes itself for no reason, during races. By minimizing I meant what the game does when you press alt+esc, I'm just not certain if that's how you say it in english. Anyway, the game does that by itself, and it drives me nuts. That's the problem.

Any ideas?

Are you pressing Alt-Esc?
Is something (another program) stealing the focus?
Have you got buttons on your keyboard assigned to a controller that might do this?

No, no and no.

It doesn't happen when I press any buttons, I just can't find a reason. I tried shutting down programs running in the background, but the problem was still there. It doesn't seem to happen at a specific moment, it just happens for no apparent reason. I don't remember this happening before I installed the new patch. I guess it's not what's causing the problem, I don't know. Sometimes I can play for an hour without that happening, but it's also happened like 3 times in 20 minutes.

It's happened to me before too, but never on my computer, only on my grandparents. Are you playing with a mouse by any chance? I think it may be you clicking something on the desktop, and having that open. I'm not really sure though. It really only seemed when I was playing S1 with LFSTweak, but I doubt that has anything to do with it.

Nope, I play with a wheel.

Last time it happened I noticed I had an Explorer window opened, I'm going to try to always close it (I sometimes let it open if I need a setup it's quicker). Not sure though...

The open Internet Explorer is not the problem, it's happened again without an Explorer window open.

I'm getting really frustrated. I'm going to try to re-download and install again the patch Q. I really don't know what else to try....:banghead:

EDIT: Nope, didn't work... Anything else to try?

You cannot leave the LFS screen when at multiplayer, that wil somehow mess up the connections. So, you cannot minimize, but you can Restore Down by pressing SHIFT+4

I didn`t read hole thread, so pardon me if it doesn`t help.

maybe you should re-install your graphics driver... it once solved a similar problem of me

Ok I installed the newest drivers from ATI, and not only did they not solve the problem, they also made the framerate much worse (I used to get about 80-90 in hotlapping mode, and now I get 30). I also tried a demo from another game and had terrible performance as well as the same minimizing problem. This is getting worrying...

You have any programs open in the background that would try and 'take focus' of something else rather than the game?

From the way this all sounds, it could be an anti-virus program or something. Because LFS wouldn't just minimize itself for no reason, there has never been anything reported like that where LFS is at fault... it has got to be something else overpowering LFS from running.

BTW, do you play in Fullscreen mode, or Windowed?

I play in full-screen mode. As I said earlier the problem isn't only with LFS. I tried shutting down everything the programs running in the background but I didn't try the antivirus, so I'm gonna try that. The weird thing is before a week ago LFS ran flawlessly. I didn't change anything on the computer at all, except installing the new patch. If no one else has that problem it can't be the new patch, but it's still weird. What's even more frustrating is the terrible performance I get with the newest ATI drivers, and not only with LFS. I tried installing only the drivers (and not the full Catalyst program, wich I find really annoying). Could that be the problem?

Thank you all for your help

Ditch IE, get Firefox, download MS AntiSpyware, and A good 3rd party Spyware scanner, and have them scan your PC...
Next, disable the frikkin new XP Windows Update tool if you have it (great tool if it wouldn't suck so bad), and possibly run NAI Stinger tool to be sure.

It sounds like a window gets focus for a millisecond and disappears again (probably leaving a service running).

Also, if you have fast user switching turned on in XP, turn it off... It's useless for 99% of the people and causes problems with some services.

Quote from Vinc :

I play in full-screen mode. As I said earlier the problem isn't only with LFS. I tried shutting down everything the programs running in the background but I didn't try the antivirus, so I'm gonna try that.

How are you shutting down everything running in the background? Even if you open task manager and the "Applications" tab is empty, there still can be plenty of stuff running in the background.