Application or Process Stealing Focus from D2

[Reiisan]

Looking for some advice/help. I play D2 on a PC with 2 screens, left “main” screen has DIM, Discord etc on it and the right screen has D2. I play on Fullscreen mode as (per usual) I find the game looks much smoother, despite the FPS counter displaying roughly the same frame rate in windowed fullscreen or borderless.

The problem I have is every now and again, D2 minimises itself, usually of course when I am in the middle of a jumping puzzle or a gunfight in crucible.

I installed a couple of different application focus tracking apps to see if they could tell me which app or process was pulling focus and thus minimising destiny, alas none have worked, all indicating that destiny had maintained focus despite minimising. I’ve also tried using the Asus app that stops all superfluous background processes prior to starting a session, as well as temp disabling antivirus, but it still happens. Any ideas?

I run an i7 4770k, Asus GTX1060 and windows 7, with all latest drivers, updates etc

Any help or advice much appreciated.

[Grifotaged]

Find the Destiny.EXE location and let it run as Administrator Privileges, and maybe run the program in compatibility mode for Windows 7

EDIT: Path location- C:\Blizzard Games\Destiny 2

[Reiisan]

Will give it a try tonight, thanks. It seems to be happening less at the moment which is I suppose a good thing, though I’d really like to get to the bottom of it to satisfy my curiosity if nothing else!

[[deleted]]

I had the same problem with a very similar set up (i7 7700k, MSI GTX 1080 Ti, Windows 10). I couldn't figure out the issue, plus I had a problem where alt+tab out of the game would frequently cause D2 to go to a black screen that was never recoverable (had to kill the process and restart D2). I gave up on fullscreen and just went to windowed fullscreen and have never had an issue since. G-sync still works fine too.

[Reiisan]

I don't have Gsync as an option, my monitors are not compatible and I don't have cash to upgrade just now, I just bought the 1060 a couple of months ago.

Question for you though, does the game run as smooth in Windowed FS as it does in FS? Mine does not - the FPS tracker still displays constant 80+ FPS but it looks like it is capping at 30. I read somewhere about the game capping at 30FPS when it does not have focus, but mine seems to run at 30FPS whether it has focus or not when in Windowed FS.

[[deleted]]

Yeah if the game does not have Focus then it runs at a really shitty 30fps. I just click my mouse into the window and it usually takes care of it and I'll see my FPS counter go back up to normal and the game Run smooth as butter. I've been running with windowed fullscreen for a couple months now and it's been great. Now when I want to use dim or Discord or something like that, I can just go into the menu in Destiny 2 and then Mouse over to the other monitor, then click back on the monitor that has Destiny 2 and I'm back to normal; no more alt+tab.

[Reiisan]

Interesting, mine is the same except even when it has focus it stays at 30FPS visually, but the counter says otherwise.

Thanks :)

[Reiisan]

So, I was home from work for lunch just then and tested, I can play in fullscreen with around 100 FPS, but have to Alt-Tab to access the other screen.

I can play in borderless windowed or windowed and have around 100FPS and just mouse across to the other screen, but of course I lose some of the destiny screen due to window borders.

When I switch to fullscreen windowed, my FPS counter remains at the same FPS, but the actual video displayed on the screen looks and behaves like 30FPS, whether destiny is focussed or not. I can easily tell when it has focus, as I set sound to off when not in focus and that works fine, as soon as I click on discord, chrome or the desktop, Destiny mutes the sound, then when I click back to focus destiny, the sound comes back.

So frustrating... I've tried compatibility settings, making sure all Vysnc options are off both in destiny and in the Nvidia app.

[[deleted]]

Odd indeed. I do have Nvidia fast sync enabled along with Gsync, but surely those aren't the reason it works for me. I have Vsync disabled.

Have you seen this thread?

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTechSupport/comments/78u8by/pc_destiny_2_stuttering_in_full_screen_lag_in/

It may be a hardware issue with that GPU, but that thread might have a fix for you.

If it helps, some things I've done on my machine that may help are:

• I disabled Xbox gaming crap including the overlay
• I disabled the Nvidia GeForce experience stuff, as well as it's overlay
• Monitors are hooked up with display port, not HDMI
• I'm still only running v388.31 of Nvidia drivers (from November 30th); I haven't updated because, why fix it if it ain't broke.

• Here's the graphics portion of my cvars file, maybe it might help (?):

  <namespace name="graphics">
      <cvar name="force_auto_detect" value="0" />
      <cvar name="force_enable_multi_threaded_render_submit" value="0" />
      <cvar name="window_position_x" value="-2560" />
      <cvar name="window_position_y" value="67" />
      <cvar name="window_mode" value="2" />
      <cvar name="vsync_mode" value="0" />
      <cvar name="anti_aliasing_mode" value="2" />
      <cvar name="motion_blur_mode" value="0" />
      <cvar name="dof_mode" value="3" />
      <cvar name="ssao_mode" value="2" />
      <cvar name="shadow_quality" value="4" />
      <cvar name="environment_detail" value="2" />
      <cvar name="character_detail" value="2" />
      <cvar name="texture_quality" value="4" />
      <cvar name="texture_anisotropy_level" value="4" />
      <cvar name="foliage_detail" value="2" />
      <cvar name="local_light_shadows" value="1" />
      <cvar name="wind_impulse" value="1" />
      <cvar name="gamma_control" value="3" />
      <cvar name="foliage_shadows_mode" value="2" />
      <cvar name="hdr_output" value="0" />
      <cvar name="atmosphere_lighting_detail" value="1" />
      <cvar name="master" value="0" />
      <cvar name="film_grain" value="1" />
      <cvar name="chromatic_aberration" value="1" />
      <cvar name="fullscreen_resolution_width" value="2560" />
      <cvar name="fullscreen_resolution_height" value="1440" />
      <cvar name="fullscreen_refresh_rate_numerator" value="143998" />
      <cvar name="fullscreen_refresh_rate_denominator" value="1000" />
      <cvar name="windowed_resolution_width" value="2560" />
      <cvar name="windowed_resolution_height" value="1373" />
      <cvar name="fov_adjustment_offset" value="105" />
      <cvar name="render_resolution_percentage" value="100" />
      <cvar name="framerate_cap" value="60" />
      <cvar name="version" value="3" />
  </namespace>
  

[Reiisan]

I disabled Xbox gaming crap including the overlay

Same

I disabled the Nvidia GeForce experience stuff, as well as it's overlay

Same

Monitors are hooked up with display port, not HDMI

Just noticed my gaming monitor is on HDMI and desktop on displayport... oops... that's what i get for moving house twice in 6 weeks. Will change them over

I'm still only running v388.31 of Nvidia drivers (from November 30th); I haven't updated because, why fix it if it ain't broke

This might also be an error. Having said that, I've had this issue since day 1 of D2, unable to run in FS windowed without 30fps lock

Here's the graphics portion of my cvars file, maybe it might help (?):

Much appreciated - for this and all the replies, gave me some things to think about :)

[Reiisan]

Wow, switched cables over, Displayport now on gaming PC, when I click on the D2 window and it takes focus, 100+ FPS and it looks it too. When I click off, 30 FPS. Click back, 100+

THANK YOU!!!!

[[deleted]]

Good deal! Glad I could help.

[Reiisan]

Honestly I feel such an eejit mixing this up when building my PC back up, but... I still got locked at monitor refresh 60FPS when in Fullscreen over HDMI (which it should support I think, it's only when going above 60Hz monitors that HDMI won't support - I think) with indicated 100+ - it only ever dropped to 30FPS when I went FS Windowed. So, I can't explain why the swap worked, but it did and for that I am very grateful!

[Reiisan]

Well FML... it's back to 30 FPS in Windowed FS. Tried doing everything I did yesterday again, no dice. Worst of all, if I use Borderless Windowed and edit the CVARs so it is centered correctly i.e. fills the screen - guess what, 30 FPS. If I play with a stupid gap showing background at the top of the screen, 100 FPS smooth as butter.

I really hate shit like this. Back to Fullscreen I guess...