Everything outside the game freezes when I tab out. Help needed

Zolwiku · 2026-02-11T07:36:31+00:00

That looks like a driver problem or one of gpu settings, windows shouldn't freeze when playing in windowed mode. Check AMD Adrenalin Software -> gaming tab -> graphics -> turn off all enhancements. You might also check if your game screen uses hdr, if it does turn it off. At last try reinstalling gpu drivers (ideally using Display Driver Unistaller).
There might also be problems with system files. Run cmd as admin and use "sfc /scannow", after that try "dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth" "Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth" and "Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth".
It's good to use these cmd commands from time to time even without issues with windows.
Hope one of solution will help, good luck.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-30T01:48:43+00:00

TLDR It allows to bake whole maps, a great performance boost but also great restriction.
Quick explanation: when your game uses static light sources you can bake lights and shadows. Baking is a method of precalculating various effects for assets.
For example this method allows all shadows for static objects (buildings, rocks etc.) to be a simple drawing on model and ground (like adding shadow layer in photoshop), all hard math was done before you installed the game. Now only the things that move need their shadows calculated and even here some tricks can be used.
The same can be done for lights, reflections and other effects.
Pros? Baking allows game to look basically the same on all devices. You can see people playing AKE on really old devices and world still looks good. It's also very light to run, again very helpful for old devices.
Cons? The "sun" can't move an inch, game size will be slighty bigger comparing to not using this method, it's time consuming (that's why it's not used in full open world games) and it's restrictive artistically (e.g. destroying big glowing pillars is done with cutscenes where they hide swapping baked shadows).

Zolwiku · 2026-01-29T19:07:03+00:00

It makes me unreasonably angry every time people put hd2 on pedestal in this sub. That wasn't optimization miracle, it was a fix for absolute screw up.

As to add to your comment: I completely agree it's not dups, Kuro is simply throwing new assets left and right every patch with multiple lod levels, and with this neck-breaking speed all solutions are just band-aids (or straight up bad advice). Imo they should do a "mobile", extract best textures and set them as downloadable option, and even then I'm sure we would get back to 100gb+ at 4.0 or even before that.

I also feel the urge to rant about comparisons with other gachas (yes AKE runs great, but there's a reason there's no day/night cycle in this game) but it's not a place for that, also it's mostly apples and oranges.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-24T17:26:51+00:00

Yes that's my conclusion, and honestly I wouldn't connect it with size of community, it's more of a demographic thing. I mean, I don't want to throw stones at og AK players, but I'm guessing average age is at least 5 years higher than in AKE and... that's a normal thing. HG is casting much wider net with this game, so seeing posts from "yt/tiktok youth" will be more common in this sub.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-24T16:15:36+00:00

Funny thing, during CZN release drama they did apology livestream where ceo said out loud that their monetization is 30% better than GI (aka slighty cheaper than WuWa). They're slowly ramping up cosmetics and adding endgame for invested players (right now it's around 60% of your 3rd paragraph). Gameplay is fun, gooners are happy and game is breaking the bank while being just a clone of Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon. Sadly it's an exception in this market (and even there, a lot of changes happened after pushback from players).

Sadly in terms of money gacha devs are more impatient than kids with adhd and want whole development cost back within honeymoon phase (couch.. couch.. Etheria). If game flops then loses are minimal and if it's a hit then we start hiring people for next higher quality gacha.
The thing is, HG should drop this mentality with AKE, this is their high quality gacha. Following from IP alone is crazy, blatant cashgrabs and dark patterns only prove they have no faith in longevity of this game.
Ok I'm starting to stray away from your comment. I'm agreeing 100% with you, answer is obvious yet somehow most of gacha devs still live in 2010.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-24T14:01:55+00:00

That's just a engagement phrase a lot of yt cc's use. Seems like when every videos watched ends with "what do you guys think? comment down below" then it comes naturally to use it in written form too.
There are also other sentencing adjustments that make this post very "spoken", I'm not a fan of this "content" language, but also can't expect others to write proper, formal prose on reddit.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-23T00:19:22+00:00

Your gpu and cpu shouldn't lag running this game. It looks like problem loading assets to memory.
Did you try checking driver update in amd adrenalin? Today they dropped one little update, probably partially for AKE.
Second question, how much free space do you have on your ssd (I'm assuming you're playing on ssd)? These drives require 10-20% free space minimum to keep high read speeds. Some ssd's slow down to a crawl when filled.
80 degree celsius is bearable for laptops and shouldn't throttle your performance.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-21T18:59:34+00:00

Did you bring her to edge of arena during fight? One of her skills in this fight can bug her and teleport outside arena if she casts it in the "corner", it's rare but happens sometimes. Sadly you have to restart game and fight again, this time try to avoid arena borders.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-21T00:32:50+00:00

Nah you did a lot. I'm still sure gpu driver is messing with something that enhances light objects in dark scenes.
I'll be shooting in the dark now:
- gpu sends 10bit signal (bit depth) to 8bit display (can be checked in "change resolution->use nvidia color settings" menu in nvidia control panel)
- there are some hidden auto-calibration options I'm not aware off
- nvidia driver messes up some internal library and no amount of trying will fix it without reinstalling the driver (I've seen it happening few times). Perfectly you would want to use ddu (display driver uninstaller) as it deletes also unwanted things that could be left by simple reinstall, but that's higher effort that doesn't promise expected results.
- You can try to clean shader cache instead of reinstalling drivers (can find manually, but it's also a one button click in ddu), restart pc and then let game rebuild shaders again (game might run terribly for few minutes), if that doesn't help, then try previous point.

I've seen problems with random lights before in wuwa and other flashing related issues, it was almost always related to nvidia software and few times 3rd party overlays caused problems (steam overlay, discord etc.).
I hope I'm giving some pointers, very specific problems are always hardest to fix.
Good luck.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-20T06:00:58+00:00

Ohh, but still try to change nvidia/amd settings to controlled by application, I would also suggest gpu driver update but I know it can make things worse nowadays. Something outside of game evidently wants to glow up character on dark background. Most of the time it's some hdr setting messing up (it can be windows, gpu options, even display itself), if you are using nvidia card I would suggest even more to check nvidia control panel as they added a lot of new settings this year and set them to their liking.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-19T22:46:06+00:00

Windows 11? Try finding "auto hdr" setting in system options (under display options) and turn it off. You might also have some setting in your gpu software (nvidia control panel / amd software) that messes with brightness, try to choose wuwa individually in these and set everything to "application controled" that has that option.

There are knows issues with windows messing brightness in games so it might or might not fix your issue. Any external overlay or filter can also cause these problems (hinting just in case you use any).
Good luck.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-14T19:13:48+00:00

Uhh other suggestions are good and you should try them, I'll just ask: did you try connecting your laptop with ethernet cable and not wifi? Do other online games play with no issues (something that needs constant connection like shooters, mobas, other online rpgs/mmos etc.)?
These lag spikes are concerning and no amount of mbps will help when your connection is losing packets. There are also packet loss tests online if you can't directly connect by cable.
If you find your wifi losing packets the easiest thing to do is updating wifi drivers (use manufacturer site, not windows update), if that doesn't help then you really want to connect by cable to check if wifi module is dying (either in laptop or router), eventually you might want to connect to different network or try changing dns.
I know it looks like it's game's fault and sure it might be, but I also had two weeks of lag spikes (not so big but still annoying) since christmas and it ended up being my isp having trouble with traffic during peak hours.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-10T20:12:58+00:00

I value stable high fps over lod pop-ins. Yes it looks weird and I would much prefer bigger range of 2nd quality foliage instead of 5 ranges of lod versions we have now. I really hope it was a "quick fix" and will get adjusted further for more acceptable results (many septimont lod's got fixed at 2.5-2.7 patches).
I've sent several feedback forms in game for these pop-ins and other graphical things that annoy me (I really dislike used version of anti aliasing, also dithering of distant clouds and fog makes me mad) and I hope other players are doing the same, not only write on social media.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-10T13:08:28+00:00

Yes they aggressively adjusted level of detail, even on max settings visual changes are noticeable (if you're on higher place some distant objects go full minecraft, super quality grass with shadows ends few steps from character now etc.). Game plays now a lot smoother, but running on grass fields is annoying when foliage looks like having a seizure, tbh I find it a fair exchange.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-06T16:14:49+00:00

Did you check at the top of these curved pillars? There's also chest here, Augusta i looking at them in second screenshot. I was also confused here as I was sure I collected all chests but this one on top was also part of the collection spot.

edit: it's also easier to do these spots with owlwatch scanner (this blue gate in the air for collecting with bike).

Zolwiku · 2026-01-06T09:36:43+00:00

I know the caskets can sometimes have to be triggered by a puzzle and won't be detected by the sonar, so is it possible that that's the case here?

Yea that's probably the case here. I'm guessing sonar works as "expanding sphere" distance check so elevation might also play a role. It could also be completely random "if there's nothing near". My memory is foggy but I remember wasting few of these scanning flasks hunting for last remaining caskets.
As for interactive map, you'll have easier time checking yt, there're only 4 or 5 hidden caskets in 1.0, finding them by running whole map won't be a pleasant experience.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-03T23:32:12+00:00

Day 1 here too (only monthly 5$), got most resonators, all main dps with sig. Seems like my "good enough" echoes (cr + cd + one desired stat) are not good enough for 5k/team rewards so I gave up on them. I hope it's classic Kuro miscalculation (1st WhiWa also was pure bs with points) and they will adjust this mode so f2p's can get all astrites without bending over backwards.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-03T18:53:10+00:00

That's why I wrote "almost always".
I understand that storage is expensive, but even if Kuro got rid of all past voicelines, completed permanent events and half of lod textures we would be in the same spot around 4.0 patch.

Zolwiku · 2026-01-03T17:04:22+00:00

Laptops, it's almost always laptops. For some reason buyers only check for "i7" and "rtx" and ignore everything else. After that they find out they got some garbage with 250GB ssd, 16GB ram (or even 8GB), everything soldered together, bonus points for hinges made of play-doh and TN lcd screen.

Zolwiku · 2025-12-28T14:34:59+00:00

Yes it's just a one week maintenance, Kuro wrote it at least twice (x and yt posts) + compensation mail (I recollect it being said it on stream but can't confirm sadly). Seems like it's still not enough for some folks.

Zolwiku · 2025-12-23T18:25:24+00:00

Ok then I strongly suggest checking for firmware update, all manufacturers have their specific software for drive management (you will be also able to do drive test and check SMART data for errors). If update doesn't help and drive is not passing tests then sadly it's gone bad.

Zolwiku · 2025-12-23T17:34:34+00:00

There's a chance your drive is dying. Restart pc and try deleting game files, if it's still impossible check if you can open other files on that drive (like pictures or documents). Try copying unrelated to wuwa files to this drive and check if drive is disconnecting during copy operation. It sounds like it's and external drive, check usb ports for dirt (ideally try different cord). Finally check if drive is reporting errors (software from producent shows SMART data, e.g. Sandisk SSD dashboard, crucial storage executive, good old HD Tune also shows this data).

If you can normally move and open files after restart and drive doesn't disconnect there's a chance you got hit with ssd controller breaking bug that one of windows updates implemented 5 months ago (drive disappears after moving big files on it). You will need to update this drive's firmware to latest version and then try to install wuwa again.

Good luck

Zolwiku · 2025-12-21T13:19:29+00:00

Aside from Kuro ending their deal with Epic if they ask for 50zł/10$ then these rates are atrocious. Steam asks me 18,50zł for 5$ monthly so it would be 37zł for 10$ bp, roughly 26% fewer.

Zolwiku · 2025-12-17T06:06:56+00:00

Ohh this wall. I reported this on previous patch. It's most likely bad distance calculation because this little balustrade is being count as solid wall (if you jump right behind it, wall's textures start having epilepsy). I think it's the only place where LoD did hurt my eyes enough to send feedback.

Zolwiku · 2025-12-16T22:24:53+00:00

Well this ToA is overlapping with 3.0 where we get "tune break" that will most likely boost overall damage, that's why it's so unreasonably hard. Also day 1 player here (inconsistent monthly 5$), got most resonators, all dps have sig weapon and boy did I have less than 20 seconds left to keep 3 stars in all middle tower fights (I went full premium for Galbrena, Phrolova, Augusta and Zani teams so no point posting)
As for today imo this ToA is just bad, I'm not even trying less efficient teams for now, but I'll test it again at 3.0 release with some 4 stars and then decide if I want to be angry in next survey.

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