Game should be paused when its window is minimized

[mity]

Hello,

occasionally, especially in few minutes after booting the machine, something in my Windows 10 installation tends to steal keyboard focus (still trying to detect what it is); in other times some other work is executed in the background on my machine and, unfortunately, on Windows some 3rd party scripts tend to open e.g. Notepad to show some error logs when something goes wrong.

In either case the result is that the full-screen window of ATS (or ETS2) is minimized and looses keyboard focus. However, if you are running at 65 MPH at the moment, it may have quite unfortunate consequences because usually I am not fast enough to return to the game in time to save the situation...

Please, make the game pause whenever it looses the keyboard focus or gets deactivated. WM_KILLFOCUS and/or WM_ACTIVATE with wparam == WA_INACTIVE are your friends. Such a simple change, yet it would make my day.

Best regards,
Mity

[cowhand214]

I'd like to add my request to this. Something has happened recently where the game is minimized automatically in favor of something in Windows. I've not figured out what has changed with either ATS or my computer that is causing this but clearly something is. It's an inconvenience when doing "normal" jobs since if anything catastrophic happens before I can get focus back to the game I can just reload a save. However, when doing external contracts (which is what I primarily like to do) this reload is not possible meaning the potential for significant time lost to a job that can no longer be completed.

@mity have you any suggestions on tracking down what might be causing this loss of focus?

[Reignman]

I'll go ahead and 3rd this, but for a different reason. Sometimes I minimize the game to do other things, like look something up online or to enter log info into a spreadsheet, but the game takes up a lot of resources on my old crappy machine, making it difficult to do any of these things without quitting the game first.

I play another game called Kerbal Space Program and it has a "simulate in background" option in the settings. If selected, the game will keep running in the background like normal when you have it minimized, but if you don't select it, it automatically pauses the game and gives back a lot of PC resources allowing me to do other things without having to quit/restart the game. That game takes 8 minutes to load lol, so it's important. At least ATS starts up relatively quickly, but it would still be nice to be able to minimize and do other things if needed.

[Etrusan]

Please don't do this. Or if you do, make it an option.

[Reignman]

Quote removed

Yeah exactly, I'd like to see it as an "option" in the gameplay settings or at least hidden in the config file. Like I mentioned in the other game I play.

I play another game called Kerbal Space Program and it has a "simulate in background" option in the settings.

[HammerBarce]

I have the exact same problem because of Logitech Unifying Receiver software, which is needed for my wireless mouse and keyboard, sometimes it steal focus and when I maximize the game again, my truck is crashed.
I understand that is Logitech's fault, but most games pause when minimized and I don't see why it would not be a viable thing to do in ETS2 and ATS.

[Bromstine]

I'm nthing this "add an option to pause the game when it loses input focus". With an EMPHASIS on *OPTION*. And if any naysayers can give me a compelling reason for not having this *AS AN OPTION*, please do. (I know you exist…)