Every now and then when I play games or use other fullscreen applications and Alt-Tab out of it to do something else, games I play crash in some wierd way that makes me unable to go back into the game and continue.
Problem is that there is a black overlay on screen so that I can't do anything else on the computer other than accessing the Win 8 start menu and taskbar.
Trying to force quit the game process with Alt-F4 doesn't work and the task manager and any other program is behind the black overlay, uninteractable.
I'm thinking of making some program that is capable of force closing the game, but I'm not sure how to detect the correct process to close yet.
Does anyone have any solution to this problem, which I assume is somewhat common, or do I have to keep restarting the computer every time this happens?
I would ask on like the steam forums, but I think I'll get better answers here :P
I think it depends on the game. I've run into a few that do that, too. Unfortunately, if Alt+F4 and CTRL+ALT+Delete don't do anything, I'm usually stuck with the force shutdown route as well. Some games have work-arounds, like Silent Hill 2 requiring you to set it to having a thread affinity to a particular core using the task manager in order to avoid that kind of thing. I don't know of any overarching solution to all of them, though.
When this happens to me, I usually just wait it out. Sounds boring, I know, but I have a nice TV and sound bar in my room that keeps me distracted while it fixes itself. It can take anywhere from 5-30 minutes though! o.o
Waiting doesn't fix it though, it's stuck until I reset the computer.