Fullscreen Alt-Tab Bug: Lots of Information

[Odjur]

What is this bug?

Sometimes, when you alt-tab out of Warframe in Fullscreen mode and then alt-tab back in, your sensitivity changes. The issue is that the game starts using your Windows mouse sensitivity instead of the in-game sensitivities. Once this starts happening, it seems that it only uses your Windows sensitivity while a video (or audio, or both?) is present on the window that you just alt-tabbed from. So for example, alt-tabbing from a Google Chrome tab a playing Youtube video causes this to happen, but alt-tabbing from https://www.warframe.com/ does not.

While it can take a few alt-tabs to get this to start happening, once it starts it always has this effect until you restart the game. Some other actions can cause it to stop happening, such as closing or restarting Windows processes, but it is incredibly inconsistent. One random piece of information about this bug is that it dramatically increases the angle snapping of your cursor for whatever reason.

Something that I have to mention is that the sensitivity only changes until your cursor (even though it is invisible) gets to the boundaries of your screen. This means that if you keep turning your camera left you will eventually get to a point where your camera starts turning at the normal speed again. Moving your mouse to the right would again change your sensitivity, as your cursor would no longer be hitting a boundary.

Another thing is that if this bug is happening, and you alt-tab from a different window causing your sensitivity to return to normal, it seems that audio streams cause your camera to jerk around. I tested this by simply having Discord open in the background and muted/unmuted my microphone to cause the audio notification to play. Every time, if I was moving my camera, it would jerk suddenly in the direction it was moving.

 

What programs do I have open?

The only programs I have running when I test this bug are Google Chrome, Steam and Warframe. I have no non-Windows background programs running.

 

What are my specs?

Windows 10 Home x64 version 10.0.17134

i5-4670k processor

16 GB of RAM

GTX 780 GPU driver version 416.34

ROG Gladius mouse at 400 DPI / 2,000 HZ / angle snapping, acceleration and deceleration disabled

 

Windows, all of my drivers, Google Chrome, Steam and Warframe are all up to date. My mouse has been in both USB 2 and USB 3 ports. This bug has also been present in various hardware, firmware and software including drivers and build versions across many months of tests.

 

What settings have I tested?

I will put "N/A" if the setting does not seem to have an effect on it. Please note that I have not tested every combination of these settings, so it is entirely possible that I miss something important. I will also not be listing every possible setting that can be changed, as there are simply too many, and many settings that might have an effect would negatively affect my experience using my computer elsewhere. That being said, I have tested lots of other settings such as Windows' Enhance pointer precision, NVIDIA Vertical sync and maximum pre-rendered frames, Google Chrome's hardware acceleration, Steam Overlay etc.

 

Windows Mouse Properties

Pointer speed: no effect before the bug starts happening; directly affects your in-game mouse speed afterwards

 

Windows Advanced scaling settings

Let Windows try to fix apps so they're not blurry: N/A

 

NVIDIA Control Panel

Adjust desktop size and position: N/A for all settings

 

Steam

Run as administrator: N/A

 

Warframe excecutables

Run this program in compatibility mode: N/A

Disable fullscreen optimizations: N/A

Run this program as an administrator: N/A

Use this setting to fix scaling problems for this program instead of the one in Settings: N/A

Override high DPI scaling behavior: N/A

 

Warframe Launcher

DirectX 10: N/A

DirectX 11: N/A

 

Warframe

Controls > All sensitivity options: N/A

Interface > UI Cursor Sensitivity: N/A

Display > Display Mode: only affects Fullscreen

 

For the sake of completeness, here are links to other threads that seem to be describing the same issue:

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1014972-pcmouse-sensitivity-issues/?tab=comments#comment-10196004

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1010655-weird-and-strong-mouse-accelleration/?tab=comments#comment-10163341

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1005417-mouse-sensitivity-skyrockets-when-minimized/?tab=comments#comment-10123482

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/976717-mouse-sensitivity-bug/?tab=comments#comment-9921372

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/972462-abnormal-mouse-behavior-after-alt-tabbing-in-fullscreen/?tab=comments#comment-9892778

 

What now?

I can provide more information if someone from DE needs it. I can find more links to more people that are having the same issue.

 

I love playing Warframe and have more than 2,000 hours in it, but frankly I quit playing Warframe a while ago due to this issue hoping that it would get fixed when I came back. I don't mean to be negative but I plan on quitting again if this does not get fixed. This bug makes Warframe unplayable, and I don't know what more I personally can do.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Odjur