2.3.0.0 64 bit, ALT+Tab / Loss of focus causes black scene

[Eric.B]

I didn't have to until I started playing the DLC. If my memory serves me well, it worked fine on the Vanilla.
But it should be noted that Vanilla never gave me problem with DirectX or AltTab (apart waiting 1-2 seconds for the game to render buttons)

Contributors funded Bounty 148, which upgraded the rendering engine we use. We went from a 2018 build to a few weeks old build. Microsoft discontinued DirectX9 in 2011. And Ogre largely depreciated it in favor of DirectX11 several years ago. We're also using Ogre's depreciated Windows API code to create windows. SDL is the recommended and default window maker for Ogre now. In short, the game was written for 2010 tech. Upgrading the libraries did not rewrite what the game was written for. The further we get away from 2010, the more incompatibility bugs unless we fund additional improvements to the engine. For every one bug fix or improvement in Ogre for DirectX9 there are dozens for DirectX11. And some changes to the engine for these more modern renderers likely break the older renderers. Microsoft has shrugged DX9 off to an emulator inside DX12. And even Intel uses WINE from Linux to run DirectX9 with their dedicated GPUs. GC:2nd Gear is probably the largest game, and maybe the only game, using the DirectX9 renderer with the latest Ogre. Anyone who started a game in Ogre after 2013 uses OpenGL3, and anyone after 2017 uses DirectX11. No one is using DirectX9 anymore.

I did warn in this bounty several times that it could introduce more bugs to the game than it fixes. The developers of Ogre removed hack fixes for Microsoft's incompetence with DirectX9. I will upgrade the libraries now and then to keep them fresh until we hit the end of Ogre14. We all can hope that Bounties #146, #147, or #96 improve the situation since they're more modern APIs officially supported by Ogre, driver vendors, and Microsoft.

For now, here are the options:

• You could try installing native DirectX9 instead of using the emulated DX9 that Windows10+ uses now.
  
• You could play in windowed mode and live with using your mouse wheel a little.
  
• You could buy a larger monitor
  
• You could play 2.2.0.0, which is still in the previous builds tab and is the last build using 2018 Ogre. Then hope that I, Ogre (less likely), or Microsoft (unlikely) improve the situation. Or we move to new APIs.
  
• You could install Linux, which the game works flawlessly on.
  

(The screenshot above was taken with a resolution set to 1920x1080 and no visible taskbar)

If you take the picture you uploaded and measure in pixels from the top to the bottom, you'll find that the title bar stops at 44px. This is the default for Windows. If you go to the bottom it stops at 1070px. Assuming you did not resize the photo, 1070px - 44px = 1026px. The rendering window is 1026px tall. 1026px is smaller than 1050px the game needs for the "large" window, so it loads the "small" window. So, this is by design and not a bug. What I can do, however, is disable small reports windows if you have dynamic report sizes enabled. That would give you 100-200 pixels back at the bottom, but you're still not going to see the full sales table without scrolling.

You could resize the window decorations inside windows in the meantime if you really must have those extra pixels in the report. If I recall, there is a small icon settings in Windows that would give you those extra pixels.