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A meme example about Alt-Tabbing in Video Games.

Alt-Tabbing in Video Games

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Updated Jul 14, 2021 at 12:13PM EDT by Zach.

Added Jul 09, 2021 at 07:40AM EDT by Philipp.

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About

Alt-Tabbing in Video Games refers to a series of memes that reference crashes, freezes and other disruptive effects that can occur when a player alt-tabs from certain video games, primarily those running on Valve's Source engine and Bethesda's Creation engine.

Origin

Alt-tabbing refers to the practice of pressing the alt and tab keys in combination in order to minimize it and/or switch to another open window.[1]

Complaints about disruptive effects when alt-tabbing in video games based on Valve's Source engine, Bethesda's licensed Gamebryo engine and Bethesda's own Creation engine have been a popular topic of discussions on forums since the release of first titles based on those engines (examples shown below, left and right).[2][3] Common effects of alt-tabbing, generally considered more severe in the case of Bethesda games, include crashes, freezes, long delays before gameplay can be resumed and inability to resume gameplay altogether.


Alt-Tabbing Source Games Asked 10 years ago Active 8 years, 7 months ago Viewed 5k times Source games are known to handle rejection poorly. When minimizing or Alt 10 Tab bing out of them, they often freeze up or crash. What are some tricks to minimize the pain? source-engine Adam ET - 21 Aug, 2017 @ 3:25pm Bethesda really don't like Alt- Tabbing, do they? Now, I may not be the most qualified for saying this (As I've only played Skyrim and Fallout 4 [Unless you Count DOOM as a bethesda game), But in my experience, Bethesda games tend to really screw up when you try to tab out of the game. Anyone else bummed about this? I tend to Alt-Tab a lot while playing games, and having to restart the game because I can suddenly see my mouse cursor all the time or the game decides to zoom way to far in whenever I tab back gets really annoying really fast.

On January 30th, 2014, Redditor[4] Very_Juicy posted the earliest found meme that referenced negative effects of alt-tabbing in a video game based on the Source engine. The post received over 500 upvotes in the /r/pcmasterrace subreddit in six months (shown below).

Spread

On the same day, Redditor[5] TeutorixAleria made a post titled "When I alt-tab in a Bethesda game," attaching a solid black image. The post received over 480 upvotes in /r/pcmasterrace six months.

The joke did not see further spread until November 16th, 2018, when Twitter[6] user @riovevo posted a Go Crazy, Go Stupid meme that gained over 22,700 views, 730 retweets and 2,400 likes in three years (shown below).


Starting in November 2020, a number of GIF captions referencing the occurrence have been circulated. For example, on November 20th, iFunny[7] user kekked posted a Walter White Breaks Down meme that gained 14 smiles (authorship unconfirmed; shown below, left). On November 30th, iFunny[8] user mmwide posted a Coraline's Dad GIF caption that received over 120 smiles (shown below, right).


Me when I forget to alt tab gmod before i'm stuck in the loading screen амс pov you just alt tabbed out of a source game THIGA TE

Memes about alt-tabbing in Source and Bethesda games saw further spread in 2021 with viral posts on Reddit and Twitter. For example, on February 9th, 2021, Redditor[9] adam_dont_ask posted a meme that received over 23,300 upvotes in the /r/dogelore subreddit in six months. On July 6th, content creator facu posted a Regular Show meme that gained over 2,100 retweets and 9,200 likes on Twitter[10] and 141,000 views on YouTube[11] in four days.

Various Examples


ATRADE OFFERA i receive: you receive: ALT TAB BETHESDA GAME STUDIOS DDismas1 NO. WAIT! DON'T ALT TAB! PUBLIC NOTICE CLOSED THIS IS A SOURCE GAM- PUBLIC NOTICE CLOSED alt tabbed out of a Source game

Search Interest

External References

[1] Wikipedia – Alt-Tab

[2] Arqade – Alt-Tabbing Source Games

[3] Steam – Bethesda really don't like Alt-Tabbing, do they?

[4] Reddit – When I alt-tab while playing a game on the Source engine. [Just Masterrace Things].

[5] Reddit – When I alt-tab in a Bethesda game

[6] Twitter – @riovevo

[7] iFunny – kekked

[8] iFunny – mmwide

[9] Reddit – Le crash has arrived

[10] Twitter – @some_ape

[11] YouTube – muscle man alt tabs during a source game

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Top Comments

Timey16
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Timey16

This problem could never really be solved. Across all engines. It was ever only a coinflip.

Which is why almost all new games run on Borderless Window by default rather than exclusive fullscreen. A lot of fullscreen modes nowadays are kind of "fake".

Once you play Source or Bethesda games in Windowed mode, they suddenly can handle alt tabbing.

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Kommando_Kaijin
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Kommando_Kaijin

I just learned about this shortcut now, this whole time I've been using Ctrl+Alt+Del to open the Task Manager, freeing my cursor so I can do stuff in my second monitor while I wait or whatnot.

Source games usually just close and open with no problem for me.

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