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Lizzychicago's avatar
Lizzychicago
Seasoned Rookie
21 days ago

I'm a dummy...

Please don't laugh too hard, though I'm laughing at me, but my game suddenly won't let me minimize the game window so I can go online. I have to shut the game down completely. I know I've had this issue before but darn if I can figure out how I stopped it from happening! Thanks!

  • atreya33's avatar
    atreya33
    Seasoned Veteran

    I know two options 

    • in the game go into settings, then grafics and change to windowed mode
    • Use the keyboard shortcut alt+tab. I use that all the time to switch to a browser 
    • Lizzychicago's avatar
      Lizzychicago
      Seasoned Rookie

      It is in windowed mode so I'll do the alt+ tab. Thank you!!!!!!

    • Lizzychicago's avatar
      Lizzychicago
      Seasoned Rookie

      Tried both, no difference and the ALT+ TAB just shut down the game. I can turn it off, I can't minimize it like I used to. Windowed mode annoys me with the bar on the top. lol I'm fussy.

  • monjr8302's avatar
    monjr8302
    Seasoned Traveler

    It's DirectX11. When you go to the main screen, in the bottom righthand corner it will say the version of the game and DirectX either 9 or 11. Go to settings, game options, and click on DirectX 9 button in the Graphics category. Restart your game and you should now be able to switch screens. I had this same issue and this is the only solution that has worked for me.

  • Lizzychicago  This is a known issue with the DirectX 11 version of Sims 4.  You can switch back to DX9 if you want, or you should be able to select another window while playing in windowed mode if you can click it directly.  If you want to report that you're also affected, please use the master thread on Answers HQ:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/PC/DirectX-11-Technical-Issues-and-Feedback-Thread/td-p/14022619

    Since we have multiple threads covering this issue, on this site and on AHQ, I'll lock this one here.