How to stop a game pausing when you alt-tab

You alt-tab to check something and come back to a pause menu. Most games pause the moment they lose focus, and few let you turn that off.

How to stop a game pausing on alt-tab

Second Screen Gaming's focus assist, Keep the game running while unfocused, sends the game the same messages Windows sends when you really switch back to it. Two options go with it:

Answer the instant focus is lost replies straight away, before most games' pause screen has time to appear.
Send a key press on focus loss presses a key in the game once each time it loses focus, Esc unless you pick another, to close a pause menu the game opened anyway. Games that read the keyboard at a lower level than normal window messages do not see it.

Unreal Engine games ask Windows directly which window is in front, so the focus assist cannot help them. The app's Unreal audio fix also turns off the engine's own pause on focus loss in Engine.ini, which covers Unreal games that use that setting rather than pause code of their own.

The focus assist is switched off for games where anti-cheat is detected.

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Why games pause when they lose focus

When its window loses focus, a game is told so by Windows, and many games respond by opening their pause menu. On a single screen that is a sensible default, because alt-tabbing usually means you stepped away. On two screens it just gets in the way.

How to stop the pause by hand

Plenty of games have no option for this, but check these first:

Look in the game's settings for "Pause when unfocused", "Pause on focus loss" or "Pause in background". It is often under Gameplay or Interface rather than Video.
Minecraft Java Edition: press F3 + P to stop the game pausing when its window loses focus.
Emulators usually have an option too: Dolphin and PCSX2 both have Pause on Focus Loss.
Unreal Engine games: in the game's Engine.ini under %LOCALAPPDATA%, add:
```
[/Script/Engine.Engine]
bPauseOnLossOfFocus=False
```
If you only need to read or scroll the other screen, skip the click entirely: turn on Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them in Settings, Bluetooth & devices, Mouse.

Common questions

Why does my game freeze instead of showing a pause menu?

That is a different behavior: the game stops its loop without a menu, or Windows slows the background process down. See how to keep a game running when tabbed out.

Why does Esc sometimes open the menu instead of closing it?

The key press is sent once, when focus is lost. A game that had not opened a menu gets an Esc it did not need, so turn the option on only for games that always pause.