PSA - How to disable Origin Overlay

[RayeGunn]

So, I use the Steam Controller, so having the Steam overlay be functional is a pretty big deal for me, but there is a conflict with the Origin Overlay and Steam's overlay, which prevents the Steam overlay from functioning, even if you disable the Origin overlay in the Origin client. (open Origin, and it will be option under settings, you may still need to do this to get the following solutions to work).

There are two main workarounds that have been floating around to get around this.

Workaround 1: The simplest one is to launch the game from Big Picture Mode. I had been doing this for Sims, but this caused massive performance problems in more graphically demanding games like Jedi: Fallen Order. because the Origin Overlay was still running, just in this case the Steam one took priority. Though of course this does mean, you know, you have to use Big Picture Mode, which can be annoying

Workaround 2: Having made sure to disable Origin's overlay from the client, add Origin as a Non Steam Shortcut, use Steam to launch the games from Origin, this will enable the Steam overlay in game. This causes the performance hit to go away, but if you are using a controller to launch this can cause problems, as you will need a mouse to launch the games. And if you are using Steam Input, you will have to switch bindings every time you switch to a different game.

So those are what people had been doing, but this did not satisfy me, so today I decided to get down to the bottom of it, and figure out how to launch the games from the jump menu, or the regular windowed Steam client, and have the Steam overlay work, like in every other game. Doing some digging through processes and other posts about this problem, what appears to be happening is that when you launch a game from Origin, it launches one version of the overlay, and that gets disabled from the settings on the Origin client. But when you launch from Steam, a different version of the overlay gets launched, 'Origin Thin' and this does NOT get disabled when you disable the overlay in the client. So the solution ended up being pretty simple once I knew what was going on.

Workaround 3: Go to your Origin install directory, it should be something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin and delete or rename OriginThinSetupInternal.exe It will not be able to launch the Steam version of the Origin overlay without this file. According to some, deleting igo64.dll may also do the trick, and I deleted it as well for good measure. You may need to re-delete these next time Origin gets updated, as it may put them back. And now, I can launch EA games from the jump menu and have the Steam overlay work.

[DUDEGUY_519]

You are my hero and I can't thank you enough! I no longer need to play BattleFront 2 or NFS: Heat with janky emulated PC controls. I can just use my gamepad!

[RayeGunn]

heh no problem got no replies so wasn't sure if this helped anyone, glad it did!

Tho just thought i should put it out there that the Steam Overlay is a little janky now, even if you set it in Steam to use the BigPicture style overlay, it will still bring up the regular version, which won't allow you to edit control settings. But it works if you launch from Big Picture Mode. But the Steam Input still works, even if the Big Picture overlay isn't working right. So you may have to just use Big Picture Mode until you get your control scheme set up, but then you can use regular windowed version or the jump menu and your controls will still work. Also, one thing i see i forgot to mention - you have to have Origin already open when you launch the game, if you let the game launch Origin at startup it won't work. Otherwise, all the above still applies. Been playing a ton of Sims 4 recently with the Steam Controller and it works fine.