Please fix the Steam overlay to allow 3rd party monitoring, such as afterburner.

[killtrix52]

Something needs to be done about he exclusivity check that doesn't allow the RTSS/MSI Afterburner overlay to work alongside the Steam overlay. Because the Steam overlay intentionally kills it's own process as soon as RTSS is detected, the Steam controller doesn't function properly in some games as long as MSI Afterburner is running with the on screen display enabled.

In the past, there had been a workaround that the creator of RTSS had been using to allow us to run both simultaneously, but they opted not to include it in the new version, so that Steam could finally fix the real issue on this end.

It is well known that thousands upon thousands of us use RTSS to display things onscreen, and it is definitely time that the issue was patched on the Steam side of things, so that people like me can use the Steam Controller that I paid good money for, as well as have my monitoring program up, which is important for those of us who overclock our PC, or anyone who would like to keep tabs on their system whilst playing a game.

[Vepar]

The overlay could use a lot of work... Not just this...

[cammelspit]

To be fair, if the overlay uses the same method to hook in, it WILL conflict. There isn't a lot that can be done other than completely redoing it entirely with a different method, then other ones will stop working. Uplay overlay works at the same time and Origin doesn't. Steam's overlay has issues for sure but there are some things that can't be changed.

Specifically, RTSS is pretty easy to get working alongside steam overlay. Open game, THEN open RTSS and boom, it works. RTSS conflicts somehow with Steam's detection because it tries to put itself first before steam, Origin does the same thing BTW. I know that RTSS blames steam but in reality, the steam overlay is more important, especially for SC users. What they need to do is have a short 5-second delay before hooking into the game so steam can cleanly start it's overlay first. Would take the RTSS DEV literally 15 minutes of work but then they couldn't blame steam for their laziness. RTSS is the third party app and if they want steam users to use it then they need to work around steam, NOT the other way around.

Am I saying that the steam overlay, especially the BPM one, is perfect? No, far from it. What I am saying is everyone blames steam all the time when I would be willing to bet this is a feature made so that third party apps can't be the cause of crashes and problems by FORCING themselves to be before steam, which is stupid on their part. Valve would be responsible for all the crashing and instability caused by the other overlays if they changed this behavior and it makes perfect sense.

Took my about 40 seconds on google to both install RTSS, find the solution, find the technical reason it doesn't work and test it.

I hope this helps you out.

[cammelspit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHKoqlxoz64

Sorry it took a minute for this to process or I would have included it in my last post. I also chose batman because if anything was gonna not work, I would have expected it to be this game. :D

[killtrix52]

Originally posted by cammelspit:

What they need to do is have a short 5-second delay before hooking into the game so steam can cleanly start it's overlay first. Would take the RTSS DEV literally 15 minutes of work but then they couldn't blame steam for their laziness. RTSS is the third party app and if they want steam users to use it then they need to work around steam, NOT the other way around.

Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with you here. That's actually what is most frustrating about this whole thing. Here is the snippet from update: "64-bit Steam overlay library has been removed from delayed hooking engine configuration. Now On-Screen Display is being rendered immediately after starting 64-bit Steam applications without 15 second delay"

So basically, there actually used to be a 15 second delay to avoid this issue, and they actually went out of their way to remove it, simply because they said that they are tired of fixing a problem, that, in thier opinion, Steam should fix in the first place. The Afterburner and RTSS creator/moderator at Guru3D, Unwinder, said in the forums there that removing it would force Steams hand, so that they would come up with a solution to the problem on their side instead of 3rd parties having to use a workaround.

As a sidenote, I must say that as much as I love RTSS and Afterburner, that Unwinder guy is an absolute jackass. 99.9% of all comments he posts to people are condescending, and bull headed. Instead of answering polite and thoughtful questions that people had posed, he seemed to do nothing but talk down to them with some snarky comment about how they aren't smart enough to look up answers, or didn't have the brains understand how this or that works, etc., etc. Just reading through that stuff today makes me seriously wish there was another program that was as intuitive as his, so that I wouldn't be providing any support to someone who seems to be such a scumbag.

It should come as no surprise I suppose that he would have such a stance towards this situation, and would remove a perfectly decent solution to a problem that affects so many, just to prove some point.

[cammelspit]

I saw that myself but I wasn't sure if it used to work that way or not so I didn't mention it. The thing we have to remember here IMO is that Valve is a paid for service. They provide games and they do need to be able to control their own overlay directly. I can't blame Valve for making this check, really. I can also see how useful the app would be since until today, I had never used RTSS before. If a third part just plays nice with the steam overlay it works great. I recently got the crew for free off of Uplay and their overlay works fine at the same time even.

Taking your comments about the DEV of RTSS at face value, it makes me wonder if having his overlay start first is more of an ego maneuver. 'MY app is designed to start first, you are the ones who have to work around ME!' You know? Like I said, Valve has a lot of stuff they have done wrong but the overlay for Steam has worked this way for the last thirteen years, there is no excuse not to know this is how Valve has it designed.

I am glad you at least have an answer to your problem here, even if it isn't what we all would like to see.

Good Luck, if you find anything that works as well, let me know. :D

Have fun and happy gaming!

[RexEasily(xGunner)]

Just replying so I can dig into this more tomorrow

[hulkenstrong]

I have used RTSS and Afterburner for a long time. Newer had any real problem. About a while ago I did have to enable Stealth mode and/or CustomD3D mode but that's all that I have ever needed to do to get the RTSS overlay to play nice with Steam overlay.

This is only enabled for some games not all (that I can remember at least).