Steam Overlay Not Working With Old Lucasarts Games

[Psycho Werekitsune]

I wasn't sure where to post this and I've searched high and low, but haven't been able to find any other reports similar to mine. I have seen threads outlining this issue in individual games, but no one besides me seems to have reported that there is an issue with Steam overlay just straight up not working with old Lucasarts games specifically. These range from the DOSBox emulated ones like Star Wars: Dark Forces, to the old Windows 95/98 ones like Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. When launching these games, there's no prompt for the overlay, and during gameplay, you can't Shift+Tab to pop it up. This is especially frustrating when you want to reference something from a webpage or one of the guides and trying to Alt+Tab causes the PC to crap itself because the resolution on these older games is so low.

Any ideas on how to get the overlay to work? I'm guessing there might be some kind of setting I've overlooked, but I'm not sure why it's affecting these games specifically.

[Iceira]

its simple either its there or not, old games normaly dont have it, or support it, its still game devs that need to fix it, and many have left old titles. abandon ware or outdate games , plenty of them even see game devs get into trouble with enable it because shift and tab interference with the game. i think one of the old tomb raider did that, and game work then overlay was turn off.

but i guess that information is lost in time and accept by most gamers from the past.

this is same as some complain over game bug from a 20 years old game, not going to happend. odds that it will be fixed is so slim.

[Theblaze]

I don't think the steam overlay was designed for screen resolutions below 800x600 or below 640x480, so even if you manage to get it working, it will probably look weird.

[ReBoot]

Change DOSBox' configuration to run in OpenGL instead of the default software renderer. Then the overlay will work.
And fix your graphics driver, alttabbing out of something low-resolution shouldn't cause the PC to crap itself.

[Psycho Werekitsune]

Originally posted by Theblaze:

I don't think the steam overlay was designed for screen resolutions below 800x600 or below 640x480, so even if you manage to get it working, it will probably look weird.

Originally posted by Iceira:

its simple either its there or not, old games normaly dont have it, or support it, its still game devs that need to fix it, and many have left old titles. abandon ware or outdate games , plenty of them even see game devs get into trouble with enable it because shift and tab interference with the game. i think one of the old tomb raider did that, and game work then overlay was turn off.

but i guess that information is lost in time and accept by most gamers from the past.

this is same as some complain over game bug from a 20 years old game, not going to happend. odds that it will be fixed is so slim.

Here's the thing though, I remember them working before, but they stopped after Steam's upgrade to whatever the new system is called.

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Change DOSBox' configuration to run in OpenGL instead of the default software renderer. Then the overlay will work.
And fix your graphics driver, alttabbing out of something low-resolution shouldn't cause the PC to crap itself.

My graphics card drivers are up to date, but if you alt tab out of a game in low resolution, you go back to windows in that same resolution and everything looks ugly and disjointed. Then trying to get back into the game may or may not work.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Psycho Werekitsune:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Change DOSBox' configuration to run in OpenGL instead of the default software renderer. Then the overlay will work.
And fix your graphics driver, alttabbing out of something low-resolution shouldn't cause the PC to crap itself.

My graphics card drivers are up to date, but if you alt tab out of a game in low resolution, you go back to windows in that same resolution and everything looks ugly and disjointed. Then trying to get back into the game may or may not work.

What SHOULD happen, is for the desktop resolution to be restored. Doesn't really matter, I already told you how to get the overlay working. Now do it.

[Iceira]

do check own game setting some of them , can have been turn off in there by devs , not sure its recommended to turn them on if they did that after the discover ingame issue.

and as reboot point out shoud work with most game, unless you run into ingame issue with key combinations or controll issue within the game.

[Psycho Werekitsune]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Doesn't really matter, I already told you how to get the overlay working. Now do it.

You told me what to do, but not how to do it.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Psycho Werekitsune:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Doesn't really matter, I already told you how to get the overlay working. Now do it.

You told me what to do, but not how to do it.

Open the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder and change the apropriate line. Open the readme.txt file in the same folder, it tells you what to change to what.

[Psycho Werekitsune]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Psycho Werekitsune:

You told me what to do, but not how to do it.

Open the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder and change the apropriate line. Open the readme.txt file in the same folder, it tells you what to change to what.

These are the only contents of the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder:

[sdl]
fullscreen=true

[cpu]
cycles=20000

[autoexec]
mount c "game"
c:\
dark.exe
exit

There is also no Readme file in the base game folder. There is one in the DOSBox folder, but that doesn't really tell me anything about changing the graphical settings, from what I can tell.

[Iceira]

did you notice the guide section with dosbox, other seem to have solve that. in ganes own forum.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Psycho Werekitsune:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Open the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder and change the apropriate line. Open the readme.txt file in the same folder, it tells you what to change to what.

These are the only contents of the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder:

[sdl]
fullscreen=true

[cpu]
cycles=20000

[autoexec]
mount c "game"
c:\
dark.exe
exit

There is also no Readme file in the base game folder. There is one in the DOSBox folder, but that doesn't really tell me anything about changing the graphical settings, from what I can tell.

After looking at the DOSBox documentation, I've found the following in that part for the [sdl] section.

output = surface | overlay | opengl | openglnb | ddraw
Default is surface.

[Psycho Werekitsune]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Psycho Werekitsune:

These are the only contents of the DOSBox.conf file in the game folder:

[sdl]
fullscreen=true

[cpu]
cycles=20000

[autoexec]
mount c "game"
c:\
dark.exe
exit

There is also no Readme file in the base game folder. There is one in the DOSBox folder, but that doesn't really tell me anything about changing the graphical settings, from what I can tell.

After looking at the DOSBox documentation, I've found the following in that part for the [sdl] section.

output = surface | overlay | opengl | openglnb | ddraw
Default is surface.

Interesting, this doesn't seem to be included with what I have anywhere in the game's folder. I just tried it though and it doesn't seem to work, unfortunately.

[ReBoot]

You may have to tweak more. I remember playing Dark Forces and having to reconfigure A LOT in DOSBox because Luca's included configuration was an utter piece of crap.
Have you tried all of the available options for output?

[Psycho Werekitsune]

*sigh* guess I'll try to dig deeper and see if anything comes up. Any idea how to solve this issue with the non-DOSBox stuff?

[ReBoot]

Better ask on those games' forums. If they're using a software renderer, there may be a fan patch for DX/OGL. There's also ScumVM (or however it's stylized) to run the old Lucas adventures. That may help.