[VB]Draw time over bf3

Flickering is from the fact that you're drawing on the window's handle and DirectX renders faster than what you're drawing, causing the flicker. Your possible options are to create a form with a transparent background and draw on the form, simulating an overlay. Note that it won't display in fullscreen. You can achieve this by using APIs like FindWindow to get the window's handle (or just use the Process class) and using GetWindowRect/GetClientRect to find the window's size and position (this is to make sure your overlay is always covering over the game's window). Here's some sample code for a simple overlay:

Code:

Me.TransparencyKey = Me.BackColor
Me.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.None

'In a timer with a interval of your choice
Me.TopMost = True

You can also get an overlay working using the 'DwmExtendframeIntoClientArea' function in dwmapi.dll, assuming that Aero is enabled (you can check by using DwmIsCompositionEnabled) and that you're running an OS >= Vista.

Another alternative would be hook DirectX with the help of EasyHook, spazzarama has written a great example (Google it, you'll find it on his blog & on Github) on achieving that in C# (which can be converted to VB.NET). The good thing is that this method does work in fullscreen, the only drawback is that this method can cause problems with Anti-Cheats as they might not like DLLs hooking stuff like EndScene and whatnot. Also, this method would require some serious knowledge of coding, specifically with DirectX wrappers (and DirectX in general) like SlimDX or SharpDX. I'm not sure that you should venture here if you don't know what you're doing.

Lastly, you can use a DirectDraw overlay as another method to achieve this. I remember fiddling with this a while ago but wasn't able to achieve the result I wanted so yeah.

I'm sure there are other options out there, I'm just highlighting a few.

~ master131

 

I've created an example for you (it's been a while since I've coded in VB.NET), I'd give you a screenshot but I don't enough posts to do that yet. I've attached the example project below, enjoy. If you have any questions, let me know.

Just build and run the project. Launch Notepad and the overlay will appear. Try resizing and moving the window, the overlay will adjust accordingly (might be slow, this can be fixed by reducing the timer's interval). Also, I should note that you shouldn't use any non-solid colors, that is any color that does not have an alpha of 255, it won't turn out how you'd expect it to. You can fix this though by adding: g.Clear(Color.FromArgb(0, 0, 0, 0)). However, this adds a terrible flicker, I'm working on that now.

Oh and if anybody uses this code in any of their projects, credits would be nice.

 

The example uses FindWindow to obtain the window handle by using the window's title. I created an overload for your convenience which accepts a window handle (IntPtr) directly.

Replace this line:

Code:

If Not OverlayWindow("Untitled - Notepad", True) Then

with this instead:

Code:

Dim p() As Process = Process.GetProcessesByName("firefox")
If p.Length = 0 OrElse Not OverlayWindow(p(0).MainWindowHandle, True) Then

Also, you can remove this line from Main_Load, I left it there by accident.

Code:

Location = New Point(500, 100)

 

Woops, I wasn't at home and accidently wrote the code like I was coding in C#. I've fixed it now. You can try removing the border if you want, the taskbar will still be there though. Like I said previously, there's no way (that I know of) to make it work in fullscreen.

 

DirectX overlay is possible when the game allow this...

The most of online games have an security to prevent it (Anti-Hack engine).

The non-fullscreen overlay is possible because you can replace any form into the window with a always on top config.

 

You have the "Dll Injection" method. But always an good anti-hack engine detects the abnormal memory access.

The cool method is disable this anti-hack in the memory, but isn't legal..

 

I know this thread is quite old now but I thought I'd revisit it since I'm currently out of the country and bored. I've fixed the problem where transparency is not possible when painting. Enjoy guys.

 

Sorry for the double post but I fixed the revised version again, added the code to reduce CPU usage and fixed the bug where the overlay wouldn't clear when the target window had closed.

Remember that you can make it render faster by changing the TimerRender's Interval to a lower value and that you can change what is drawn onto the window at the bottom of the Paint event Sub that's already there.

If you want to overlay over a specific process rather than the target window's name, refer to the third page (post #28).