Update 0.9 -DirectX Overlay and New Achievements-

In-Game Overlay

We are excited to announce that we now have a basic in-game version of the overlay available. Achievements and kill-streaks will now show up in the game through DirectX! We'll be making a ton of improvements and adding a lot more to this in the future.

A hotkey (defaults to tilde ~) is used for displaying a stats screen similar to pressing Tab for scores. If you use tilde for something else, make sure you remap it if you plan to use the overlay by going to Tools -> Options -> Configure -> Stats Hot Key.

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Requirements
1. Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 x86 / x64 Runtime is required depending on which PS2 client you use. This will automatically be installed upon activating the D3D overlay.
2. It is recommended you have RTST open and be logged in prior to starting PlanetSide 2. An achievement message will show up in PlanetSide 2 when a connection is first established.
3. Both RTST and PS2 should run on same account level. If one is running as administrator the other must be too.


SOE Reviewed
This process works similar to how Mumble does. We've been working with SOE on making sure we do this right. They have taken a look at it and have given us permission to release it publicly (thanks Higby).


Cumulative Patch Notes

-New Features-
An in-game overlay through DirectX is now available for viewing achievements and killstreaks along with a stats display via hotkey.
Use the streaming overlay menu to adjust the in-game positions or disable certain elements.
A hotkey for the stats display can be set through options. The default is tilde ~
Added many new achievement icons and descriptions.
Added audible indicator when the monitored player comes online or offline.

-New Achievements-
Road Kills are back and will no longer be rewarded when a vehicle is destroyed killing nearby enemies.
Air to Air kills are now tracked with progressing rewards (4 total). These are the old ESF achievements. Non air to air ESF achievements have been merged with the old liberator achievements which are now Air 2 Ground rewards.
Decimation achievement has been updated to be more accurate.
Achievement Pizza Delivery added when killing a manned vehicle with a tank mine.
Achievement Fly swatter added when killing a manned ESF with a tank main weapon (not sky guard).
Achievement Iced added when killing a number of players with an ice weapon.
Achievement He's on Fire added when killing a number of players with a fire work.
Achievement Care Bear Stare added when killing a number of players with the Lancer (we could not help it).
Negative Achievement Nice things added when suiciding a gal or sundy that has a bunch of allies inside (slaughtering them).
Achievement Shoot the Needle added when killing a drop pod.
Achievement Kamikaze added when ramming a hostile to death with an ESF, killing yourself in the process.
Achievement First Blood added and awarded if you kill a player within one minute of you coming online.
Monitors players that go offline within 10 seconds of killing them, and awards the Rage Quit achievement when they do.
Awards Submission achievement if someone Rage Quits after you have killed them at least 3 times.
Killing occupied vehicles with a rocket launcher no longer counts toward Rocket Primary.

-Bug Fixes-
Added better handling to joining threads to prevent possible lockups.
Fixed a potential crash issue when killing N/A players on your own team. (Welcome to PlanetSide, right?)
The streaming overlay will display duplicate achievements in succession once again.
Fixed a long outstanding memory leak with the Streaming Overlay when switching to and from editing mode.

This is currently published as a beta release right now (you will only get it if you've opted in in options for the beta release). Please provide your feedback in this thread (especially any bugs you see).

While this is a usable overlay that is quite nice to have to show achievemet pop ups and kill streak counters (as well as essential in-game stats for those players that only have one monitor), this is essentially a tech demo that we really need tested properly so we can ensure it's ready for main stream release and further development (features).

I got asked about using this in-game in a tell a few weeks ago. I sadly told them no as it was currently impossible, but this is f'ing cool. Thanks!

For those that don't know (just figured this out), to enable beta participation open your the real time stat tracker > tools > options > configure and under program click the "beta participation" box. Then close the real time stat tracker, open it again, and it should prompt you with an update.

Looking forward to testing this. Good shit guys this is fucking epic i fucking love you shananana.

Silencer that animated gif in your avatar freaks me out.

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Originally Posted by Sinist

Silencer that animated gif in your avatar freaks me out.

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You can blame me for that.

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Originally Posted by Exploding Fist

You can blame me for that.

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Fixed

Any way to disable the sounds you get when logging into or out of a character in game without disabling the voice overs? I just find the little bleeping noises a bit harsh on the ears.

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Originally Posted by Aceryx

Any way to disable the sounds you get when logging into or out of a character in game without disabling the voice overs? I just find the little bleeping noises a bit harsh on the ears.

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Not yet specifically, but I suppose that might be a reasonable request for someone that logged in and out 25 times to get "first blood" :v:

Yes you can by disabling System Sounds. But that will disable Session Started, Ended, and vocal Update notifications.

Great job, guys!

As per every other release of the Tracker, this had added yet more longevity to the game.

Very nice work!

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Originally Posted by Exploding Fist

Not yet specifically, but I suppose that might be a reasonable request for someone that logged in and out 25 times to get "first blood" :v:

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Just doing my part to ensure the release of quality Recursion content. =P

Little bug:
1. Open RTST and make sure that you already have some old characters listed.
2. Pick one (character: Y) press Start (notice Session started).
3. Stop Session and close RTST.
4. Open Planetside 2 and on login screen make new character (character: X ).
5. Kill some, die.
6. Close Planetside 2
7. Open RTST.
8. Try to add character: X into list.
9. Press "Start" and notice It will not connect character. Start button gets stuck.
10. Try to pick character: Y from the list.
11. Notice Start button is still stuck and you need to Exit RTST to fix this issue.

Suggestion: In addition to "Shoot the needle" add "Iron Dome" after you kill 5 drop pods in a row. :P

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Originally Posted by Seff

Little bug:
1. Open RTST and make sure that you already have some old characters listed.
2. Pick one (character: Y) press Start (notice Session started).
3. Stop Session and close RTST.
4. Open Planetside 2 and on login screen make new character (character: X ).
5. Kill some, die.
6. Close Planetside 2
7. Open RTST.
8. Try to add character: X into list.
9. Press "Start" and notice It will not connect character. Start button gets stuck.
10. Try to pick character: Y from the list.
11. Notice Start button is still stuck and you need to Exit RTST to fix this issue.

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Thanks. We'll look into that. The intended result is not being able to add 'new' characters at all because the API doesn't have data on them.

Beautiful work! Really makes the game worth playing ...

Tried out the in-game overlay; looks really good. Not sure how I managed to do it (yet), but the overlay stopped working at some point during my 2 hour play. It still provided the call-outs and the achievement pop-up.

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Originally Posted by eufie

Tried out the in-game overlay; looks really good. Not sure how I managed to do it (yet), but the overlay stopped working at some point during my 2 hour play. It still provided the call-outs and the achievement pop-up.

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Someone else reported the same issue. If you can figure out anything that happened at the same time that could have potentially caused it, we'd love to know.

I cant figure out how to get the new ingame overlay working. I enable the ingame overlay, enter my character name and hit start. Then I start planetside 2, log in and it's still not there. Am I doing something wrong?

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Originally Posted by darkshadows120

I cant figure out how to get the new ingame overlay working. I enable the ingame overlay, enter my character name and hit start. Then I start planetside 2, log in and it's still not there. Am I doing something wrong?

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That sounds like you're doing it right. Are you running the tracker with Administrative rights?

Ok... I guess I forgot to do that :P It works now! Thanks!

its still not working for me. do i have to open PS2 as an administrator as well?

like i get the login sounds. but no actual visuals

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Originally Posted by MasterChief1962TR

like i get the login sounds. but no actual visuals

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So you're starting the recursion client first as administrator, then the PS2 client, and you're not seeing an overlay?

To answer your question, my guess is yes. We have administrative access so we only ran into the admin issue when we gave it out last night. If you can try some different scenarios for troubleshooting that'd be helpful, but go with the assumption that administrative rights is required. Once we understand the requirements we should hopefully be able to code logic in to check for it.

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Originally Posted by Exploding Fist

Someone else reported the same issue. If you can figure out anything that happened at the same time that could have potentially caused it, we'd love to know.

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I'll see what I can do. Glad to see the improvements to the tracker; have to keep a mental note to start it whenever I play though. :P

Seems pretty smooth, for recording purposes, does the overlay pipe out through the same window as PS2. For instance, in open broadcaster, if we have ps2.exe set for game capture, will it grab the overlay?

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Originally Posted by Stygiis

Seems pretty smooth, for recording purposes, does the overlay pipe out through the same window as PS2. For instance, in open broadcaster, if we have ps2.exe set for game capture, will it grab the overlay?

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Technically, yes. More accurately it uses the same D3D device PS2 is using. Unfortunately more than likely OBS will perform a similar hook that we are and intercept the DirectX calls prior it to reaching the tracker. Meaning you will see the overlay, but your viewers won't unless you run in Windowed / Full-Screen windowed.

This is what the streaming overlay is for. You can always configure the streaming overlay to only display achievements/killstreaks as well if you want it to match the in-game version.

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Originally Posted by MasterChief1962TR

its still not working for me. do i have to open PS2 as an administrator as well?

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This seemed to fix the issues I was having getting it to run. I was running PS2 through steam and having no luck and crashing much more than usual. The simple solution is to run the game from outside of steam and run it as administrator. That seems to have taken care of the problem. I would give that a shot

EDIT: So this didn't actually work as I thought and caused problems with the mumble overlay. Currently not running the overlay to get things working

Try running mumble as admin along with ps2 and rtst. Or run all not as admin.

One thing I've noticed is if I tab out, occasionally when I tab back in the overlay hotkey stops bringing the overlay up.

Permanently? Or just on the first key press? It will take a second to reestablish a connection after an alt tab

I gave it some time and it was permanent when the issue happened. I even hit some of my overlay/tabbing keys to release the key locks.

What about achievements or ks notifications?

As far as I could tell the ks notifications were working, but I didn't really get to test that thoroughly after the key stopped responding.

I can now confirm, the key (or key listener perhaps) stops working, but the overlay achievements do pop-up stilll and are visible.

Thank you. You have no idea how helpful that is in debugging it.

When it happens again, can you go under Tools -> Options -> Configure and uncheck stats hotkey. Press save. Then go back into options and turn it back on again? All without quitting PlanetSide and let me know if it works again?

This is working fairly well for me so far. Nice work.

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Originally Posted by Silencer

Thank you. You have no idea how helpful that is in debugging it.

When it happens again, can you go under Tools -> Options -> Configure and uncheck stats hotkey. Press save. Then go back into options and turn it back on again? All without quitting PlanetSide and let me know if it works again?

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Will do the next time I'm in game. Also, I do my best. I'm a Computer Scientist myself, the woes of debugging are all too real for me.

Yeah I was thinking it was the key listener and saw you also suggested it. When you uncheck / save it, it should remove the Windows hook that was placed. Then place it once you check and save.

When the error next occurs, another test you can do is try changing the hotkey. It uses the same listener as in-game.

All of my time at the moment is spent on getting the overlay working for x64 Planetside so I really appreciate the debugging help.