Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-28 06:25:32 #1 The StarCraft II Automatic Game Start Switcher

Current version: 0.2

Last updated: Feb. 27th, 2012



+ Show Spoiler [Version history] + Feb. 27 - v0.2 - R1CH told me to rewrite the program in C#, so I did. It's a lot cleaner now (it doesn't use exec calls to reg.exe or any VBScript).

Feb. 26 - v0.1 - The first version, written in Java.



The problem:

- In between ladder games, I often alt-tab out and browse Reddit. However, I often get distracted and forget to alt-tab back in time, missing out on the first couple seconds of the game.



Existing solution #1 and why it sucks:

- When StarCraft II is set to fullscreen mode, Windows will automatically switch to the loading screen when it begins the map loading procedure.

- This is only a halfway solution, since the loading process can take many minutes to complete. This is especially true when playing particular arcade maps with many players; I should not have to be staring at the screen waiting for the game to load for 5+ minutes at a time.

- In windowed fullscreen mode, this functionality is not present at all. Many people play in windowed fullscreen mode since it is much easier to alt-tab in and out of the game. With some exceptions, windowed fullscreen is also necessary if you want to stream.



Existing solution #2 and why it sucks:

- In the sound part of the options, there is a "Play in Background" checkbox. When this option is selected, StarCraft sounds will still be heard even when you are alt-tabbed out of the game.

- Most StarCraft players disable the in-game music and soften the in-game sounds in order to better hear their own music/Skype. When a game starts, there is hardly any sound whatsoever, just the soft ambient sounds of your workers mining. This is virtually impossible to hear over loud music.

- The countdown timer is generally very loud and can be heard over music. However, this only notifies you to the beginning of the loading of the map, not the actual beginning of the game. To reiterate, the loading process can take many minutes to complete. This is especially true when playing particular arcade maps with many players; I should not have to be staring at the screen waiting for the game to load for 5+ minutes at a time.



My solution:

- I wrote a tiny program to automatically bring the SC2 window into the foreground after a game has finished loading. All you have to do is start the program; you can then minimize the window if you want.



Requirements:

- Windows



Download:

- https://mega.co.nz/#!sdIjzJpQ!TONuu1hxB7k0tmnywErwKWBaK5JIvucedIRRGbLgGIU



Legality:

- This program doesn't read SC2 memory, only the registry entries that the



Bugs:

- The game doesn't write the APM to the registry fast enough in order to allow for a completely instant switch. Normally, the in-game timer will read 0:02 by the time the switch occurs. But that's still pretty fast and better than nothing. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know!

- I've only tested this on my own machine, which is a 64-bit Windows 8. Feel free to provide feedback if it doesn't work for you.



Source (if you want to compile it yourself or see how it works):

+ Show Spoiler [Program.cs] + using System;

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

using System.Threading;

using Microsoft.Win32;



namespace SC2GameStartSwitcher

{

class Program

{

//Import the FindWindow API to find our window

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "FindWindow")]

private static extern IntPtr FindWindowNative(string className, string windowName);



//Import the SetForeground API to activate it

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SetForegroundWindow")]

private static extern IntPtr SetForegroundWindowNative(IntPtr hWnd);



public static IntPtr FindWindow(string className, string windowName)

{

return FindWindowNative(className, windowName);

}



public static IntPtr SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd)

{

return SetForegroundWindowNative(hWnd);

}



public static void Activate(string title)

{

//Find the window, using the Window Title

IntPtr hWnd = FindWindow(null, title);

if (hWnd.ToInt32() > 0) //If found

{

SetForegroundWindow(hWnd); //Activate it

}

}



static void Main()

{

int gameState = 0;

RegistryKey MyReg = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey

("Software\\Razer\\Starcraft2", true);

MyReg.SetValue("APMValue", "1000");



Console.WriteLine("

Welcome to the StarCraft II Automatic Game Start Switcher.

");

Console.WriteLine("Game scanning initiated. Feel free to minimize this window.");



while (true)

{

if (gameState == 0) { // in menus

Thread.Sleep(2000); // pause for 2 seconds

if ((int)MyReg.GetValue("StartModule") == 1) {

gameState = 1;

}

} else if (gameState == 1) { // a game is loading

Thread.Sleep(10); // pause for 10 milliseconds

if (!MyReg.GetValue("APMValue").Equals("1000")) {

Activate("StarCraft II");

gameState = 2;

}

} else if (gameState == 2) { // in a game

Thread.Sleep(2000); // pause for 2 seconds

if ((int)MyReg.GetValue("StartModule") == 0) {

gameState = 0;

MyReg.SetValue("APMValue", "1000");

}

}

}

}



}

}



Enjoy! Current version: 0.2Last updated: Feb. 27th, 2012- In between ladder games, I often alt-tab out and browse Reddit. However, I often get distracted and forget to alt-tab back in time, missing out on the first couple seconds of the game.- When StarCraft II is set to fullscreen mode, Windows will automatically switch to the loading screen when it begins the map loading procedure.- This is only a halfway solution, since the loading process can take many minutes to complete. This is especially true when playing particular arcade maps with many players; I should not have to be staring at the screen waiting for the game to load for 5+ minutes at a time.- In windowed fullscreen mode, this functionality is not present at all. Many people play in windowed fullscreen mode since it is much easier to alt-tab in and out of the game. With some exceptions, windowed fullscreen is also necessary if you want to stream.- In the sound part of the options, there is a "Play in Background" checkbox. When this option is selected, StarCraft sounds will still be heard even when you are alt-tabbed out of the game.- Most StarCraft players disable the in-game music and soften the in-game sounds in order to better hear their own music/Skype. When a game starts, there is hardly any sound whatsoever, just the soft ambient sounds of your workers mining. This is virtually impossible to hear over loud music.- The countdown timer is generally very loud and can be heard over music. However, this only notifies you to the beginning of the loading of the map, not the actual beginning of the game. To reiterate, the loading process can take many minutes to complete. This is especially true when playing particular arcade maps with many players; I should not have to be staring at the screen waiting for the game to load for 5+ minutes at a time.- I wrote a tiny program to automatically bring the SC2 window into the foreground after a game has finished loading. All you have to do is start the program; you can then minimize the window if you want.- Windows- This program doesn't read SC2 memory, only the registry entries that the Razer APM peripherals access in order to glow the different colors. Thus, if you use it, you don't have to be worried about being banned for "hacking" or whatnot.- The game doesn't write the APM to the registry fast enough in order to allow for a completely instant switch. Normally, the in-game timer will read 0:02 by the time the switch occurs. But that's still pretty fast and better than nothing. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know!- I've only tested this on my own machine, which is a 64-bit Windows 8. Feel free to provide feedback if it doesn't work for you.Enjoy! "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

Nuclease Profile Joined August 2011 United States 1044 Posts #2 I'm currently studying Computer Science in my university studies.



I can say that I'm very impressed with how simple this program is! I haven't looked through all the code yet, but I see no problems with it. I'm gonna try it later today and see how it goes. Thanks for writing this and letting it be known. Cheers! Zealots, not zee-lots. | Never forget, KTViolet, Go)Space. | You will never be as good as By.Flash, and your drops will never be as sick as MMA.

501TFX Profile Joined March 2011 Austria 345 Posts #3 Awesome little program!



I know that doesn't really help all that much, but I just wanted to say, SC2 actually does exactly that in fullscreen mode (Just that you get thrown into the loading screen, not the game), but yeah I know, a lot of people play in windowed fullscreen, so this could get pretty handy Never let your dreams fade, run after them, run until you get them !

dsjoerg Profile Joined January 2012 United States 384 Posts #4 I had no idea that Starcraft is writing your APM into the registry. Seems to be so that some Razer peripheral can somehow glow based on your APM or something? Very interesting.



I wonder if that APM is just as bugged as the Score Screen APM?



Nicely done card-carrying grubby fan. developer of GGTracker.

DanTastiX Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 36 Posts #5 Im using the Starcraft sound in the background, so I will automatically hear when a game starts. Didnt disappoint me until today :p

Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-26 22:09:44 #6 SC2 actually does exactly that in fullscreen mode (Just that you get thrown into the loading screen, not the game)



Correct, but I think that the default behavior should be to switch when the game has finished loading, as opposed to when it starts loading. This is especially true in Arcade games, since people can often take up to 5+ minutes to load, and there's a significant amount of Reddit that I can consume in that time!



Correct, but I think that the default behavior should be to switch when the game has finished loading, as opposed to when it starts loading. This is especially true in Arcade games, since people can often take up to 5+ minutes to load, and there's a significant amount of Reddit that I can consume in that time! Seems to be so that some Razer peripheral can somehow glow based on your APM or something?



Yes. See

I am fond of Razer for their various eSports sponsorships, but having a mouse that glows different colors based on your APM is probably the most bullshit computer product ever conceived. =)



Yes. See http://www.razerzone.com/licensed-and-team-peripherals/starcraft-2-hots I am fond of Razer for their various eSports sponsorships, but having a mouse that glows different colors based on your APM is probably the most bullshit computer product ever conceived. =) I wonder if that APM is just as bugged as the Score Screen APM?



I haven't tried, but I would assume that it's the same thing as the in-game APM.



I haven't tried, but I would assume that it's the same thing as the in-game APM. Im using the Starcraft sound in the background, so I will automatically hear when a game starts.



This is true, but I would go as far as to say that most StarCraft plays disable the in-game music and listen to their own. This is true, but I would go as far as to say that most StarCraft plays disable the in-game music and listen to their own. "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

DanTastiX Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 36 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-26 22:19:35 #7 Well, Im not talking about the ingame-music, Im talking about the actual sound. I also got the music disabled. Or do you even play without the sounds? Would be quite a pain in the ass for me not having any sound in battles for example.

Horuku Profile Blog Joined August 2010 United States 404 Posts #8 Is there a reason you made all the methods statics? Also, why do you do reader.readLine() 3 times in a row? Also, use enums instead of numbers to represent your game states :D .



Nit picks really, good job! d<^^>b

R1CH Profile Blog Joined May 2007 Netherlands 10026 Posts #9 I'm a bit worried about the performance concerns of spawning 100 reg.exe processes per second, especially from Java. Isn't there a native method you can use to access the registry? Or maybe use C# to avoid all the horrible interop? Administrator Twitter: @R1CH_TL

Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-26 22:36:13 #10 Well, Im not talking about the ingame-music, Im talking about the actual sound. I also got the music disabled. Or do you even play without the sounds?



I play with the sounds. I see now that you are referring to the "Play in Background" check-box that appears in the sound options. This is not optimal because, during the beginning of a game, there is hardly any sound whatsoever, just the soft ambient sounds of your workers mining. If you are playing loud or complex music, there's no way that you will be able to hear these sounds.



I play with the sounds. I see now that you are referring to the "Play in Background" check-box that appears in the sound options. This is not optimal because, during the beginning of a game, there is hardly any sound whatsoever, just the soft ambient sounds of your workers mining. If you are playing loud or complex music, there's no way that you will be able to hear these sounds. Is there a reason you made all the methods statics?



No.



No. Also, why do you do reader.readLine() 3 times in a row?



To get the line that specifically has the data that I want. (Type in "reg query HKCU\Software\Razer\Starcraft2 /v APMValue" into a command prompt.)



To get the line that specifically has the data that I want. (Type in "reg query HKCU\Software\Razer\Starcraft2 /v APMValue" into a command prompt.) I'm a bit worried about the performance concerns of spawning 100 reg.exe processes per second, especially from Java. Isn't there a native method you can use to access the registry? Or maybe use C# to avoid all the horrible interop?



Haha, I'll try rewriting it in C#. Give me a few hours. =p Haha, I'll try rewriting it in C#. Give me a few hours. =p "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

DanTastiX Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 36 Posts #11 Actually I was talking about the Countdown-Noise which is quite catchy in my opinion :D Anyways, I guess this programm can be handy for some people out there.

mousewiz Profile Joined February 2013 Canada 18 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-26 22:52:05 #12 *runs off to put a rootkit called "reg" in everyone's download directory*

Well, not really, but exec("notAFullPath") is sketchy as hell. Actually, exec is sketchy as hell, but full paths make it a little better. Edit: Actually I was thinking Java did something that Java probably doesn't do, so download directory would not be sufficient, but it's still definitely exploitable.



I'd also be worried about leaking file descriptors with all your exec calls. You also leak if is.read throws, for example. I'm not sure how big an issue this is on Windows, but I know you're risking trouble on Unixy systems.

Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-27 06:12:05 #13



+ Show Spoiler [Program.cs] + using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

using System.Threading;

using Microsoft.Win32;



namespace SC2GameStartSwitcher

{

class Program

{

//Import the FindWindow API to find our window

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "FindWindow")]

private static extern IntPtr FindWindowNative(string className, string windowName);



//Import the SetForeground API to activate it

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SetForegroundWindow")]

private static extern IntPtr SetForegroundWindowNative(IntPtr hWnd);



public static IntPtr FindWindow(string className, string windowName)

{

return FindWindowNative(className, windowName);

}



public static IntPtr SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd)

{

return SetForegroundWindowNative(hWnd);

}



public static void Activate(string title)

{

//Find the window, using the Window Title

IntPtr hWnd = FindWindow(null, title);

if (hWnd.ToInt32() > 0) //If found

{

SetForegroundWindow(hWnd); //Activate it

}

}



static void Main()

{

int gameState = 0;

RegistryKey MyReg = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey

("Software\\Razer\\Starcraft2", true);

MyReg.SetValue("APMValue", "1000");

Console.WriteLine("gameState = 0");



while (true)

{

Thread.Sleep(50); // pause for 50 milliseconds

if (gameState == 0) { // in menus

if ((int)MyReg.GetValue("StartModule") == 1) {

gameState = 1;

}

} else if (gameState == 1) { // a game is loading

if (!MyReg.GetValue("APMValue").Equals("1000")) {

Activate("StarCraft II");

gameState = 2;

}

} else if (gameState == 2) { // in a game

if ((int)MyReg.GetValue("StartModule") == 0) {

gameState = 0;

MyReg.SetValue("APMValue", "1000");

}

}

}

}



}

}



One problem with this kind implementation is that it won't actually switch until 0:02 on the in-game timer, presumably because it takes that long for the APM change to pulse to the registry. So it's not really a bug I can fix.



Now before I go update the OP, R1CH (or whomever), is there a relatively easy way to figure out in-game status in another (better) manner? Hopefully there is a more elegant solution than finding and then reading some random memory offset. Here it is in C# (my first C# program, yay). As R1CH indicated, it's much cleaner this way since it has no exec calls to reg.exe or usage of VBScript at all.One problem with this kind implementation is that it won't actually switch until 0:02 on the in-game timer, presumably because it takes that long for the APM change to pulse to the registry. So it's not really a bug I can fix.Now before I go update the OP, R1CH (or whomever), is there a relatively easy way to figure out in-game status in another (better) manner? Hopefully there is a more elegant solution than finding and then reading some random memory offset. "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

R1CH Profile Blog Joined May 2007 Netherlands 10026 Posts #14 Why not just switch to the game as soon as StartModule changes? Administrator Twitter: @R1CH_TL

Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts Last Edited: 2013-02-27 07:23:29 #15



StartModule changes to 1 shortly after the game starts to load the map. This is simply unacceptable. To quote myself: the default behavior should be to switch when the game has finished loading, as opposed to when it starts loading. This is especially true in Arcade games, since people can often take up to 5+ minutes to load "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

Xapti Profile Joined April 2010 Canada 2445 Posts #16 Why don't you alt-tab a few seconds after the countdown timer reaches 1 or 0?



It's easy to do when you have play sounds in background enabled; just listen for when you're opponent has been found and the timer starts. That's what most people seem to do, and I don't see why anyone would do anything else. Program seems kinda useless "Then he told me to tell you that he wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire" — "Well, you tell him that I said that I wouldn't piss on him if he was on Jeopardy!"

Scarlett` Profile Joined April 2011 Korea (South) 2280 Posts #17 On February 27 2013 18:23 Xapti wrote:

Why don't you alt-tab a few seconds after the countdown timer reaches 1 or 0?



It's easy to do when you have play sounds in background enabled; just listen for when you're opponent has been found and the timer starts. That's what most people seem to do, and I don't see why anyone would do anything else. Program seems kinda useless

Music ! I have to leave a lot of ladder games at start because I don't hear sound and tab in 30sec late Music ! I have to leave a lot of ladder games at start because I don't hear sound and tab in 30sec late Progamer "I play with feet on table" -elfi

Rioru Profile Joined January 2013 11 Posts #18 Cool program! Thanks for sharing it with the community!

pStar Profile Blog Joined December 2010 994 Posts #19 What does this part of the code do?



Process p = rt.exec("reg query HKCU\\Software\\Razer\\Starcraft2 /v APMValue");

Zamiel Profile Blog Joined August 2008 United States 211 Posts #20 directly above yours.



Hi Scarlett!



Xapti, please closely read the postabove yours.Hi Scarlett! What does this part of the code do?



Process p = rt.exec("reg query HKCU\\Software\\Razer\\Starcraft2 /v APMValue");



It is basically the same as typing "reg query HKCU\Software\Razer\Starcraft2 /v APMValue" into a command prompt.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/reg.mspx?mfr=true It is basically the same as typing "reg query HKCU\Software\Razer\Starcraft2 /v APMValue" into a command prompt. "Mech is at the store buying groceries and you attack him at home. You burn his house down. And then he comes home and puts out the fire, and then you burn down the grocery store so he can't buy more groceries."

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