Disable Steam Community In-game Overlay only for specific games?

[jrobert]

Is it possible to disable the Steam Community In-Game Overlay for specific games only? The reason I ask this is because I recently bought Chessmaster and the In-Game overlay interferes with that particular game but I want to keep it enabled for all the other games I play such as Team Fortress 2.

I've been using a work-around in which I click on Settings and then the In-Game tab. I then uncheck Enable Steam Community In-Game and click OK every time I want to play Chessmaster but then have to repeat the process to re-enable it. It's a rather arduous task to have to go through and I was wondering if there's an easier way.

Joshua

[jrobert]

Is it possible to disable the Steam Community In-Game Overlay for specific games only? The reason I ask this is because I recently bought Chessmaster and the In-Game overlay interferes with that particular game but I want to keep it enabled for all the other games I play such as Team Fortress 2.

I've been using a work-around in which I click on Settings and then the In-Game tab. I then uncheck Enable Steam Community In-Game and click OK every time I want to play Chessmaster but then have to repeat the process to re-enable it. It's a rather arduous task to have to go through and I was wondering if there's an easier way.

Joshua

[ZeBool]

Right now, there's no way to do per-game disabling, but here's a workaround.

This is a little involved to set up, but provides an easy way to disable and enable your overlay settings on the fly.

• Enable your overlay (for consistency with these directions)
• Run regedit, and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\Users
• There should be a folder under it that's just a number (which is likely different on each system). Expand that folder and go to the folder named system.
• Right click the system folder and choose "Export"
• You'll be prompted for a place to save the file. Save it somewhere convenient as enable.reg
• Close regedit, and go to whereever you saved enable.reg, and open it in notepad (you can right click and choose edit in explorer)
• Find the line that says "EnableGameOverlay"=dword:00000001 and change it to say "EnableGameOverlay"=dword:00000000
• Do File->Save As and save it as disable.reg in the same place you saved enable.reg

Now, whenever you want to disable the overlay, you can double click disable.reg in explorer, and then click enable.reg when you want to turn it back on. You need administrator access to do this, and I'm not sure if you'll get a UAC prompt if you have UAC turned on in Vista.

[WACOMalt]

Hmm... this is useful specifically for non-steam game shortcuts. Is there a way to add the regedit commands to a batch file, and make that bat run the command then launch the game? Then I could just add the batch file as a shortcut in steam!

[Maledict21]

Originally Posted by WACOMalt

Hmm... this is useful specifically for non-steam game shortcuts. Is there a way to add the regedit commands to a batch file, and make that bat run the command then launch the game? Then I could just add the batch file as a shortcut in steam!

Yes. Referring to ZeBool's method, you can do it from a batch file or cmd line simply by using regedit like this:

start regedit.exe /s disable.reg

start regedit.exe /s enable.reg

[Beginner]

Any chances that this feature will realized soon? Have problems with overlay in Battlefield 2.

[WolVenom]

Originally Posted by Beginner

Any chances that this feature will realized soon? Have problems with overlay in Battlefield 2.

I have the same problem. Could someone please fix it?

[Slayer00]

Right click a game in Steam Library, choose properties and untick enable Steam Community ingame.

[damaged]

Yes, there is a way to do it individually, just enable the main setting in Steam->Settings->In-game, then check, "Enable Steam Community In-Game", that will check all the boxes for each game, now go though all your games that you do not want Steam community enabled, and right click->Properties->and UNcheck, "Enable Steam Community In-Game".

And that's it.

[13xforever]

Originally Posted by damaged

Yes, there is a way to do it individually, just enable the main setting in Steam->Settings->In-game, then check, "Enable Steam Community In-Game", that will check all the boxes for each game, now go though all your games that you do not want Steam community enabled, and right click->Properties->and UNcheck, "Enable Steam Community In-Game".

And that's it.

Doesn't work for non-Steam games though. http://i.imgur.com/VCVfD.png

[damaged]

Originally Posted by 13xforever

Doesn't work for non-Steam games though. http://i.imgur.com/VCVfD.png

Of course it doesn't, how could it?

[Zr40]

Originally Posted by damaged

Of course it doesn't, how could it?

Steam starts the non-Steam game and adds the overlay. Surely it could be possible to start the non-Steam game without adding the overlay...

[damaged]

Originally Posted by Zr40

Steam starts the non-Steam game and adds the overlay. Surely it could be possible to start the non-Steam game without adding the overlay...

There is, do not use Steam to launch the game.

Not trying to be a wise-♥♥♥, but I mean the whole point of Valve making it so you can add non-Steam games, is for the overlay, so it seems to me, if one does not want the overlay, one does not launch the game through Steam.

I just don't see this as being something that they would consider any kind of priority, supporting games which they do not make any money off of, but hey, what do I know about Valves business tactics, you may want to put that idea in Ideas/Suggestions forum, use the READ FIRST sticky so they can add it to the list, at least I've never read this idea yet.

[Zr40]

Originally Posted by damaged

There is, do not use Steam to launch the game.

Not trying to be a wise-♥♥♥, but I mean the whole point of Valve making it so you can add non-Steam games, is for the overlay, so it seems to me, if one does not want the overlay, one does not launch the game through Steam.

Well, the ability to launch non-Steam games has existed before the overlay was added. I believe that it's intended to let Steam be the primary place to start games, whether they're bought in Steam or elsewhere. The overlay working in these non-Steam games is just a bonus.

As you've noted, there's the ability to turn off the overlay for Steam games. I can imagine this is useful for being able to play without interruptions from the overlay, or when the game has unexpected compatibility issues with the overlay. But as 13xforever points out, this is missing for non-Steam games in Steam.

Now, there is the workaround noted by the OP, but you still have to do this manually if you want it disabled only for a single game.

[Tumpo]

It was possible at sometime to disable Overlay in non-Steam games. Now I can't start fast CoD4 from Steam because I get kicked by PB all the time because overlay... :| Why did you take it away Valve??