Steam Overlay doesn't work

[merixstudio]

Steam Overlay and thus other Steam features (Steam Controller, Steam Link) doesn't work with NW.js.

This is probably due to the fact that NW.js launches a separate process for the GPU and Steam can't find this process. Adding the "--in-process-gpu" flag previously fixed this issue, but now this flag hangs the NW.js after random time.

To reproduce this just launch Steam and add nw.exe to your library using Steam UI. Then launch nw.exe from Steam. No need to create own index.html or package.json. Pressing Shift+Tab should show Steam Overlay rendered inside NW.js window, but it doesn't do that.

Note that this issue is very important to game developers making desktop games and using Steam as main distribution platform.

Oh, and screen recording software don't work with NW.js too, e.g. Fraps or Bandicam, it's probably related.

Tested with versions 0.12, 0.13, 0.14 and 0.15 on Windows.

[rogerwang]

Does "--in-process-gpu" hang when running from Steam or not?

And does Chromium works with Steam overlay?

[merixstudio]

Does "--in-process-gpu" hang when running from Steam or not?

Yes, but note that it's not always hanging. Sometimes it can run longer, e.g. 30 minutes. Some players reported that "--in-process-gpu" doesn't hang at all for them.

And does Chromium works with Steam overlay?

Will check.

[merixstudio]

And does Chromium works with Steam overlay?

Unfortunately not. We've tested the build available at https://download-chromium.appspot.com (revision 401228).

[merixstudio]

Just discovered that --single-process enables Steam Overlay (but don't know yet does it crashes after random time).

Update: --single-process prevents somehow the native greenworks module from working, so the flag cannot be used. Greenworks is needed to communicate with Steam.

[rogerwang]

We'll fix '--single-process' in 0.18.x, which could help this.

[merixstudio]

We'll fix '--single-process' in 0.18.x, which could help this.

Great!

In the meantime from our limited testing it seems that as of at least 0.17.5
'--in-process-gpu' doesn't randomly freezes an app.

[rogerwang]

Please try this build from nightly, which supports '--single-process' argument.

http://dl.nwjs.io/live-build/10-14-2016/nw18-76a0565-b67084e-ed8a267-209e190/v0.18.1/

(In previous versions '--single-process' works too but Node integration is broken.)

[merixstudio]

It seems to work fine, which is a great news!

[rogerwang]

released with 0.18.1