APM Monitor for SCII (and other games) - Page 2

On September 13 2014 13:26 Garnet wrote:
How can I display my APM during an SC2 game? I use fullscreen, should I use windowed modes?

On September 12 2014 12:38 CalmestRoadkill wrote:Yes it definitely is the program. While active, it is doing key/mouse hooks. When it detects keys A through Z (and only keys A through Z), it captures it and then resends it. If any other keys are hit, it ignores them. So combination keys don't work. I had designed this for SC2, but realized it will mostly work with other games. Let me know what combination keys don't work (like it's CTRL + H to activate a hot key), and I'll make it all work.

On September 19 2014 16:11 Garnet wrote:
my PC is not good enough to play in Windowed mode though. Would take quite a hit on FPS.

On September 20 2014 04:29 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

Yeah, with a little testing, i realise you mean it only disables their function if it is trying to monitor them for apm and if it does, they will add to the apm counter...but the hotkey likely won't work! >_<

Currently, only the A-Z keys and left and right mouse buttons trigger the APM counter but they don't actually trigger the functions those buttons are meant for.
Well, i'd need A-Z and Ctrl+ A-Z (i use many, not all of them, but ideally it would have all so that I may remap my hotkeys a little if I change my mind about which letter is better for whatever building or unit), as well as the following list:

Most of the development I worked with one player who was guiding me. I guess he didn't use hotkeys, so he didn't request anything outside of A through Z. (I believe I added left and right mouse at the request of someone else.) This is why I decided to ask other people as I knew people used more keys than just A through Z.

1-0 and Ctrl+1-0 surprisingly don't work (they're in SC so i'm surprised they weren't be programmed to work already :p They need to still function but trigger APM once)
Spacebar
Backspace
Delete key
Home and End
, (on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)
. (on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)
/ (on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)
[ (on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)
] (on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)
(on the same key but need to be scripted separately, right?)

Yes, they all need to be entered in separately.

Shift+G combination
Alt+F, Alt+T, Alt+D, Alt+C, Alt+E, Alt+S, Alt+G, Alt+O, Alt+N, Alt+R
Up, down, left, right need to work, they scroll the screen so typically these sorts of things wouldn't trigger but if mouse clicks count, frankly these should too as screen movement is just as indicative of APM as unit selections and things like that.

Arrow keys don't count because you're not really doing anything. All you're doing is surveying the map. Mouse clicks count because you can select units, move units, build structures, and so forth. Unless arrow keys are capable of more than map surveying, I'll keep it as is. Feel free to challenge this. Better yet, if you can get someone in here that's knowledgeable in how APM is supposed to be calculated, that'd be cool.

Hopefully tonight I'll be able to address most of these issues. I haven't done anything for the last couple weeks due to work and school.

I'm not aware of any better method. I don't have access to the game code, so I have use hooks. Current APM monitors for SC2 use the registry information. SC2 outputs APM information, so it does all the calculating and detecting. All the program has to do is display it. I have to do everything the game would do; however, I have no access so it's difficult.

I can't help but feel there's got to be a better way than manually coding each button you want to trigger and I'm not sure how you'd get the hotkeys to still work if your urrent method isn't working.

I noticed that if you hold the button (including moues buttons), it actually triggers continuously, which is quite bad for judging real APM really. In SC2, you need that to trigger constantly for zerg but don't really want the APM to trigger more than once or say once per 0.2 seconds or so.
For Age of Empires II, you don't want APM being misrepresented just by holding something too long. Really just one APM trigger (waiting for the key's release rather than trigger) is enough until it is pressed down again.

I was hoping most players wouldn't have that issue. I mean obviously you wouldn't want to misrepresent your own APM. However, if throughout the game it's just genuinely difficult to not spam keys, then I understand. I don't know how most of these RTS games play out. I already have a sound alert for key spamming. However, I can set an option so where it prevents excessive key presses. This option would allow you to set the max number of the same key to be pressed within a certain time frame. (e.g. 5 keys within 3 seconds.)

I noticed that for whatever reason, some letters triggers as if Shift is held down even though it's not. Have you made some hotkeys trigger on Shift being pressed without making sure that it checks to see when it is released? The only reason this shift+letter function works (it queues 5 of the unit) is because the shift+letter functions don't trigger APM.
We obviously need functions to only send Shift if shift is being held down.

Not too sure on how the Shift key works. It was just another key that I hadn't implemented yet (although I didn't see a use for it).

Sometimes when trying to test this, I found hotkeys just stopped being monitored in the live APM.
Does it only last a few minutes or is something else going on?

Are you referring to testing the Shift key?

Could you clarify the following?
All three normal mouse buttons (scroll wheel button being the third) as well as the scroll wheel - do they trigger APM without being prevented from working while your script is active?
Wheel up and wheel down, need to trigger once per scroll; this would only lead to artificially increased APM if people are doing it for spam, but people can do that by hitting a button a lot anyway so no worries there.

Left and right mouse are triggered, but only if you allow them to be. There's an option in Settings called "Include mouse Input in report". Anything that I have included will work normally. (This would be keys A through Z, left and right mouse click.) Mouse scroll does not influence APM, and I don't see why it would.

And yes, left and right mouse click work, regardless if "Include Mouse input in Report" is selected. It seems that certain keys are prevented from working. What I mean, for example, is that I do not have keys 0 through 9 included. Yet, they work just fine while the program is active.

On September 10 2014 22:06 WinterStarcraft wrote:
Thank you, been looking for one to replace the mildly disfunctional one on scelight

On October 17 2014 12:15 Solus420 wrote:
Added to the Ultimate Starcraft Directory - Programs Section

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/468404-the-ultimate-starcraft-directory

On October 17 2014 02:19 CalmestRoadkill wrote:
Latest EXE version is a few weeks old. I'll try to push out a working build today.

As for everything being caps, it will still do that. However, I don't think it should affect anything. In the current build I have, all combination keys will work (Shift, Alt, and Ctrl, with 0 through 9 and with A through Z).

On October 18 2014 04:20 guitarizt wrote:


Thanks for the program. It's the only thing out like this. The only thing is I'll have to wait until the caps issue is fixed because I'm using it for age of kings the conquerors on voobly and I frequently chat with people in game.

On October 18 2014 04:50 CalmestRoadkill wrote:


Alright. Everything else works properly? If I can fix the caps lock issue, all text will be in lower case. I can't guarantee being able to type like normal (where you can use caps lock and/or the Shift key). However, I don't think being grammatically correct is a big deal while playing.