FEATURE HWiNFO OSD

Martin

Martin

HWiNFO Author
Staff member
While it might seem there's currently not much going on in terms of new features in HWiNFO, the opposite is true.
We're heavily working on a new much demanded feature - a fully integrated On-Screen Display (OSD) / overlay.
This feature allows displaying any value from HWiNFO on screen, in 3D applications and games including those in full-screen mode.
Here a very early teaser look at how it currently looks like:

1708974634555.png
This feature is based on Intel PresentMon and allows showing any value as a text or graph (with multiple values). Position, text font, size, weight and colors can be individually defined.
It should work with any engine like DirectX 11, 12, OpenGL, Vulkan.
The OSD is automatically placed over the most graphics intensive application currently running but it can also be manually targeted.
Current plan is that a limited feature set will be available in the free version and the full set in the Pro version.

Working in independent window mode instead of overlay:
1708972662206.png
 
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Some important notes about this feature:
  • This feature is available in HWiNFO64 only.

  • The OSD is limited to a maximum of 5 items in the free/Non-Pro version of HWiNFO64. HWiNFO64 Pro doesn't have this limit.

  • WinXP support dropped in HWiNFO64: By adding this feature it's no longer possible to maintain support of Windows XP (and possibly Vista too) in HWiNFO64. Use legacy HWiNFO32 on these systems. We don't anticipate that these systems will benefit from 64-bit applications, nor require support of latest HWiNFO64 versions. So the impact of this (sad) limitation should be minimal. In case there will be a reasonable demand for new versions of HWiNFO64 on XP64 it's still possible to build such versions (without OSD support), but currently we don't expect to make such extra effort.

  • Automatic targeting: In overlay mode the OSD is automatically shown over the most GPU-intensive process/window, which is constantly evaluated. Automatic targeting can be disabled or locked to a custom specific window/Process ID (PID). HWiNFO displays the name of process to which it's currently targeted along with the process-specific GPU usage in [%].

  • For the overlay to work properly, HWiNFO64 is requesting uiAccess=true so that the overlay can be shown on top of other windows including full-screen applications. This special mode is only granted to applications started from a "secure folder", which is the "Program Files" (by default C:\Program Files) folder and its sub-folders, or some folders in the \Windows path. The HWiNFO installer will automatically install HWiNFO into the "Program Files" folder, so no action should be needed. When using the Portable or Beta version of HWiNFO, it's required to manually copy HWiNFO64.EXE into such "secure" folder.

  • Each item can be shown as a textual entry (label, value, units) or as a graph. Assigning multiple sensor values as graph to the same position will display a graph with multiple values.

  • A custom GIGABYTE AORUS logo is displayed by default when the AORUS theme is active or a GIGABYTE mainboard is detected. This logo can be disabled easily.
 
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Thanks, it seems to only work when I have it on Indepedent Window mode, how do I get it working in overlay mode?

Update:
Seems to be working but the position is in the wrong area as it's on the lower right corner of my screen. Seems like regardless if it's Top-Left, Top-Right, Bottom-Left, Bottom-Right for the setting, it seems to be in the lower right area of my screen either above the task bar or 1/2 of the bottom is hidden at the task bar.

1709594629557.png

Bottom-Right:
1709594974035.png

Seems to be random as now top-left displays on top left of screen, top-right displays on top left of screen. Bottom-left and Bottom-right is not working at all.
 
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Hi
I wish you overhaul the way you select OSD items from a LONG list that is almost non-categorized and you have to scroll a LOT to see your chosen sensors.
I suggest you can filter those sensors with "yes" on OSD reporting to show only these or also make categories when you search for them (examples, CPU, Memory, Mainboard, GPU sensors, etc.)
It is a big hussle to hunt your chosen items from a long list to access them to customise them
 
Almighty1 said:
Thanks, it seems to only work when I have it on Indepedent Window mode, how do I get it working in overlay mode?

Update:
Seems to be working but the position is in the wrong area as it's on the lower right corner of my screen. Seems like regardless if it's Top-Left, Top-Right, Bottom-Left, Bottom-Right for the setting, it seems to be in the lower right area of my screen either above the task bar or 1/2 of the bottom is hidden at the task bar.

View attachment 10825

Bottom-Right:
View attachment 10826

Seems to be random as now top-left displays on top left of screen, top-right displays on top left of screen. Bottom-left and Bottom-right is not working at all.
Click to expand...

In overlay mode the OSD automatically targets the most graphics intensive application which according to your screenshot was the "Clock" widget. So it seems you didn't run another graphics application.
 
mahanddeem said:
Hi
I wish you overhaul the way you select OSD items from a LONG list that is almost non-categorized and you have to scroll a LOT to see your chosen sensors.
I suggest you can filter those sensors with "yes" on OSD reporting to show only these or also make categories when you search for them (examples, CPU, Memory, Mainboard, GPU sensors, etc.)
It is a big hussle to hunt your chosen items from a long list to access them to customise them
Click to expand...
I will add a shortcut straight into OSD settings by right-clicking an item in the main sensor list. That should improve this.
 
Martin said:
In overlay mode the OSD automatically targets the most graphics intensive application which according to your screenshot was the "Clock" widget. So it seems you didn't run another graphics application.
Click to expand...
Yes, I missed that part and figured it out later it was tied to a process which is targeted either manually or automatically. Is this supposed to happen where there is no Automatic target process to be found?
1709855843483.png
 
Almighty1 said:
Yes, I missed that part and figured it out later it was tied to a process which is targeted either manually or automatically. Is this supposed to happen where there is no Automatic target process to be found?
View attachment 10852
Click to expand...

Yes, that will happen when the automatic targeting is unable to find a suitable process.
HWiNFO also has an internal blacklist of some processes that might be using GPU acceleration but it would be undesirable to target the OSD to them.
 
Martin said:
Yes, that will happen when the automatic targeting is unable to find a suitable process.
HWiNFO also has an internal blacklist of some processes that might be using GPU acceleration but it would be undesirable to target the OSD to them.
Click to expand...
Interesting, wouldn't a good way to do it be to just display in a certain area of the screen and it can be in the background or always on top?
 
Almighty1 said:
Interesting, wouldn't a good way to do it be to just display in a certain area of the screen and it can be in the background or always on top?
Click to expand...
The Independent Window is meant for such purpose, you can place it anywhere you like.
 
Martin said:
The Independent Window is meant for such purpose, you can place it anywhere you like.
Click to expand...
That's true, but wouldn't the drawback of automatic also have another issue, the most graphics intensive process might actually be hidden behind the current displayed apps as initially I thought clock.exe from post #7 was the Windows clock in the system tray but it is actually this which is a gadget behind the browser which should be more graphics intensive than a clock gadget as that would explain why that is called top left:
1709934744154.png
 
Dear Martin,
is there an Option to have a empty lines between the values?
I tried it with position numbers(leaving numbers free), but it seems no t working probaly (only last value works).
As shown in the picture, i assigned the numbers in the right column to the values on the left side.

Do you have any ideas ?

Screenshot 2024-03-15 103517.jpg
 
gmbg said:
Dear Martin,
is there an Option to have a empty lines between the values?
I tried it with position numbers(leaving numbers free), but it seems no t working probaly (only last value works).
As shown in the picture, i assigned the numbers in the right column to the values on the left side.

Do you have any ideas ?

View attachment 10893
Click to expand...

Sorry, this is currently not possible.
 
Found A bug. When you change the text color the opacity go to 0 and you have to move it back to full again happen when you you chose text for the format.
 
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