Can Rainmeter be made in such a way that it's a detectable window?

[Xentha]

Hey all.
So I got Rainmeter for a specific purpose - figure out why a game is having microstutters and other such lag issues, on the assumption that it's hardware bottlenecking. Simplest way I could think of was to get something that could chart a graph of CPU, GPU and RAM usage, and this fits the bill nicely. (And is nice enough that I'll likely continue to use it beyond this instance.)

Now the complexity comes in. The game in question is Beat Saber, a VR game, which I play through SteamVR. It's difficult to look at my desktop while in VR, but SteamVR has the ability to capture specific windows and display them as HUD elements or attach them to the controllers.

Rainmeter however, doesn't exist as a 'window' for SteamVR to capture by default. So I'm curious if there's a way to make it show up as one, or if that's too obscure a problem to have been considered already.

If not, I do have a very ghetto alternative in mind involving OBS's preview window, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

[Brian]

Rainmeter however, doesn't exist as a 'window' for SteamVR to capture by default. So I'm curious if there's a way to make it show up as one, or if that's too obscure a problem to have been considered already.

If not, I do have a very ghetto alternative in mind involving OBS's preview window, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Unfortunately you may be out of luck, at least with those programs. While I have never used SteamVR, we have had several users report that OBS cannot capture Rainmeter windows.
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=34094
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=27305
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=26374

The problem is how these programs determine "what is a window". Rainmeter relies on some special "flags" when creating a skin window that tell Windows to not draw a "window" (borders, shadow, etc.), no taskbar button, and removal from the ALT-TAB window. The last time I tested OBS studio, it couldn't not capture Rainmeter skin windows - this may have changed in the past few years.


While this may not solve your issue completely, you could try ShareX. ShareX can capture Rainmeter windows on demand (but I am not sure about an automated capture of a specific window), and has some pretty advanced features that may help you. It can capture a region of your desktop via a hotkey (or your entire desktop, or specific monitor).

-Brian

[Xentha]

Alright, thank you. The confirmation is sufficient.

And that is correct, OBS can't capture it as a window, but I can capture a section of my desktop and size it up to take up the whole preview window, which is, again, ghetto, but sufficient for what I need.
Like so!

[Active Colors]

Hey all.
So I got Rainmeter for a specific purpose - figure out why a game is having microstutters and other such lag issues, on the assumption that it's hardware bottlenecking. Simplest way I could think of was to get something that could chart a graph of CPU, GPU and RAM usage, and this fits the bill nicely. (And is nice enough that I'll likely continue to use it beyond this instance.)

Now the complexity comes in. The game in question is Beat Saber, a VR game, which I play through SteamVR. It's difficult to look at my desktop while in VR, but SteamVR has the ability to capture specific windows and display them as HUD elements or attach them to the controllers.

Rainmeter however, doesn't exist as a 'window' for SteamVR to capture by default. So I'm curious if there's a way to make it show up as one, or if that's too obscure a problem to have been considered already.

If not, I do have a very ghetto alternative in mind involving OBS's preview window, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

I think this should work for you.
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=16468
The preview on that page is broken, but basically it is an addon that enables windows for every running Rainmeter skin. So, your game should be able to pick it up.

Generally, people use apps like MSI Afterburner to display such stats in games. I have discussed this and additional methods before
https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=40570#p207067

[Yincognito]

Alright, thank you. The confirmation is sufficient.

And that is correct, OBS can't capture it as a window, but I can capture a section of my desktop and size it up to take up the whole preview window, which is, again, ghetto, but sufficient for what I need.
Like so!

Like Brian said, capturing skins as windows really depends on how the said program is identifying windows in the first place. I don't know about OBS or SteamVR as I never used them, but, as a side note, I can tell you that any respectable "window spy" (like, say, Winspector Spy) software can "see" those skins as windows:

WinSpector Spy.jpg

As for capturing the information that you need in 3D applications, you really don't need Rainmeter for that, MSI Afterburner with Riva Tuner Statistics Server (proof preview here, top left corner) is enough, like Active Colors mentioned as well. My system is to let Rainmeter show all its skins in desktop mode (since, after all, it was built for that mode), and switch to MSI AB + RTSS for the 3D application mode to do more or less the same when it comes to games and such. Sure, it would take a bit to configure MSI AB properly and design your RTSS "skin" to show in games, but once you've done that, it will work for every application running in the Direct3D mode, irrespective if it's SteamVR or any other.