Java and win32 game overlay

Question

I would like to create some overlay for my games (displaying time, some basic info etc). How could I approach this? What tools should I use? Also I would need to read game memory to fetch some info.

Is this even possible using Java?

Answer 1

I assume you want to write a program that modifies the window of another process and therefore needs to read that processes memory.

So about reading other processes memory: Almost everything is possible in almost any language and there should be a possibility to do this with Java (edit: see e.g. here) and some clever hooking into the WinAPI or whatever OS you are targeting. But given how little information you have given, I doubt you have the skills to figure out everything on your own.

So what about using C or C++ and follow some tutorials freely available (e.g. here)? You will have to learn how memory is managed anyway, if you want to read out a foreign processes address space. This is one of the cases where Java won't make things easier, but instead more difficult, as the "safety layers" the language has will get in your way.

Summing up about reading other processes memory: There is no reason to use Java for such a task.

• Using it won't make things easier.
• It decreases the amount of documentation / tutorials you can follow.
• Doing something like this wouldn't be portable anyway.

I would make almost the same arguments for overlaying other processes OpenGL windows. There is a question on SO dealing with this, maybe you can start from there.