Discord’s overlay is certainly one of its most helpful options, and earlier this yr, it acquired an enormous revamp. Now, you may reply to notifications, watch your mates’ streams, and have video chats all with out leaving your sport. All the brand new performance comes with a pair new quirks, so let’s break down the way it all works.
If you happen to’re not acquainted, the Discord overlay is part of the desktop utility that may draw on high of the video games you play. Its most typical use is to see who’s on and talking within the group chat, by exhibiting small profile icons within the high left of your display. As a result of change in how the overlay works, you may’ve seen this disappear, or get replaced by a brand new immediate asking you to provide the overlay permissions.
How does the brand new Discord overlay work?
The older Discord overlay solely labored with some video games, and in just a few instances, it’d require some finagling to get it to work proper. The brand new overlay is rebuilt to get round a whole lot of these compatibility points by drawing the overlay on high of the sport you are taking part in.
We need not get into the nitty gritty of the way it works, however this implies the brand new Discord overlay is form of like one other window that is sitting on high of your sport window. Very like the way you’d stack two browser home windows overlapping one another.
Meaning it is technically appropriate with each sport, however there’s only one hitch: You need to play the sport in borderless windowed mode. More often than not, that will not actually be a difficulty, however there are just a few video games—significantly graphically intensive aggressive video games like Marvel Rivals—the place utilizing fullscreen mode can generally get you higher efficiency.
What does the brand new Discord overlay do?
To entry the brand new Discord overlay, press Shift+` (the important thing to the left of the 1 key). Right here, you may see a set of customizable areas with just a few completely different features. The Voice area exhibits the individuals within the voice channel you are in. Notifications will present you any pings you’ve got acquired in textual content channels, and the Video and Streams areas will show any video calls or your mates’ streams.
You may pin any of those areas so they’re all the time seen on high of no matter sport you are taking part in. Most of them are unpinned by default, besides often the Voice area, and you may pin or unpin them by urgent the overlay shortcut and clicking their purple pin icon.
With the total overlay open, you may drag any of the areas round to wherever they’re most handy for you—which is good since I actually do not want my pals’ faces protecting up my killfeed. Every area additionally has just a few settings you may customise to get the format you need.
Most significantly, there’s one area you may’t pin: the Discord management bar. By default that is in the course of the highest of your display. Right here, you may discover controls for muting your self, deafening Discord audio, enabling your digital camera, streaming to a channel, and…a soundboard. Attempt to not abuse the privilege.
What if I am unable to see the brand new Discord overlay?
There’s a respectable probability you may’ve turned off the overlay previously or by no means enabled it to start with. If you happen to’re curious and wish to attempt it out, click on on the “Consumer Settings” gear in your Discord consumer, scroll right down to Sport Overlay, and click on Allow Overlay.
The overlay may also be disabled on a per-game foundation, so if you happen to’re nonetheless not seeing it, click on the arrow to the correct of the Allow Overlay toggle. Beneath, you may see an inventory of video games you’ve got performed and a separate toggle subsequent to them. That is referred to as the “per-game override” and disabling the toggle right here will flip off the overlay for simply that sport, relatively than turning it off completely.
What do you assume to date?
The per-game override is useful if you happen to solely have one or two video games that you simply play the place you may be in voice or video chat, however not most different video games. For instance, I would like to speak to my teammates in Overwatch 2, however I do not want any distractions whereas taking part in Pathologic 3.
What if I do not need to see the brand new Discord overlay?
Not everyone seems to be tremendous thrilled with the brand new Discord overlay. Some do not take care of all the brand new options; some assume the brand new icons are too small (you may customise this by clicking the Settings gear on the voice area within the overlay). And a few folks simply don’t love change as a result of it is an unwelcome reminder of the inevitable ahead march of time. Relatable.
Regardless, it is fairly easy to disable the brand new overlay. Click on the Consumer Settings gear in your Discord consumer, scroll right down to Sport Overlay, and disable the Allow Overlay toggle. That is it. It ought to be gone endlessly. Or at the very least till one other replace modifications issues once more.
What if I would like the previous Discord Overlay again?
Nice information, you are able to do that, too! Effectively, kind of. Enabling it’s the similar course of as earlier than: Click on Consumer Settings, scroll right down to Sport Overlay, and click on the Allow Legacy Overlay toggle. You may technically have each enabled, although it looks as if Discord will nonetheless default to the brand new one if you happen to do that.
In my expertise, the legacy overlay is a bit patchy. In some video games, I could not get it to load in any respect, and it did not appear to play good with utilizing the brand new overlay with some video games and the legacy overlay for others. You may technically select per-game overrides for every, however it may possibly get tedious protecting monitor of which overlay is enabled for which sport.
Your mileage might differ, however my recommendation is to make use of the Legacy Overlay possibility as a compatibility possibility for video games that do not play good with the brand new overlay, relatively than a approach to maintain onto the previous. Even when it really works properly for now, the previous overlay will in all probability go away in some unspecified time in the future.
