Share an easy link to this page: edracing.com/steam

 

 

- Steam users are now prompted to create an account password for members.iracing.com for additional security and stability.

 

 

 

Steam

- Existing iRacing users who didn't sign up using Steam may now generate a steam key to link their iRacing & Steam accounts. Here's how:

1) Go to "My Account", and at the bottom of the page there's a button to generate a Steam Key - click it.

2) Open Steam, and in the top-level menu, click Games, and then click Activate a Product on Steam...

3) Follow the steps on-screen until you're asked for a Steam Key. Type in your Steam Key, then submit it. If you already have iRacing installed on your system, you don't need to install it again via Steam in the steps following activation.

4) Finally, enable the Steam Overlay in iRacing by doing any one of these:

· Click the "Click here to enable it" button on account home once you've generated your key. This will automatically enable the Steam Overlay.

· Opening your settings dashboard on any page within the main membersite and turn Steam Overlay on under the section marked "Use Steam Overlay."

· Open or create "_use64bit.txt" in the iRacing installation directory, type the number 1 into it, and save it.

 

 

From forum thread Tip: This is how to get iRacing to show in Steam by Rob N.:

Found this on the iRacing Steam discussion board, you don't have to launch it in steam, it just basically tells Steam when you launch a session :

1. Go to your My Accounts Page on iRacing: https://members.iracing.com/membersite/account/Home.do
2. Scroll down until you see a section called "Steam Key"
3. There is a button there to generate a one time key. Click the button. This will generate a Steam Key.
4. Open Steam.
5. On the TOP bar (not in the Browser, but the application bar), Click on Games --> Activate Product on Steam.
6. Click Next --> I Agree --> Enter the Steam Key you generated from (2) into the "Product Code" area, and hit Next.
7. Finish (6), and this will download a 98M iRacing executable and add iRacing to your Library
8. Wherever you have iRacing installed, in the top level iRacing directory, there is a file called "_useSteam". It contains only 1 character -- a "0" or a "1". You want this to be a "1". Use notepad to edit this. Example
Go to C > program files 86 > iRacing > _useSteam
Change value from 0 > 1
9. Now, any time a race is launched, Steam will show you are in "iRacing" . You will also have the Steam overlay, and can hit Shift + Tab to talk to friends + put in iRacing reviews + count iRacing time

If you ever have issues with writing to the _useSteam file, just copy it out to your desktop, edit, and copy it back over the original file.

 

 

A DT comment, if you are having a problem:
I have seen reports on the internet that steam does not always work right with x64 builds on other games, so maybe try running the 32 bit version of iRacing, just in case.

 

 

Staff (David T) post re having a problem with the overlay:
 

Hmm, I’m stumped. There is not much to the whole steam thing, we load a dll and make one call, not many places where that can go wrong. Basically we check to see if the _useSteam.txt file located next to the iracingSim.exe file contains a 1 in it, and if it does then we call SteamAPI_Init() and check to see if the user is logged in. We also set the environmental variable ‘SteamAppId’ to 266410, the steam appid of iRacing.

So if the _useSteam.txt file was not set properly we would fail to load steam. If the steam client was not active, or not logged in, we would fail to connect to the client, and if some application managed to override the SteamAppId variable then we would not show up as iRacing. Assuming all of that worked then we should be connected to steam.

To check that the steam id is not being messed with they can see the environmental variables by opening a dos box and typing ‘set’ and look for a variable named SteamAppId. And they should look for a steam_appid.txt file in the same directory at iRacingSim.exe and remove it if found, that will also override the steam appid.

They could use process explorer to try and see what dll’s are loaded by iRacing and where they are loading from. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Launch process explorer, and click on the ‘display lower pane’ icon to view the dll list. Then launch iRacing and find iracingSim.exe in the process list at the top and select it. Now look in the lower pane for the various steam*.dll files. We always load up steam_api.dll, but if we successfully connect to the steam client then we will also load the steam.dll, steam2.dll and steamclient.dll’s. They want to double check that we are loading the steam_api.dll from the same directory where iRacingSim.exe is located, and that iRacingSim.exe is launching from the same directory where the _useSteam.txt file lives.

If all of that is working, then we are in fact connecting to steam properly, that would suggest that the problem is just that steam can’t bring up its overlay. In that case I strongly suspect that they have some other overlay running, even if they don’t realize it. If they can’t bring up steam then either something is wrong with their steam install, or the _useSteam.txt file is not in the proper directory, or is not setup properly.

David's image attached to his post..
 
 
In the same thread, member Brian H followed up with a post (solution) relating to Windows 7 UAC:
In the Action Center, select "Change User Account Control Settings", and slide the slider all the way down and turn UAC completely off. Restart. Open Steam without Administrator Mode, and if Steam launches without any issues, then run the sim in any mode (Test, Practice, Qual, Race) and it should work.

Another follow up by another suggests the steam.exe should not be set to run as administrator.

 

 

Turn your volume down.

 

I've also learned a bit about streaming on twitch with OBS. My notes OBS.