v1.0.0-rc2

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS RELEASE UNLESS REQUESTED TO. WE ARE STILL TESTING IT.

Gooooood morning, OWL Controllers!

We're excited to bring you OWL Control v1.0.0! This is a complete rewrite of OWL Control in the Rust programming language, led by @Clyde013 and supported by @philpax. This rewrite has allowed us to significantly reduce overhead (much smaller file sizes!), add new features, and fix a bunch of long-standing issues. Please let us know if you run into any problems!

Major changes

OWL Control no longer needs OBS at all and will conflict with OBS if it's running.

You can uninstall OBS if you have no other use for it.

• Recording is now directly integrated into OWL Control.
• A basic overlay has been added so you can see at a glance whether you're recording.
• Notification sounds can now be optionally played when recording starts or stops.
• Quick access buttons have been added for your recordings folder, logs, and the FAQ.
• The banned games list is now dynamically loaded, so you won't have to wait for a new release when a game is added to or removed from the list.
• OWL Control will now notify you when a newer release is available. We strongly encourage you to upgrade when you see this notice!
• Your most recent uploads will now be shown in the UI, allowing you to confirm we've received them. Note that this doesn't include recordings that were invalidated and thus not uploaded; these may be shown in a future version.
• The start and stop buttons have been merged by default, and the new default is F5. You can still enable a separate stop button if desired.
• The feature to delete recordings after upload has been re-added.

Bug fixes

• Only one instance of OWL Control can run at a time now.
• After this version, upgrading OWL Control will no longer delete your recordings. (Note: You'll still need to back up your recordings for this one last upgrade - sorry!)
• Upload stats are now loaded from our server and will be preserved between updates.
  • These stats may be lower than you expect due to a historic bug in our uploader, but don't panic - we still have your data and will reconstruct the missing information at a later stage.
• Recordings will now automatically stop and restart when you Alt-Tab out of and back into a game.
  • A grace period has been added where recording will continue for up to 20 seconds when you're Alt-Tabbed out. Your inputs will not be recorded in this period, so you can quickly check your messages and such.
  • The idle duration has been reduced down to 30 seconds to accommodate these.
• Improved support for hybrid graphics setups; please let us know if recordings still fail on a laptop.
• Improved detection of non-game applications.
• Various other fixes as a result of the rewrite.

Upgrading from previous versions

• Please shut down the old version of OWL Control before installing. Future versions will automatically detect OWL Control is running before trying to install.
• The recordings have moved from OWL Control\resources\data_dump to OWL Control\data_dump.
• If you're uploading old recordings, please see https://discord.com/channels/1368288528429088860/1428445711543832576/1428453545539010581. This will be fixed in the next release.

Full Changelog: v0.11.0...v1.0.0-rc2

v1.0.0-rc1

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS RELEASE. WE ARE STILL TESTING IT.

Gooooood morning, OWL Controllers!

We're excited to bring you OWL Control v1.0.0! This is a complete rewrite of OWL Control in the Rust programming language, led by @Clyde013 and supported by @philpax. This rewrite has allowed us to significantly reduce overhead (much smaller file sizes!), add new features, and fix a bunch of long-standing issues. Please let us know if you run into any problems!

Major changes

OWL Control no longer needs OBS at all and will conflict with OBS if it's running.

You can uninstall OBS if you have no other use for it.

• Recording is now directly integrated into OWL Control.
• A basic overlay has been added so you can see at a glance whether you're recording.
• Notification sounds can now be optionally played when recording starts or stops.
• Quick access buttons have been added for your recordings folder, logs, and the FAQ.
• The banned games list is now dynamically loaded, so you won't have to wait for a new release when a game is added to or removed from the list.
• OWL Control will now notify you when a newer release is available. We strongly encourage you to upgrade when you see this notice!
• Recordings will now automatically stop and restart when you Alt-Tab out of and back into a game.

Bug fixes

• Only one instance of OWL Control can run at a time now.
• After this version, upgrading OWL Control will no longer delete your recordings. (Note: You'll still need to back up your recordings for this one last upgrade - sorry!)
• Upload stats are now loaded from our server and will be preserved between updates.
  • These stats may be lower than you expect due to a historic bug in our uploader, but don't panic - we still have your data and will reconstruct the missing information at a later stage.
• Various other fixes as a result of the rewrite.

Full Changelog: v0.11.0...v1.0.0-rc1

v0.11.0

Please upload or back up your recordings before updating! You do not need to update if the preceding versions work for you.

What's Changed

• Logging diagnostics have been improved to help us help you help us get data.
• Fix games with colons in their names, again. Alien: Isolation and Fallout: New Vegas should work now.
• The recorder will now check that you have enough free space for a recording before attempting a recording.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to accidentally start two recorders by saving settings in OWL Control more than once per session.
• Improved the reliability of saving settings in general.
• Added an option for unreliable internet connections that reduces upload chunk size. Don't turn this on unless you need it - it will slow your uploads by a considerable amount!

Full Changelog: v0.10.1...v0.10.2

v0.10.2

Please upload or back up your recordings before updating! You do not need to update if v0.9.0 or v0.10.0/v0.10.1 work for you.

What's Changed

• Mouse movement with trackpads and similar devices will no longer be invalidated
• Support for wired PlayStation 5 controllers has been added; wireless PS5 controllers, and PS4 controllers in general, do not work. Please let us know if this is a blocker - if enough people report in, we'll investigate solutions.
• The reasons that a recording may be invalidated have been added to the README: https://github.com/Wayfarer-Labs/owl-control/blob/main/README.md#%EF%B8%8F-restrictions
• All mainline GTA games have been banned.

Full Changelog: v0.10.1...v0.10.2

v0.10.1

Please upload or back up your recordings before updating! You do not need to update if v0.9.0 or v0.10.0 work for you.

What's Changed

• Fix recordings of games with : in their window title (Fix get_obs_window_encoding function by @Imaginalities in #75)
• Unban Fortnite, ban Destiny 2

New Contributors

• @Imaginalities made their first contribution in #75

Full Changelog: v0.10.0...v0.10.1

v0.10.0

Please upload or back up your recordings before updating!

What's Changed

• Uploads are more reliable, thanks to multipart uploads. Note that the overall upload might be a bit slower; this is normal.
• The upload progress bar is now more accurate.
• OWL Control now uses the window resolution, not your monitor resolution.
  • You can now record games in windowed mode! Just make sure the resolution is still above 360p, and they're actually games you're recording, as otherwise we will send geese to harass you.

Full Changelog: v0.9.0...v0.10.0

v0.9.0

Please upload or back up your recordings before updating!

What's Changed

• Increase idle timeout to 90 seconds to accommodate cutscenes (thanks, @Clyde013!)
• Update the list of high-value and unsupported games
• Add gamepad input support
• Fix invalidation of recordings that are primarily of one modality only
• Fix application icon: it is now the beautiful, blue OWL it should be
• Improve settings window, including making it resizable
• Show user ID in settings window
• Improve logging diagnostics

Full Changelog: v0.8.0...v0.9.0

v0.8.0

Welcome to v0.8.0!

Check out our list of desired games.

Bug fixes

• Removed option to auto-delete recordings for now
• Reasons for recording invalidity are now captured (see the contents of the .invalid file)
• The invalidation thresholds have been increased to better support high-DPI mice
• OWL Control no longer needs to be restarted if OBS isn't running at time of record
• Recording errors are now loudly announced, instead of being silently ignored
• Known-unsupported games will be rejected ahead of time

UPGRADING WILL ERASE YOUR EXISTING RECORDINGS. PLEASE ENSURE YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR RECORDINGS FIRST.

v0.7.1

What's Changed

• DPI fix by @philpax in #60

Full Changelog: v0.7.0...v0.7.1

v0.7.0

What's Changed

• Port OBS bridge to Rust by @philpax in #59

Full Changelog: v0.6.1...v0.7.0