Op2 Apm Recorder V1.01

[BlackBox]

An APM Recorder for OP2 is finally here!

APM (Actions Per Minute) is a measurement of how many keyboard keypresses or mouse clicks a player does in one minute in a real time strategy game. This can be used to measure a player's experience level in an RTS game.

If you've ever used a program like BWChart for recording APM in games like Starcraft you probably know what APM is.

Well, there was never such a thing for OP2 -- until now!

This recorder, starting from when you press the Scroll Lock key on your keyboard, will record all your keyboard and mouse button presses into a log and measure how many you do in a minute (your APM).

To use simply run the program, set all the options you would like, and start OP2.
As soon as the game begins in op2 press your Scroll Lock key to begin recording your mouse and keyboard actions. If you have the APM Bar enable just move the bar by dragging it with your mouse to where you want to see it and release. (All settings are saved in an INI file so you only have to set them once).

Play your op2 game as normal. The APM recorder will record what you do.

When you finish playing, press Scroll Lock again to turn off the logging. Go back to the APM recorder window and you can see a log of your actions, including your overall average, max, and min APMs.
The log can be saved to a .txt file with the Save button.

To view your APM graph, press Show Graph. You can save a picture of the graph in the menu at the top of this window.

That's all there is to it! Note that you can use this program with any software you want, it should work on all Windows version 95 and above.

Download from http://files.outpostuniverse.net/apmrecord.zip
Important: After downloading, unzip the files and run APMSetup.bat before running the EXE! Otherwise you'll get a runtime error!

Note that this program is probably still a little buggy. If it crashes for you during play or any other time, give me as much details about the crash that you can. (If you could get the log contents or graph that'd be nice too).
If the program crashes and the active window starts acting funny (eg, flashing, doing stuff you don't want it to) press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and task manager will pop up to let you kill the APM recorder.

Also if you have any feature suggestions please post them here.

Have fun with the APM recorder!

[Leviathan]

Thank you very much op2hacker for forfulling my request

Only took a few days! Wootage.

[Sl0vi]

Great job

lol... I wonder how high Levi's and Paco's APM is

[BlackBox]

And Version 1.01 is now available.

Fixed a couple things:

- The Maximum APM entry in the log would have the wrong game timestamp on it, it now shows the correct timestamp. (Would always say 00:05)
- Added an entry to the log which tells the total time the program has been recording.
- Increased the APM range (Y axis) of the graph to almost 300
- The Clear Log button deletes all data (clears the info below the list, and flushes its internal list of data) instead of just clearing the list.
- The Graph Save function allowed you to select both JPEG and BMP, however a BMP would be saved with a .JPG extension, so .JPG was removed from the list. Also, it will automaticaly put .BMP on the end if you forget (before it saved a file with no extension)

Just redownload the same zip to get version 1.01! (You do not need to rerun the setup bat if you already installed version 1.00, just update your EXE)

Also, so you have a perspective on what's a good or bad APM:

A newbie to the game would probably be about 40-65 APM.

Someone like me who is about average would be probably 75-100 APM.

Someone like Lev, Paco, etc, above 150 APM.

[§Panther]

I think you might need to modify those average APM figures a bit. My average has consistently been 180+, and is usually 200+ in competitive games.

[BlackBox]

Redownload, the max is set to 250 APM.

[CK9]

Why do I have the feeling that mine will be the worst?

[Leviathan]

You need to be able to load a log.. lol.

Also add the version number in the corner.

[lordly_dragon]

cool for this but put a rule plz dont say often thing like wow my apm is 450 it sux a lot its s***ty no one care and its can be very anoying

[thablkpanda]

I gotta agree, especially when it's not true lol.

Nice prog. I'ma play OP2, w/ it enabled soon, but i doubt that i'll be over 80..

For next version, i suggest adding a 'title' to go with each APM, like

<10 - Turtle stuck in quicksand
10-20 - Turtle out of quicksand, slowly crawling across thick carpeting
etc, etc,
150+ - Ferrari F-50, There it went! Oh damn, you missed it.

-Panda

[Ezekel]

but um, in OP2, especially in the early phases there aren't too many things going on for long stretchs (like when waiting for research).

um basically what i'm trying to say is that no. actions taken does not necessarily give an accurate indication of skill

i guess a good example i could give of this is in a game of chess i played when i was 8. the other guy kept taunting me cos he was taking all my pieces - but the fact of the matter was that i was letting him do that and not wasting my moves protecting those pieces. so while he was doing that and gloating, i checkmated him.
if you see my point - taking lotsa pieces didn't really give an indication of skill level in that game of chess.
similarly this APM thing may make ppl lose sight of the true objective of an RTS - complete the mission given, not the one you set yourself.

mew, well thats all i have to say

[Leviathan]

Ezekel APM just shows how many actions your doing, i agree if people are just trying to click more to get more actions is silly but hopefully people will be trying to play faster to get a higher apm.

RTS is the best type of game, clearly cuz its the most in depth etc. unlimited what you can do imo.

the person with the highest apm is not allways the one who wins the game but its just nice to see peoples apm. it comes down to gameplay, its nothing to do with apm.

[Ezekel]

well i have to disagree, if you want the most indepth, then play battlefield2 or renegade online (or ut2007 when it comes out)

if you want fewest limitations then play a game like morrowind

however, i still agree that RTS is the overall best game type of modern games (with some exceptions), but i believe its because it is limited that makes it so popular/good/successful. people don't like being overwhelmed, and a good RTS will have a good GUI and interface so that the player can easily see all relevent info, as well as have simple controls for their units/structures.

[Leviathan]

your so wrong its not even funny

and ur probly talking about the team play etc in bf2.

rts is teh win

[Leviathan]

dam.. just played a game vs Instigator and i pressed scroll lock to many times, apm log lost! from a long game as well..

scroll lock shouldnt start over. you should have to press a button on the form before you can start loging apm for a game.

thx hacker

[instigator]

FYI

I had a runtime error when i tried to run the program for the first time(using windows 98). now since i noticed that this was the same error i had for the op2mapper i figured id give something a try. so i copyed regsvr32.exe from my system folder and put it into the opuatm folder just like i did with the mapper. and it works now!
 

[thablkpanda]

Dunno if this's been solved- but you HAVE to run the .bat file in the directory before running the .exe file. All hacker's progs are like this. I'm unsure as to why.. I dev C++ and it's never like that..

Panda

[zigzagjoe]

no, its related to VB i belive, and the ocx activex ctrls.

[BlackBox]

Yeah, I wrote these ones in VB and used controls.

Eventually I'll compile the controls in (I really should; just makes it really hard to debug and probably less stable (because the controls are forced to run in the single threaded environment))

I'd write them in C++ but I don't have the time.. This was a Lev request, so I didn't want to spend the better part of a day / week on it...