Detecting full-screen Direct3D applications

Question

Is there any way to detect - through the Direct3D API - Direct3D applications running in full-screen mode?

SHQueryUserNotificationState, which can indicate such applications, is only supported on Vista and up. It also only works when the Explorer shell is running.

Answer 1

I found how to detect full-screen Direct3D and OpenGL (for example Minecraft) applications.

Call IDirectDraw7::TestCooperativeLevel(). This function returns DDERR_EXCLUSIVEMODEALREADYSET if active full-screen Direct3D application is running or if user session is not active (Win+L, Alt+Ctrl+Del, Fast User Switching, etc).

Note: Call DirectDrawCreateEx with DDCREATE_EMULATIONONLY. This dramatically reduces resources usage by IDirectDraw7.

I have tested this method only in Windows 7 SP1 x64 with 1 display.

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BTW SHQueryUserNotificationState() returns QUNS_BUSY instead of QUNS_RUNNING_D3D_FULL_SCREEN for full-screen games. Strange...

Answer 2

Try 'IDirect3DDevice9::GetDisplayMode':

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb174387%28VS.85%29.aspx

HRESULT GetDisplayMode(
  UINT  iSwapChain,
  D3DDISPLAYMODE * pMode
);

Parameters:

iSwapChain[in]

An unsigned integer specifying the swap chain. 

pMode[out]

Pointer to a D3DDISPLAYMODE structure containing data about the

display mode of the adapter. As opposed to the display mode of the device, which may not be active if the device does not own full-screen mode.