Discord has quickly become the most popular and most widely-used chat app for PC gaming, and its in-game overlay is an incredibly fun, fresh, and useful piece of tech. This tool allows you to incorporate Discord voice and text channels into the game, without having to leave, helping you to avoid any distractions, and shift your focus on the game. Here’s how you can enable, and even customize, Discord’s in-game overlay:
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Enabling Discord’s game overlay
Firstly, it’s important to note that you must be using the Discord app to enable the overlay, as the option isn’t available through a web browser. To enable Discord’s overlay, just follow these simple steps:
- Open the User Settings menu (gear icon in the lower-left corner of the screen).
- Under the App Settings section, click the Overlay tab, and then toggle on to Enable In-Game Overlay. You can also lock the overlay by default, just by pressing Shift + ` on the keyboard.
- Finally, press the Game Activity tab to enable or even disable the overlay for specific games.
Customizing Discord’s game overlay
You can also use the settings options to choose when users and names are displayed, as well as to change the size of avatars that are shown in the game overlay:
- In the Overlay menu, scroll down until you find the Notification Position.
- To set where you’d want the overlay to appear, click on one of the four gray squares on the screen.
- Then, click the icon in the center (circle-backslash) to disable overlay notifications.
- Optionally, you can toggle on the Show Text Chat Notifications button at the bottom of the screen, to display voice and text notifications.
Note: You also have the option of adjusting these settings in-game, by simply pressing Shift + ` and then clicking on the gear icon (settings).
Pinning Discord’s game overlay
Once your overlay is set up, you can also choose to pin a text chat window over your game:
- Launch any game, and then press Shift + ` to bring up the overlay menu.
- Click on the pin icon in order to make a window show up even when you minimize the overlay menu.
- By clicking on the Opacity icon and moving the slider, you can also adjust the opacity of the chat text window.
Evidently, Discord truly offers any settings and options that a gamer could need. All you have to do now is make sure that your overlay is as clean and simple as possible, while still displaying the necessary information, to maximize your gaming efficiency.
