Portal 2 Steam API Peak Fix

There's a bug in Portal 2: ValveSoftware/portal2#414

I reported it a long time ago, but I never really knew the exact cause of this issue.

Much later, I started to do precise debugging regarding that issue, and managed to figure out the exact cause.

I don't know if someone at Valve will fix this issue, therefore I created this Plugin that fixes the issue.

Explanation

If you experience lag peak issues, it may be caused by that bug. This is because Portal 2 registers a callback from the Steam API, that has the ID 304. This specific callback is the PersonaStateChange.

The friend state of the current user. (Online, Offline, In-Game, etc)

Portal 2 would fetch all of your friends and try to retrieve the PersonaStateChange everytime... for some reason. I think the more friends you have on Steam, the worser the peaks may be.

Blocking callback 304, doesn't seem to cause any issues, and Co-op player search works fine.

Building

I have especially created a CMake project, for global building convenience. But I have not much knowledge about it and I failed to do Linux support.

You do not need to build this, as I build and put it in the Release section.

There are a lot of build presets. You only need x86 Release, because apparently Portal 2 is in 32 Bit. However, if that's not the case you may choose the right preset that applies to you.

If you do ever need to build it for 64 Bit, you need the .lib files of every dependency.

Dependencies

https://github.com/microsoft/Detours - Version 4.0.1 This is used to hook and "override" functions. Perhaps there are other libraries, I used this one.

Installation

Simply build or download it from Release
Create an addons folder under <YOUR_PORTAL_2_DIRECTORY>/portal2. Should sorta look like this <YOUR_PORTAL_2_DIRECTORY>/portal2/addons
Drag in the files in the addons folder!

Portal 2 doesn't have VAC and plugins load without -insecure in the Launch Options, but you can feel free to add that launch parameter.

You're free to re-name the .dll to whatever you want, just make sure to update the .vdf file.

To see if it worked, you will see that the plugin loaded in the console, and also when it blocks that specific callback.

You can at any time, unload the plugin with plugin_unload and you can also load it with plugin_load. But I don't recommend loading it manually, because I don't know if the callback ever unregisters itself, I haven't checked. You can use plugin_print in the console to see all loaded plugins.

These are built-in commands in Portal 2 for Plugins.

Other