Rogue: The In-Game Web Browser

PC News | It lets you surf the net while you play, and it's free.

Even the most action-oriented games out there can have some 'idle time'. Yes, those periods of inactivity when the gamer is simply waiting for something. For your typical FPS, it could be during the long wait for a respawn after an early death in multi-player - especially if your final teammate has pitched a tent somewhere and can't be found by the enemy. For an RPG, it could be while you're waiting for nightfall so that a particular timed event can occur. Wouldn't it be nice if we could make use of this otherwise wasted time?

That's where Rogue, the new in-game web browser developed by the people behind the GotGame site, can help. As reported by Kotaku, this clever piece of coding appears as an overlay within your game, presenting you with a fully-functional browser with adjustable transparency.

Now you can check on your eBay bids while your teammates defuse the bomb, check tomorrow's weather while planning Gordon Freeman's next move, or even look up those stats/codes/FAQs that will get you through the level you're in. No alt-tabbing, extra monitors or nearby laptops necessary. For MMO fans its usefulness is obvious (they may finally be able to catch up on those e-mails from family/friends wanting to get back in touch).

Rogue currently supports these PC games:

• Age of Conan
• Battlefield 2
• Call of Duty
• Call of Duty 2 (not on menu screens)
• Civilization IV
• Counter-Strike: Source
• Counter-Strike 1.6
• Gears of War
• Guild Wars
• Half-Life 2
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Neverwinter Nights
• Neverwinter Nights 2
• Portal
• Unreal Tournament III
• Warhammer 40,000
• Warhammer: Dawn of War
• World of Warcraft

It can be downloaded for free from here.

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16 Comments

Benza

3 years ago

This is awesome for a wow addict. At the moment I surf the net on my laptop while playing wow. My freinds are gunna hate it in raids though.

NegativeZero

3 years ago

What's wrong with alt-tab? I certainly don't have any issues alt-tabbing in and out of WoW and Firefox - it's near instantaneous.

Benza

3 years ago

NegativeZero wrote

What's wrong with alt-tab? I certainly don't have any issues alt-tabbing in and out of WoW and Firefox - it's near instantaneous.

It takes me like a minute

Also if I'm alt tabbed out I cant see when we've pulled.

Zhou

3 years ago

no call of duty 4/waw love

rufati

3 years ago

This would be nice if I didn't already play everything in windowed mode.

Aftershock

3 years ago

this isn't new...

PlayXpert has a web browser i think, and if it's not included in the official release by now, it's definitely a widget (addon)

Gutsman Heavy

3 years ago

drops my FPS to 13 in WoW, sweeeeeeet.

Gtpod

3 years ago

Awesome. My computer always gives me an unnecessary screen flicker when I tab out of WoW, and Source just completely **** itself. I reckon I'll be using this a lot.

swatmajor1

3 years ago

Gutsman Heavy wrote

drops my FPS to 13 in WoW, sweeeeeeet.

Did you change the browsers setting at the bottom to Game. It will fix that.

BTW, great idea, but it isn't customisable. No menu's, or even a history list. Has tabs though.

Would like to see a Firefox add-on which does this. Then I'm set.

defstar

3 years ago

It crashes CS source, and runs at 30 fps with game mode :/

Deathfiend

3 years ago

OMFG Wowhead or thottbot in game would be **** awesome.

Benza

3 years ago

Deathfiend wrote

OMFG Wowhead or thottbot in game would be **** awesome.

I wouldn't try thottbot... thats just asking for trouble.

Gutsman Heavy

3 years ago

swatmajor1 wrote

Gutsman Heavy wrote

drops my FPS to 13 in WoW, sweeeeeeet.

yep, no dice

Gtpod

3 years ago

^ I get the exact same issue, FPS drops from 60 to about 15, totally unplayable. Nice idea though.

tamakino

3 years ago

^ What are your specs? I found this on the forums of gotgame and it helped speed up the FPS (http://forums.gotgame.com/index.php?showtopic=642)

"Same issue here. It seems that two proccesses are created, "GG_LIVE.exe" and "Rogue.exe". The first one is consuming exactly 50% of my CPU (one of my cores I think) all times, be it in a game or not, and the other one stays calm and quiet, 0-1% at most. Killing "GG_LIVE.exe" manually solves the problem and Rogue still goes fine, but I have to say that it will be the same next time I open Rogue."

Gtpod

3 years ago

^ The man's a genius, thanks a ton dude, and a hearty welcome to the forums.