WindowsTvGameMode

Press the Xbox Guide button on your controller to flip your PC between desktop mode and couch/TV mode. Press it again to flip back.

In TV mode the app:

1. Switches the display layout to your TV (via Monitor Profile Switcher).
2. Sets default audio to your TV (via SoundVolumeView).
3. Minimizes all desktop windows.
4. Launches Playnite Fullscreen (optional).

In desktop mode it reverses all four.

HDR note: system-wide HDR is intentionally not toggled. When the TV is the only active display on many sets, Windows refuses to expose HDR. Rely on per-game HDR / Windows AutoHDR instead.

Distributed as a single self-contained .exe — no AutoHotkey install required.

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Install

1. Grab WindowsTvGameModeSetup.exe from the Releases page.
2. Double-click to run. The installer is per-user — no admin prompt.
3. SmartScreen will warn (unsigned) — click More info → Run anyway.
4. The setup wizard walks through:
   • External tools — file pickers for MonitorSwitcher.exe and SoundVolumeView.exe (with download links)
   • Display profiles — pickers for your tv.xml / desktop.xml
   • Audio devices — substring of TV / desktop device names
   • Playnite — auto-detected if installed at the default path
   • Behavior — poll interval, hold duration

Settings are written to %APPDATA%\WindowsTvGameMode\config.ini. Re-running the installer (or the auto-updater) preserves and updates them in place. The app installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\WindowsTvGameMode\ and registers in Settings → Apps → Installed apps for clean uninstall.

A tray icon appears once running — right-click it for Settings, autostart toggle, update check, and exit. You can re-edit any of the wizard's values anytime from the in-app Settings dialog.

External tools (you supply)

Licensing prevents bundling these — install them yourself once:

Tool	Why	Where
Monitor Profile Switcher (Martin Krämer)	Save + restore full display layouts via the Windows CCD API.	https://sourceforge.net/projects/monitorswitcher/
SoundVolumeView (NirSoft)	Switch default audio device by name.	https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sound_volume_view.html
Playnite (optional)	Fullscreen launcher.	https://playnite.link/

Drop the .exes somewhere stable (e.g. C:\Tools\…) and point the Settings window at them.

Why these tools? Windows has no clean CLI for "switch to exactly this monitor layout" or "make this audio device default". MonitorSwitcher wraps SetDisplayConfig (atomic CCD layout swap — the same API the Display Settings page uses), and SoundVolumeView is the smallest reliable CLI for default-audio switching.

Setup

1. Save display profiles

Launch MonitorSwitcher.exe. It sits in the tray.

1. In Windows Display Settings, arrange things for desktop mode (desktop monitors on, TV off). Set the TV's native resolution and refresh rate first, while it's still enabled — Windows remembers these per-display.
2. Right-click the MonitorSwitcher tray icon → Save profile as… → desktop.
3. Arrange for TV mode (TV on, other monitors off).
4. Right-click → Save profile as… → tv.

Profiles are stored as XML under %APPDATA%\MonitorSwitcher\Profiles\.

2. Find your audio device names

SoundVolumeView.exe /scomma devices.csv

Find the exact Name column value for your TV and desktop speakers. Substring matching, so Hisense usually works.

3. Configure via Settings

Right-click the tray icon → Settings…. Fill in:

• Tools — paths to MonitorSwitcher.exe and SoundVolumeView.exe
• Display — full paths to your tv.xml and desktop.xml profiles, settle delay
• Audio — device name substrings, role (default all)
• Playnite — launch toggle, path to Playnite.FullscreenApp.exe, close-on-exit
• General — poll interval, hold duration, notifications toggle

Settings save to %APPDATA%\WindowsTvGameMode\config.ini. A legacy config.ini next to the .exe is migrated on first run.

4. Press the Guide button

Tray tip should fire and your display/audio/Playnite flip. Press again to flip back.

To launch at login, tray menu → Start with Windows.

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How it works

• Guide button detection — calls XInputGetStateEx (undocumented ordinal 100 in xinput1_4.dll), which exposes the Guide button as bit 0x0400. Polls all 4 XInput slots and fires on button-up after the configured hold duration.
• Display switching — runs MonitorSwitcher.exe -load:<profile.xml>, which calls SetDisplayConfig to apply the saved CCD topology atomically.
• Audio — SoundVolumeView.exe /SetDefault "<name>" all sets both Console and Multimedia default devices.
• Playnite — Playnite.FullscreenApp.exe is launched on entry and closed with ProcessClose on exit.

Tray menu

• Toggle TV mode — same effect as pressing the Guide button
• Reload config — re-reads config.ini (useful after manual edits)
• Settings… — opens the config editor
• Start with Windows — toggleable; writes to HKCU\…\Run
• Check for updates — manual check (auto-runs 5 s after startup too)
• About / Exit

Logs go to %APPDATA%\WindowsTvGameMode\tv-mode.log.

Auto-update

On launch and via the tray, the app polls GitHub Releases. If a newer build is published it prompts with release notes; Yes downloads the new installer and runs it silently — files are replaced, the uninstaller registration stays in sync, and the app relaunches automatically. Your config in %APPDATA% is preserved.

Troubleshooting

Guide button does nothing. Controller must be on XInput (USB, Xbox Wireless, or the Xbox Wireless Adapter). If you use Steam, disable Steam Input for the controller or Steam will capture the Guide button first.

Audio switches to the wrong device. Use a more specific substring (e.g. Hisense 65U7N, not just Hisense).

Playnite doesn't launch. Point at Playnite.FullscreenApp.exe, not Playnite.DesktopApp.exe. %LOCALAPPDATA% expansion is supported.

Both modes fire on one press. Increase Hold duration in Settings (try 300–500 ms).

Building from source

Requires Windows + AutoHotkey v2 (which ships with Ahk2Exe under Compiler\):

& "C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\Compiler\Ahk2Exe.exe" `
    /in src\main.ahk /out dist\WindowsTvGameMode.exe `
    /base "C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\v2\AutoHotkey64.exe"

CI builds an artifact on every push; tag vX.Y.Z to trigger a release build.

Layout

src/
  main.ahk                  # entry point
  lib/
    version.ahk             # APP_VERSION (replaced in CI)
    config.ahk              # %APPDATA% ini read/write
    autostart.ahk           # HKCU Run toggle
    updater.ahk             # GitHub Releases polling + swap
    updater_ui.ahk          # update prompt
    tray.ahk                # tray menu builder
    tv_config.ahk           # WindowsTvGameMode config schema + migration
    tv_log.ahk              # logging
    tv_xinput.ahk           # XInput polling for the Guide button
    tv_actions.ahk          # mode toggle + display/audio/Playnite actions
    tv_settings_gui.ahk     # settings window + first-run wizard
config-example.ini          # bundled reference config (also attached to releases)
.github/workflows/
  ci.yml                    # compile-check on push/PR
  release.yml               # build + publish on v*.*.* tag