Get cursor position in a game before it is re-centered

Question

I am trying to record my in-game mouse movement so I can play it back. The game is Call of Duty 4, although that isn't relevant to this question. What is relevant is that most First Person Shooter games re-center the mouse cursor when you move it, so that you never hit any borders. I can't find anything about this online after searching for a while. I am currently using a mouse hook (WH_MOUSE) in order to keep track of the mouse movements (WM_MOUSEMOVE). When I list these messages, I can see that the cursor is pulled back to screenResolutionX / 2, screenResolutionY / 2 (the center of the screen).

My first attempt at figuring this out was to ignore the messages if they are equal to the center of the screen, so that when I play back these mouse movements, the re-centering is ignored. I assumed this would solve the problem, but now when I play back the mouse movements the mouse goes too far (way off from what I recorded). When I do the same recording/playing back in the main menu of the game (where the cursor isn't re-centered), the playback is incredibly accurate. My question is: what can I do to record mouse movements in the game accurately, given that the game re-centers my cursor?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: let me clarify what I'm asking. I want to only record actual user mouse input, not the game re-centering the mouse cursor.

Sounds like you should intercept the mouse messages before they get sent to the game's window. Though I'm not sure how exactly would one go about doing that, TBH — YePhIcK
I've come across that SO post, however I don't agree that a driver/filter is necessary to accomplish what I'm trying to do. That would only be the case if I wanted to intercept the mouse data before it gets to Windows, instead I want to intercept it before it gets to the game -- but without the re-centering. Maybe there's a way to determine the origin of the mouse message, and if it was sent by the game process then I ignore it? I couldn't find anything like this though.. — R. Loh
"Windows" is an overloaded term. In the context above the "window" means "game's window", not the "Windows the OS" — YePhIcK
Sorry, it wasn't a response to you, but to the other guy linking an SO post. But people keep removing their comments or something. — R. Loh

YePhIcK YePhIcK · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-08T22:25:59

In order to intercept those mouse messages you'd have to make a filter driver or a hook. Here's a nice article (with code) on the subject:

http://www.oblita.com/interception.html

That article is based on this Windows API: SetWindowsHookEx and shold be a good starting point for you.

Get cursor position in a game before it is re-centered

2 Answers