Global hotkey not registered in game using GetAsyncKeyState - vb.net - vb.net

Question

I've made a tool that will continuously click for the user if they decide to have it on with toggle keys etc, it all works fine in ordinary windows e.g google chrome, but when it comes to games it doesn't always work correctly.
(well it does in some games, then others it doesn't)
The code is designed to click fast while holding LButton, then stop when it's let go to act as an autoclicker (user has control of speed) which again works, but when in a game it clicks alot slower than it's suppose to / any other window / app.
I've figured out adding a delay using
Thread.Sleep(200)
fixes the speed of the autoclicker in game, but then it messes up the keybind which results in the autoclicker always clicking even when LButton isnt held / pressed.
Is there anything else that I could use as a delay, or anything else I can do to the code so it works correctly?
I've been trying many different variations and searching online the last few days trying to get it working, but none succeeded.
Here's all the code got to do with autoclicking in my project, i've added some notes to try and explain which part is doing what / speeds the timers are set to.
Imports System.Threading
Public Class Form1
Private Declare Function GetAsyncKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal vkey As Integer) As Short
Private Declare Sub mouse_event Lib "user32" (ByVal dwflags As Integer, ByVal dx As Integer, ByVal cbuttons As Integer, ByVal dy As Integer, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Integer)
Private Const mouseclickup = 4
Private Const mouseclickdown = 2
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
'Timer1 isnt doing the clicking, Timer1 is just listening for LButton
'clicks which is why I have it always on aswell as a low interval.
Timer1.Start()
Timer1.Interval = 1
'LButton is the timer that will do the clicking.
LButton.Interval = 100
End Sub
Private Sub LButton_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles LButton.Tick
If GetAsyncKeyState(Keys.LButton) Then
mouse_event(mouseclickup, 0, 0, 0, 0)
'Without Thread.Sleep(200) the code works as it's suppose to, clicks
'when LButton is held, stops clicking when LButton is let go,
'although without Thread.Sleep(200) it will not work in all games,
'but with it, it will continuously click even when LButton isn't held.
Thread.Sleep(200)
mouse_event(mouseclickdown, 0, 0, 0, 0)
Else
LButton.Stop()
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Timer1_Tick_1(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
'This is what will listen for the left clicks and also stop the left
'LButton timer if LButton is not held
If GetAsyncKeyState(Keys.LButton) Then
LButton.Start()
Else
LButton.Stop()
End If
End Sub
End Class

Answer 1

Quoting the MSDN documentation, GetAsyncKeyState() determines:
whether a key is up or down at the time the function is called, and whether the key was pressed after a previous call to GetAsyncKeyState.
So when you check the function via If GetAsyncKeyState(Keys.LButton) Then, it will return non-zero at least three times, thus execute the code more than you want (which is what you experience when you add Thread.Sleep(200)).
To check if the key is held down you have to check if the most significant bit is set, which for a Short is 0x8000 in hex and 32768 in decimal.
Checking a bit flag is done by checking (<number> And <bit>) = <bit> - where And is the bitwise And operator.
This would result in your code looking like this:
Const KeyDownBit As Integer = &H8000
Private Sub LButton_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles LButton.Tick
If (GetAsyncKeyState(Keys.LButton) And KeyDownBit) = KeyDownBit Then
mouse_event(mouseclickup, 0, 0, 0, 0)
Thread.Sleep(200)
mouse_event(mouseclickdown, 0, 0, 0, 0)
Else
LButton.Stop()
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Timer1_Tick_1(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
If (GetAsyncKeyState(Keys.LButton) And KeyDownBit) = KeyDownBit Then
LButton.Start()
Else
LButton.Stop()
End If
End Sub
I'm not sure whether your second timer (Timer1) is actually needed in this case.