External screenshot / video capture issues

Problems with the Windows version of Darwinia

Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle, Chris, andy, John

bobulus
level0
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:51 pm

External screenshot / video capture issues

Postby bobulus » Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:57 pm

I've been a fan of Darwinia for a while and never had any problems. However, I was trying to do a little image / video capturing to show to friends, convince them to pick it up, too, now that I know it's on Steam, and ran into problems.

Hopefully this isn't frowned upon by you guys.

Anyway, I ran into problems where certain objects will appear just fine when I'm playing, but will not show up properly in video capture / screenshots.

Video:
- Attempted to record the intro sequence when you first load the game....web nodes and "connecting...." text would blink on and off on the video.

Screenshots
- Used an external screenshot program. Some screenshots would be fine, others would show the background but no units / Darwinians. Others would be completely black.

Is there something unique about the way Darwinia renders that would mess up external capturing programs? I searched around the forums and didn't seem to find much.
User avatar
xander
level5
level5
Posts: 16869
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: Highland, CA, USA
Contact:

Postby xander » Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:37 am

It would help if you told us a little about your hardware and software. How powerful is the system you are using to record Darwinia? What software are you using to record Darwinia? Video recording can be quite intense, and it is possible that the game is losing proc cycles to the video capture utility, and is not recording properly because of that.

As to still screenshots, just hit [P] while playing Darwinia -- it will store a screenshot in the program directory (I think -- I am a Mac user, and the location that screenshots are stored on a Mac is different than on a PC -- Vista may also be different).

xander
bobulus
level0
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:51 pm

Postby bobulus » Wed Jun 11, 2008 2:52 am

Computer's a bit older:

Athlon XP 2000+
1.25gb of ram
Geforce 7500GT

The game runs beautifully at native 1680x1050, but I'm running it at a low resolution (800x600) to account for the video capture.

To clarify, say I'm recording video. I hit record, start the game. The intro plays. It looks fine to me. No visual errors or slowdown.

I review the recording. Visual errors on the recording.

I guess I'll try decreasing settings further and seeing if that makes any difference.

edit: using less resource-intensive recording practices (recording uncompressed, rather than doing a quick and dirty compression on the fly, which is the default) resulted in less artifacts, so I guess this is just a resource issue. Sorry for the trouble.
User avatar
xander
level5
level5
Posts: 16869
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: Highland, CA, USA
Contact:

Postby xander » Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:04 am

bobulus wrote:edit: using less resource-intensive recording practices (recording uncompressed, rather than doing a quick and dirty compression on the fly, which is the default) resulted in less artifacts, so I guess this is just a resource issue. Sorry for the trouble.

Indeed, it sounds like a problem with the video recording software, not Darwinia. If you were to tell us what programs you are using to record video, it might help, as people here might be familiar with the program, and may be able to offer better alternatives or settings which may help.

xander
bobulus
level0
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:51 pm

Postby bobulus » Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:08 am

Whoops. Guess I skimmed that part. Just the simple Camtasia Studio 4.

I think I'll just stick with screenshots, though. No worries.

Return to “Windows Issues”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests