Huh? WTF happened to my screenshots? And my DVD?

[DirtyHarry3033]

Title says it all. Since buying SH4 on release day, I've taken many screenshots by the following method:
Pause and compose the shot
Hit "Del" to clear the hud
Hit "Prt Scrn" key
Alt-tab to desktop, run IrfanView 3.99
Paste
Resize to 1024x768 if planning to post
Save as .jpgI've never had any problems at all with this method. But tonight, I ran into major probs :( The top 1/2 of the screenie is actually SH4, but the bottom 1/2 is either my desktop, or total random garbage. Here's an example, where I have the .pdf SH4 manual open and maximized on the desktop:

http://home.triad.rr.com/llambeth/SH4%20-%20WTF.jpg

That don't look right to me :damn::damn::damn:

Don't think it's an IrfanView prob, I can take screenshots of other things using the same method and it works properly. Also, I get the same screwed-up results pasting an SH4 pic into MS Paint.

I've rebooted several times, done system restore, re-run SH4 over and over and it's the same result every time. Totally mangled screenshots using the "prt scrn" key :(

However, hitting Ctrl-F11 to take a screenie from within SH4 works.

Anybody else experienced this? Anybody got a clue what might be causing it or how to fix?



Now on to my other problem that started at exactly the same time:

After rebooting in an effort to fix the screenshot problem, when I restarted SH4, I was told there was no disc in the drive. Well the disc has been in the drive nearly 24/7 since release day and never had any problems!

Opened my DVD drive with Explorer, well guess what? Empty!!! No disc label, no contents, no nothing!!!

Ejected the SH4 DVD, checked for scratches, dust, fingerprints (none), put it back in and it wouldn't autoplay! Explorer still showed there was nothing on the drive.

Put in another DVD (Company of Heroes) and that one auto-played fine, and Explorer showed the drive contents.

Back in with SH4, and nothing :damn::damn::damn:

After numerous attempts SH4 DVD was finally seen and I could play again. But after another reboot, it was the S.O.S... Other discs are seen, but not SH4 and it takes numerous eject/inserts before it actually works.

Anyone got any thoughts on that one? Looks like I might be having to shelve SH4 if I can't figure this out...

TIA for any help, and accept my apologies for long-windedness and "whining" ;)

DH

[Cap'n Crabs]

No clue about your print screen problem, but about the cdrom drive...

Check your event logs under the admin tools in the control panel to check for errors.

Here's a problem I had that came from the game. I have 2 plextor drives. One is a bit older, a CDRW / DVD rom drive, the other is a newer DVDRW / DVD rom drive.

After installing SH4, the older drive suddenly started giving me a lot of problems reading disks, in fact, the sh4 disk took a very long time to "check" and load the game, sometimes not at all.
Then newer drive gave me no problems.

I checked my event logs and saw a ton of "cdrom" errors.
To make it short, I went to the plextor site and downloaded a newer firmware and flashed the old drive. The errors are gone and it's reading disks properly.

I think my problem was Securom related, but the firmware update fixed it.

There's something for you to chew on. :)

[DirtyHarry3033]

Thanks Cap'n Crabs, checked the logs and nothing worth mentioning.

Under Event Viewer/Application, no errors at all. Under Event Viewer/System there are a few Remote Access errors and warnings, and a few DCOM errors but they don't correspond to the time I was having this problem. Remaining logs were all clean.

Didn't see anything related to my DVD-RW at all. Is there anything I need to turn on under Event Logging to record problems?

Thanks for your help :up:

DH

[NefariousKoel]

For screenshots, I've been using Gadwin Printscreen. No worries about pasting or having to use the ctrl+F11 combo.


On to SecuRom... I've had a lot of problems with it recognizing my disk. Sometimes a simple reboot would help, sometimes not. Sometimes it would only run if I ejected and closed the tray and used the autorun menu to start but occasionally not. This on the same DVDRW that had issues with Starforce before.

I recently got a new DVDRW and so far it's worked ok, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[FAdmiral]

Moral: If it works, Use it...If it doesn't, DON'T....case solved :up:

JIM

[DirtyHarry3033]

Nefarious, I'll give Gadwin a try. Hadn't heard of it before. I hate using the ctrl-F11, I mean jeez a 5.4 megabyte .bmp for every screenshot when a 50-100k .jpg is more than enough?

Sure disk space is cheap these days but I'm from the "old school", I remember when a gigantic HD was 20 mb, and if you were reasonably well-off you could afford a 10mb HD that would hold your OS and all your apps with plenty of room left over ;) And if you couldn't afford an HD, you could run your OS off a single 5 1/4" floppy. Boy times have changed...

As far as the SecurRom and StarForce and whatnot, well it just goes to show what I've always believed - the only people hurt or inconvenienced by CP are the honest guys that actually pay for the software. It's not a problem for the hackers and pirates, they'll find a way around it, and even if they don't well they haven't spent hard-earned $$$ for something only to have it work intermittantly (or worse, not at all).

On a brighter note, I rebooted again and this time SH4 actually saw the DVD in the drive :rock: Remains to be seen if this will continue...

DH

[Incandescent]

Scan for Virus.

[Cap'n Crabs]

DirtyHarry, there shouldn't be anything to turn on. If there was a problem, it should have logged it. Mine was full of red X's, not a hard thing to spot. hehe

I do have Sh3 & 4 installed. One with starforce, the other securom. Who knows what that does.
In case you didn't know it, the securom is flagged as a "rootkit". :o

Ran rootkitreveal and it found discrepancies in my registry. I found through some searching that they may point to securom. I'm not very happy about that.

Just thought you all would like to know that. :shifty:
If anyone has a more authoratative take on it, I'd like to hear it, I don't want to create falsehoods. I would rather be wrong.

[DirtyHarry3033]

Incandescent, scan clean, no virus.

Crabs, seems I've heard that same "rootkit" rumor. Don't know anything about it though. Only thing I DO know is that in the fine print on the SH4 box is a "disclaimer" as follows:

Notice: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives.
Sounds like StarForce all over again to me, like they're installing stuff to mess with your hardware. Hopefully better-behaved than SF but who knows?

Oh well, WTF? At the moment I've actually been able to run SH4 2 times with no complaint about "no disc in the drive". I'll just keep my fingers crossed...

DH

[NefariousKoel]

DirtyHarry-

When you use Gadwin, make sure you set the "Source" in it's properties to Full Screen. You can also choose the folder you want them saved in under the "Destination" tab along with setting whatever hotkey you want to use for the screen cap. I just have it set to Prnt Screen key. :cool:

[DirtyHarry3033]

Nefarious, I tried the Gadwin Printscreen. Same old sh*t :( Screenshot totally trashed, with the top 1/2 being SH4, bottom half being something totally unrelated.

Think that nails it down, SH4 is crapping all over whatever it sends out when I take a (screen) dump ;) No way on earth 3 different progs are all gonna have the exact same problem in SH4 and work perfectly outside of SH4, unless it's SH4 to blame!!!!

Only choice I guess is uninstall, reinstall, re-patch and put all my mods back on. And hope that fixes it. Or, live without screenshots...

DH

<edit>

Nefarious, read your last post after I made this one. Yep, had Source set to "Full Screen". Also had Destination set to both a file and Clipboard. Pasting the clipboard into IrfanView gave same messed-up results as before, and the saved files were identical to the clipboard. Useless :damn::damn::damn:

I may mess with the image format next, change from .bmp to .jpg and see if that helps - though I don't expect it will. Something's seriously messed up and I imagine at least a re-install of SH4 will be needed. Maybe (god forbid...) a reinstall of Windoze????

[Cap'n Crabs]

For my screen shots, I use the ctrl F11, then resize and convert to a jpg with paintshop pro. Or just open the image with ms paint to save as a jpg. Doesn't really sound like that many steps.

I'd rather go through that than a re-install of windows. Unless of course you just have to get to the bottom of it.

Do you feel lucky? ;)

[DirtyHarry3033]

Do you feel lucky? ;)
I hear that a lot, even though it's ME that's supposed to be asking that question!!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I'll get to the bottom of it one way or the other. Hmm, I'm wondering - I bought MS Access 2007 a couple days ago and after installing it all kinds of settings on my system were trashed. Can't remember to save my life if I did any screen shots right after installing it.

But it did mess up a lot of other stuff - maybe a system restore to a point before I put on Access might fix it? That would be about par for Billy's course, many years ago I bought an MS Intellimouse that absolutely would not install on my ME system. Swapped it the same day for Logitech mouse that worked perfectly. The man seems to have problems making hardware and software that works "nicely" with his own OS...

DH

[Cap'n Crabs]

Dude, that is one scary avatar. :o


Yeah, I'd say a restore point is going to be your best option.

As to the mouse thing, the problem there was probably the version of Intellimouse software that came with it. MS released some totally whacked versions. There are just a few versions that work really nice.

[WhiskeyBravo]

Are you running 2 gfx cards in SLI mode? I'm not an SLI expert but IRC it can be set so that each card draws half a screen?

But then again I could just be talking bollocks :D

WB.

[Arctic Fox]

I have the same problem with C&C Tiberian Wars. The only way around it that I have found is after booting up my machine I load another game from the dvd drive, close it down & load C&C - no problem. I have not encountered the problem with SHIV - yet:roll:

[DirtyHarry3033]

Dude, that is one scary avatar. :o
Yep tell me about it :roll: That one showed up when I made my last post, guess I'm gonna have to make 20 or 30 posts today of nothing but smilies, i.e.

;)
or

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
to get rid of it! But hmm, the next one they assign me may be worse...

DH

[DirtyHarry3033]

Are you running 2 gfx cards in SLI mode? I'm not an SLI expert but IRC it can be set so that each card draws half a screen?

But then again I could just be talking bollocks :D

WB.

WB, good idea and yes I'm running 2 7900GTX in SLI. But SH4 is set to use single-gpu mode in the Nvidia drivers so I don't think that's it. However... maybe something got trashed in my drivers? I may try screenies of other games, if it does the same thing then maybe a ForceWare re-install is in order.

Thanks for making me think!

DH

[DirtyHarry3033]

OK, I give up. Removed all mods, no difference. Did system restore to a point last week when it was working. No difference. Totally uninstalled, re-installed and patched to 1.2 - no difference. Put mods back on, no difference. Screenshots are still totally trashed :damn:

Here's an interesting one I took after doing all the above:

http://home.triad.rr.com/llambeth/SH4%20-%20WTF%202.jpg

This one is very interesting, if you look closely you'll see bits and pieces of other SH4 screens. The red band is obviously part of the control room, the red night lighting is on and you can make out some of the gauges. That gray-colored band is part of the main menu.

That was the 1st screenshot I took after starting the game. If I alt-tab back to desktop, go back to SH4 and take another one, from then on the bottom 1/2 of the picture is whatever is currently on my desktop, the top 1/2 is SH4.

Clearly there is a buffer that's not being drawn properly. Only the top 1/2 gets drawn, the bottom 1/2 contains junk from whatever was last displayed onscreen.

Don't think it's anything to do with Windoze, I took several screenshots in COH with no probs at all. Guess it's SH4's screenshot utility from now on, at least it still works...

DH

[U-4053]

I've run into the same Issue several times while using Screen Hunter to take screen shots
I just started taking more than one screen shot of the same Item, it's almost as if the program is not able to keep up with it, could be a Driver Anomoly ?
It couldn't hurt to reload your Vidio drivers.
Irfan View is a good Screen shot utility I have no Idea why it would do this unless some small file inside the program is corrupt, if the driver reload doesnt fix it, try uninstalling and reinstalling Irfan View .


Charlie

[DirtyHarry3033]

Well after much messing around and about 50 restarts of SH4, I've learned that what's causing the screenshot problem is the Vertical Sync option under graphic settings.

If it's checked, I get mangled screenshots.

If it's not checked, I get normal screenshots.


Don't know why it's doing this all of a sudden, I had vsync on ever since it was an option on the menu, and before that I'd forced it on in main.cfg. Not sure what happened.

I'd play w/out vsync except that I get microstutters so bad the game is unplayble. Tried turning vsync off in SH4 and forcing it on in my video card drivers and I can take good screenshots that way but I still have the microstutters.

I'll try the video driver reinstall later this afternoon. Maybe something got crapped in the driver so it's not waiting for the buffer to fill before grabbing the screen?

DH

[Bane]

For easier screenshots I recommend using Ctrl + F11 to take them and FastStone Image Viewer (http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm) (free and awesome) to simultaneously batch convert/rename them all after exiting the game. Then just delete the original bitmaps.

For your DVD issues have you tried updating your IDE/ATA drivers from your motherboard's website? If they're too old they may not work correctly with newer programs. For example, I couldn't do any burning of any sort with iTunes before I updated; iTunes would just lock up. After the update all was well.

[bruschi sauro]

Scan for virus.. maybe.:-?

[DirtyHarry3033]

Guys thanks for all your help and advice - finally came down to re-installing my ForceWare drivers (a nightmare in itself, something always goes wrong when I do it and today was no exception) Here's the proof:

http://home.triad.rr.com/llambeth/SH4%20-%20WTF%20Fixed.jpg

That was taken with all gfx options on, including vsync. And I've restarted SH4 several times and it keeps on working :rock::rock::rock: Obviously something got crapped in my gfx drivers though I never suspected it since I could take good screens in other games. Who knows :hmm:

Next time we're in port together, drinks are on me!!! All your input is much appreciated :up:

Only question now is after 24 hours of screenshot-hell, do I even wanna play?

Originally paraphrased by DirtyHarry3033

I know what you're thinkin' punk...

You're thinking did he fix 6 problems or only 5?

To tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself after all this work.

But being as this is SH4, the most powerful sub-sim in the world, hell the bugs will blow your head clean off...

You've gotta ask yourself a question:

"Do I feel like playing?"

Well do ya, punk????

Thanks for the support guys :up:

DH

[clayman]

DirtyHarry ... ever thought of running FRAPS?

Oh ... and I had the same sort of issue but only when I let FS9 run the AA ... bottom and some times sides were desktop or blank. Running an X850XT then. So it was a driver issue ... once I loaded FRAPS I forgot about it.

[Cap'n Crabs]

Glad you got it going. :up:

I'm still stuck in AGP land. I'm guessing those cards in SLI are operating like the old Voodoo cards. I still have a pair of voodoo 2's on an old rig, running SLI.
As I remember, each one would render every other line on the screen. I must have missed that you were running SLI. :o I just hate to throw working stuff away. hehe
Oh well, it's all good now.

[ccruner13]

an easy solution to the SN problem as in bmp to jpg. get infranview. i just knocked down my 2 gigs worth of bmps to 58mb of bmps. but it still makes you wonder why they cant just save them as bmps. just like mtw2 they are all saved as .tgas. the cause for me to get infranview in the first place.