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:

1. Pause and compose the shot
2. Hit "Del" to clear the hud
3. Hit "Prt Scrn" key
4. Alt-tab to desktop, run IrfanView 3.99
5. Paste
6. Resize to 1024x768 if planning to post
7. Save as .jpg

I'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:



That don't look right to me

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

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

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

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 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".

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.
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.

[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

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]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Crabs

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.


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

WB.