Why are my videogame screen captures the wrong colors?
February 27, 2008 8:12 PM Subscribe
Trying to save Videogame screen captures under Windows XP. They're supposed to look like this, but they wind up looking like this(Color pallete wrong). What am I doing wrong?
I did this using PrtSc-Ctrl to copy the image into the buffer, then pasted into MSPaint. Pasting into OpenOffice with the same results. Trying to paste directly into the GIMP wound up with a solid-black block. The program PasteOff refuses to even pick up images from the game.
If nothing else, does anybody have any ideas how I could fix the files?
I did this using PrtSc-Ctrl to copy the image into the buffer, then pasted into MSPaint. Pasting into OpenOffice with the same results. Trying to paste directly into the GIMP wound up with a solid-black block. The program PasteOff refuses to even pick up images from the game.
If nothing else, does anybody have any ideas how I could fix the files?
Response by poster: It's Garden of Coloured Lights.
Wow! Found an option in one of the init files that runs the game in a window, and THAT lets me screen capture it! Thanks!
posted by Orb2069 at 8:41 PM on February 27, 2008
Wow! Found an option in one of the init files that runs the game in a window, and THAT lets me screen capture it! Thanks!
posted by Orb2069 at 8:41 PM on February 27, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
What game, exactly, is this?
Modern games tend to access the video hardware directly, rather than going through Windows GDI. Using OpenGL, DirectX, etc. - they don't have to be "3D" games in order to do this.
This results in them appearing in a video "overlay" that your screen capture software might not be aware of at all (in the case of PasteOff), or Windows might try to make an effort using Ctrl-PrtSc, but is unable to get the correct palette information from the game. I'm not sure of the technical details, but I think something like this is what's happening.
In the configuration options for the game, see what video options it gives you - it may let you select DirectX or OpenGL or Framebuffer or some other options. It may let you choose Direct Hardware Rendering or Software Rendering, or Hardware Acceleration. Try mucking about with those settings, see if things improve. Note - switching to Software Rendering may well make the game run slowly, but it might give you a better hope of capturing the image.
posted by Jimbob at 8:34 PM on February 27, 2008