Screenshot help (not a bug per se)

[da_Vinci]

Can't figure a way to get screenshots for Civ 5

Use print screen ... no box to name it (like Civ IV had). But it does get put in the screeshot folder, but as a .tga file, and nothing on my computer can open it.

Use print screen, copy into paint ... all I get is a solid black box filling paint.

So what is the secret to getting screenshots that are usable?

dV

 

[WuphonsReach]

1) FRAPS - which writes its screenshots out in PNG format, and you get to record video

2) Get an image viewer / editor that understands Targa (TGA) files. Such as ACDSee, JASC PaintShop Pro, Imgv or Cornice (last 2 are open-source and multi-platform I think).

TGA is a pretty old format - I'm surprised that your computer can't read it. Well, not really... Microsoft Windows built-in tools have always been severely crippled so that they don't poach their commercial offerings.

 

[ainwood]

I use Gimp. Its not the most user-friendly, but it works.

 

[da_Vinci]

So what is the advantage for Firaxis (or steam) to change to TGA, and give me more hoops to jump through?

Does CivFanatics speak TGA, or is a conversion needed before uplaoding?

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

1) FRAPS - which writes its screenshots out in PNG format, and you get to record video

2) Get an image viewer / editor that understands Targa (TGA) files. Such as ACDSee, JASC PaintShop Pro, Imgv or Cornice (last 2 are open-source and multi-platform I think).

TGA is a pretty old format - I'm surprised that your computer can't read it. Well, not really... Microsoft Windows built-in tools have always been severely crippled so that they don't poach their commercial offerings.

Hmm ... I was hoping to find a program that can view the format that Civ5 is putting in the Civ 5 screenshot folder. FRAPS, IMGV and Cornice so far all fail to work to open those saves if I use open with in windows explorer after I install the program.

Cornice comes closest, letting me navigate to that folder in my games ... but the Cornice display shows no content of the screenshots folder, when I know there are about 8 items in there visible on windows explorer.

Maybe it is not the programs ... maybe Civ 5 is saving nonsense?

dV

 

[Zelig]

Just get paint.net or gimp.

 

[da_Vinci]

Just get paint.net or gimp.

Thanks, I will give then a try and report back.

dV

Edit: HMM ... those downloads may have to wait until my broadband card 5GB limit resets in October ... the Civ 5 download just about used it all up ...

dV

 

[WuphonsReach]

So what is the advantage for Firaxis (or steam) to change to TGA, and give me more hoops to jump through?

As I said before, TGA (or TARGA) is a very old format, going back to 1983.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision_TGA

The main reason that it's still in use today is that it's an easy format for hardware to decode and it includes an alpha channel. So you have 8 bits each for red/green/blue and another 8 bits for the alpha (usually for masking) channel.

The only competitor back in the 1980s/1990s was TIFF - which is a big complex design with lots of optional features that not everyone supported. The TGA file format, on the other hand, was extremely simple and easier to implement. The modern competitor to TGA files is PNG and there are a lot of PNG2TGA or TGA2PNG tools out there. Blizzard uses something called a BLP file which serves a similar purpose (and you mostly convert those from BLP to PNG and back).

So, take a format that is very simple to decode and has an alpha channel, you'll get something that is extremely well suited to video game design where performance is king. The format is so easy to decode that you could probably sit down with a hex-dump of the file and a box of crayons and manage to decode it onto a sheet of graph paper.

 

[da_Vinci]

As I said before, TGA (or TARGA) is a very old format, going back to 1983.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision_TGA

The main reason that it's still in use today is that it's an easy format for hardware to decode and it includes an alpha channel. So you have 8 bits each for red/green/blue and another 8 bits for the alpha (usually for masking) channel.

Thanks for the info ...

So if it is that old and simple, why can no program that ships with a computer today read it? Unless what is getting stored in the screenshots folder is somehow corrupted? The reason I ask is that gimp is showing me a black screen for those shots (got the 4G side of the broadband card to run long enough to download gimp ... the 4G service is unlimited, for now )

Screen below.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Turns out that some screenshots were corrupted, but not others.

Success reading them with GIMP and IrfanView ... see screenshots.

Note: the original tga files are about 8 MB each, so conversion before uploads would be in order.

edit: now, in the irfanview shot, note the minor tile graphics bug ... excess land in the water!

dV

 

[WuphonsReach]

What video card are you using? What texture settings? Latest drivers?

Or it could be a bug in Civ5 with drawing textures, but going with lower settings might let things work a bit better.

 

[da_Vinci]

What video card are you using? What texture settings? Latest drivers?

Or it could be a bug in Civ5 with drawing textures, but going with lower settings might let things work a bit better.

GeForce GT 330M, http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html dxdiag says integrated RAMDAC ... then says 3793 "total memory" after that.

The total ram on the box is 6 GB. I have set resolution to 1920 x 1080 (otherwise the interface takes up too much of the screen) but have gone low to medium on most other settings (high on all gave me jerky movements).

The illustrated graphics bug is rare, only seen it twice or so in 40+ hours of play. I do find that the textures draw in slowly on a first load and first view of a map sector, but seems fine after that.

dV

 

[MarkJohnson]

print screen seems bugged. I can take the first prnt scrn of the day and always get the intro movie for some odd reason. the movie was finished long ago. gets held in a buffer or something maybe?

The next print screen or three come out as a black page. sometimes the map shows up on the 3rd or 4th print screen. but once this get a good image, then the rest work until I reset.

the black page wasn't an error, it would have given an error if it was. or at least gave gobbley .

I haven't used it in a day or two, so hopefully update 20 fixed it.

also, tga files are raw picture data and uncompressed, so they are very large and fully detailed. other formats are compressed to make them smaller in file size, but loose quality. Some formats can reduce the file by 10x. so a 5MB picture will only be 500KB. quite a big saving, especially for web pages.

 

[WuphonsReach]

I suspect that since the gfx card is doing most of the heavy lifting of painting the screen - the screenshots are basically a "ask the gfx card to give us image data back".

So if the video driver is buggy, that could cause issues. Or it could be that Civ5 isn't handling the data back from the video card correctly.

 

[Dusk]

This is semi-off-topic (my favorite kind), but my Windows 7 image viewer thingy displays TGAs just fine, did I download something or is that normal? I can't remember, but now I'm curious.

 

[da_Vinci]

print screen seems bugged. I can take the first prnt scrn of the day and always get the intro movie for some odd reason. the movie was finished long ago. gets held in a buffer or something maybe?

The next print screen or three come out as a black page. sometimes the map shows up on the 3rd or 4th print screen. but once this get a good image, then the rest work until I reset.

the black page wasn't an error, it would have given an error if it was. or at least gave gobbley .

I haven't used it in a day or two, so hopefully update 20 fixed it.

I got the black pages too, it may have been the first few that did it, so I may be confirming the behavior you are observing. Have to take a more careful look tonight.

I find that some shots don't include the interface or resource/yield icons, while some do, even if that is showing on the screen. No clear pattern to this yet.

also, tga files are raw picture data and uncompressed, so they are very large and fully detailed. other formats are compressed to make them smaller in file size, but loose quality. Some formats can reduce the file by 10x. so a 5MB picture will only be 500KB. quite a big saving, especially for web pages.

My shots in tga are 8 MB ... switch to jpeg can make that 250 kb.

dV