14th March 2006, 8:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 14th March 2006, 9:19 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Quote:Darunia is likely talking about DOS though. This game is "ancient". The issue is how ancient, since as we know Darunia considers the N64 "ancient".
Precisely my point. EM's answer does not address the problem; and note that it is the same for Windows games -- screenshotting is entirely program-dependent, as long as they are fullscreen applications (and most games are fullscreen-only)... so saying "just hit printscreen" is not going to work so often that giving it as the answer for a "how do I take screenshots in games" question is very, very misleading. Games, whether for DOS or Windows 9x, are NOT general Windows applications.
Quote:By the way ABF, it is true that when you run a DOS game under the 9x architecture, it has direct access to the hardware, but there is enough OS there that the OS has keyboard access to certain commands. You can usually "tab" out of a DOS game, for example. Also, the OS is generally responsible for print screen functions even in a DOS game under Windows 9x. You can disable this in shortcut properties though.
I will note that print screening, even when the OS is in charge, is "iffy" at best when running a DOS game. It was originally intended for capturing text and sending it directly to the printer after all, and so the most you usually can get reliably from a DOS box under 9x is text. Otherwise, you tend to get garbage.
Yeah, I was talking about how in Win 9x (95/98/Me) DOS boxes are pretty close to being a real DOS mode, particularly when fullscreen (windowed DOS boxes don't always work, and are more limited -- for instance DOS boxes can't make text blink properly (but it works in fullscreen)...)
Anyway, I noticed that when I took some fullscreen Printscreen screenshots in DOSBox they did not come out properly, while they did in windowed mode, so I understand what you mean about it being iffy at best... so yeah, if it's a DOS program, the best way to get a shot is windowed in DOSBox. Or look to see if the program has a built-in screenshot command... but most DOS games, from my experience, do not.
Quote:In the future, there are going to be further compatibility issues. The old standards are not just being added to, they are being out and out replaced altogether, and not many major companies seem too concerned about keeping legacy standards in their hardware or software. Soon 32 bit software will need emulation to be operated. For now though, the current standards are still in place, so enjoy the fact that you can run your games on your hardware for now .
Some already do. I have Windows 95 native games that do not run in WinME on modern machines, and I just can't run them at all since there aren't Win95 or DirectX 5 emulators out there (since DX6 broke some functions from DX5 and before, making some programs fail)... if DOSBox hasn't managed to do DOS/4GW Protected Mode late DOS games running at full speed yet, how can I expect Win98OSR2 with DirectX5 to be emulated? Yeah, I can't.
There are, however, some nice Voodoo emulators, to fool older 3d games that only have 3d emulation with 3dfx cards to run...
Anyway, when I get a new computer within the next year, I fully intend on either putting these harddrives in it (and a controller card if necessary) or setting aside a partition for Win98 or ME, because I know that XP or Vista (I'd rather wait if I can, buying an OS right at the end of its life is stupid...) will not be even close to enough for someone like me...
Quote:Anyway, back on topic, I have to say that even DOSBox (which offers, to an extent, superior DOS emulation to what XP normally provides) does not really solve the print screen problem. I have attempted on many occasions to snap pictures of Kingdom O Magic, and the best I've been able to attain is a black image that actually had some garbled outlines of objects in one of the image layers in the game.
I've given the solution to that problem multiple times now, DJ. Alt-Enter, PrintScreen, paste, cut off the parts that aren't the window. Simple, and it works. :)
You just can't do that with games in real DOS mode (DOS boxes in Win9x can only run in windowed mode when they're just displaying text, not games... fullscreen only for those.) or games in Window 95 unless it's one of those rare games with either a printscreen command built in or one that runs in windowed mode.