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Notes for taking Genesis screenshots

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by LocalH, Oct 15, 2005.

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  1. LocalH

    LocalH

    roxoring your soxors Tech Member
    As I browse around, I notice that quite a few people have taken "bad" screenshots of Genesis games (by "bad", I mean an image that is not a 1:1 representation of the Genesis display). There's really only one thing you have to do to make perfect screenshots:

    PLEASE DO NOT TAKE SCREENSHOTS WITH ANY RESIZING OPTIONS OR RENDERING FILTERS, INCLUDING "STRETCH".

    This causes such things as 320x240 shots with some scanlines vertically doubled, and also things such as interpolation, 2xSAI, hq2x, etc. being applied to the image. If you're going to ask us to critique your hack, please make sure that your screenshots are pixel-perfect.

    Note: 320x240 screenshots, such as Kega generates, are fine as long as you have 8 lines of black/border on top, and 8 on bottom, although your filesize will be a bit smaller if you crop to 320x224 before uploading. But it's just a pet peeve of mine to see 320x240 screenshots taken with "Stretch" on, since it completely mangles the image.

    This is not directed at anyone in particular, but rather the entirety of the scene. If you already take perfect screenshots, give yourself a pat on the back. If you don't, please consider doing so, as they tend to look better and take up a minimal filesize.

    The same basically applies to the 256 pixel screenmode, although if you want you can do a bilinear resize to 320 pixels width in order to create an aspect ratio that is closer to being correct. Or you can leave the image as is and have it be pixel-perfect but wrong aspect.
     
  2. Hez

    Hez

    Oldbie
    God bless....
     
  3. LOst

    LOst

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    Amen!
     
  4. Heran Bago

    Heran Bago

    Ah! It's Puyo battle then. Tech Member
    Does this include "double?"
    I like playing my ROMs with the emulator displaying double size. 1:1 is too tiny.
    Although I hate how it's hard to find/configure a decent windows emulator for NES and SNES that playes more than 1:1 without interpolating.
     
  5. Neo Majin

    Neo Majin

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    If you like to view the screen double, then change the screen size back to normal before taking screenshots.. I usually use the 2xSAI filter while playing, but make sure to change the screensize before taking a screenshot.
     
  6. Cinossu

    Cinossu

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    Sonic the Hedgehog Extended Edition
    This should be stickied
     
  7. Miles3298

    Miles3298

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    Here's your emulator. Enjoy.

    The pixel-perfect thing: For those who like Gens, Gens Plus is your friend for taking pixel perfect shots. Filters not applied to shots, ever. Never resized. I agree that non-pixel perfection teh suck, heh.
     
  8. Sonic 65

    Sonic 65

    Tech Member
    I never use double, interpolation, or anything. My screenshots are pixel-perfect! =O
     
  9. LOst

    LOst

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    Yes because if you have a shitty grapgics card, Windows will blurr the image when using double.
     
  10. LocalH

    LocalH

    roxoring your soxors Tech Member
    If it's a nearest-neighbor double such as Kega produces, then no, it's not a problem, as it can be resized to be pixel-perfect in nearly all paint programs, even regular old Paint. It's also a requirement if you're screenshotting a ROM that runs in interlace mode 2 (320x448).

    If it's an interpolated double, then it's not pixel-perfect. Although of all the non-pixel-perfect ways to do it, applying a bilinear resize to a normal resolution probably looks the best.
     
  11. Lostgame

    Lostgame

    producer/turnablist. homebrew dev. cosplayer. Oldbie
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    The O.I.C.
    That's why you run Mac. ;)
     
  12. Heran Bago

    Heran Bago

    Ah! It's Puyo battle then. Tech Member
    Aside from stretching, scanlines, interpolation, and 2xSAI type crap, I don't really care how people give me screenshots. Screenshots are shown to get a point across, it's not deathly vital that people pay rediculous attention to accuracy in filters as long as it looks good.
     
  13. Dude

    Dude

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    So no biliniar or trilinear resampling, and if we are to use resampling, we use nearest neighbor amirite?
     
  14. Qjimbo

    Qjimbo

    Your friendly neighbourhood lemming. Oldbie
    For Gens:
    [​IMG]
    Select Normal from Render options, then take screenshots with Shift+Backspace.


    For Kega:
    [​IMG]
    Disable filtering option, then take screenshots with Shift+F12.
     
  15. LOst

    LOst

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    I see you posted that just to say the cool 3D rendering names. The question would be much more easier and kinda stupid if you asked it the other way, like this:
    So we must only use "pixel-perfect" rendering?
     
  16. Vangar

    Vangar

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    *Pats self on back*

    I've noticed this lately too. Im trying to take a look at a picture someones posted with the Eagle filter turned on or something and they say "Look! its right there!"

    And I get confused and scroll down to the next post :P .
     
  17. Kampfer

    Kampfer

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    I like this topic.
     
  18. LOst

    LOst

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    Who doesn't. It would be even better if we had a program that could convert the screenshots into 256 colored gifs with the right color component values too.

    The problem with all emulators running in Windows is the 16 bit graphics mode. ICEknight simply has found a way to get propper palette values in Gens... BUT that won't work for most of us because ICEknight actually runs in 15 bit graphics mode, which has 5.5.5 bits of each color component. Most of us have 5.6.5 bits of each color component which will make the green color a little more stronger than the red anf green color.

    In LOst Library, I use 32 bit color (8.8.8 bits) which is converted to 16 bit or 15 bit depending on your display settings. That way LOst Library can take screenshots without losing any color bits. But this method is slower, and LOst Library only runs smooth with a 800 MHz Pentium III processor.
     
  19. LocalH

    LocalH

    roxoring your soxors Tech Member
    That means that, if you run LL on a 32-bit desktop, that it doesn't need to waste any of that processor time, right? (And of course, 32-bit is actualy 8.8.8.8, since you have the alpha channel as well, although most modern consumer cards ignore the extra 8 bits in regular 2D graphics).
     
  20. Dude

    Dude

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    uh, not really. They're not just for 3d rendering, they're for any image resampling... Ever tried to rescale an image in photoshop? See the options? Point proven. I used the terms because I do graphics. Dur. And rescaling ANYTHING is not "pixel-perfect rendering", because you ALWAYS lose data when you enlarge an image. Which interpolation method you use is (or SHOULD BE) up to the person working with the image. Crusading over methods of imaging is really immature. THAT was my point. I wasn't trying to show off my vocab
     
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