"Yes, wiki" (Snarkhunter's Dragon wiki thread)

[sixxie]

Looks like you can turn artifacting off under "Driver Configuration" in the MESS UI.

Where did you see this?! I've just re-checked all configuration tabs, but couldn't find any such option anywhere...

I built from source and it's in the SDL OSD interface (ie the one you get to by Scroll Lock, Tab).

[admin]

Sixxie - feature request for Xroar... A key combination that writes out the current Dragon Screen at Native resolution to a picture file - JPG or PNG... Possible or stupidly difficult?

[Alastair]

Sixxie - feature request for Xroar... A key combination that writes out the current Dragon Screen at Native resolution to a picture file - JPG or PNG... Possible or stupidly difficult?

Since JPG is lossy I would avoid it and go for PNG.

[Alastair]

Now, the only issues I still have are:
1/ Toggling on the menu bar again after switching it off (from the menu bar)
Yet I have found an alternative: after activating "ScrLk" first (Fn + NumLk) and selecting the "Partial emulation/Enabled" mode for the UI, the TAB key does switch on/off an overlayed menu, from which the "File Manager" option allows one to select a ".vdk" file.

Try pressing the ESC key (I found this out by accident).

[Alastair]

Thanks for clarifying things, Simon.
As stated in the other thread, I've now updated the page for "Shock Trooper". But I'm still having an issue with the size of screenshots, which seems to leap from picture to picture, though I suspect this might be an issue with the accuracy of the "XRoar" emulation window (i.e. size-wise).

But that is another story...

I have never seen this leaping in image position with XRoar, are you sure that the screen scale is 1:1? Or could it be down to the Windows style you are using? I use Windows Classic style which means that for me XRoar looks like the attachment, could it be that other Windows styles have variable frame sizes?

[snarkhunter]

I have never seen this leaping in image position with XRoar, are you sure that the screen scale is 1:1? Or could it be down to the Windows style you are using? I use Windows Classic style which means that for me XRoar looks like the attachment, could it be that other Windows styles have variable frame sizes?

The screen scale cannot be 1:1! Otherwise, I will never be able to get a proper 256x192 display! (... it will be forced to 256x256) Therefore, I have to select "None".

I also use the standard "XP style" theme on my PC: it has window borders similar in size to those for the "Classic style".

You may check the two screenshots in the attached file.
The first one is 258x193 (offset 35, 53)
The second one is 256x192 (offset 35, 54)

It's pretty obvious that the latter is lacking one line on either side (top & right).

[Alastair]

The screen scale cannot be 1:1! Otherwise, I will never be able to get a proper 256x192 display! (... it will be forced to 256x256) Therefore, I have to select "None".

By screen scale being 1:1 I did not mean the settings in IrfanView, instead I meant the size of the XRoar window when you press Alt+Print Screen to capture a screen shot.

I also use the standard "XP style" theme on my PC: it has window borders similar in size to those for the "Classic style".

You may check the two screenshots in the attached file.
The first one is 258x193 (offset 35, 53)
The second one is 256x192 (offset 35, 54)

It's pretty obvious that the latter is lacking one line on either side (top & right).

For reference you may wish to check my screen shots of Shock Trooper in the attachment, they are all at 256x192 and there is a slight difference between them and your 256x192 screen shots.

Also included is a resized image showing the IrfanView top left crop marks before cropping, some confusion may arise because when IrfanView crops an image the parts of the picture under the crop lines remain as part of the newly cropped image. As you an see in this screen shot, there is a green pixel in the corner between the top and left crop lines, this pixel will be the top left pixel when the image is cropped (and the same rule applies to the remaining corners).

As I remarked in the other thread, if you want a 256x192 image you should try offset 36, 54; if you want a one pixel border around the image you should try a crop size of 258x194 with offset 35, 53.

P.S. Please feel free to use any of my Shock Trooper screen shots in the game's wiki entry if you so wish.

[sixxie]

Sixxie - feature request for Xroar... A key combination that writes out the current Dragon Screen at Native resolution to a picture file - JPG or PNG... Possible or stupidly difficult?

Shouldn't be a problem, just needs a bit of work: there's currently no common internal representation of the "current screen", everything's handled by whichever video module is active. Past that, libpng looks fairly easy to deal with.

[snarkhunter]

For reference you may wish to check my screen shots of Shock Trooper in the attachment, they are all at 256x192 and there is a slight difference between them and your 256x192 screen shots.

True. Your pictures are lacking some data, too.
This is obvious in No 4 & 5: top & right lines lacking.

This obviously results from the "frame" line bordering the picture. It would take at least 258x194 to get a complete picture, as I already suspected. Yet, for a strange reason I stated yesterday, but am still unable to explain, 258x193 (offset 35, 53) seems to generate a correct result (cf my previous attachments).

The way IrfanView's cropping is working does not allow accurate 256x192 Dragon screenshots. Which is unfortunate - to say the least. I can't think of any other way of stating it.

I'm afraid I'll have to keep using 258x193/194 (offset 35, 53) because this seems to be the only way of getting acceptable screenshots. I only regret we cannot use standard 256x192, which would have been consistent with the Dragon's actual display.

[Alastair]

This is obvious in No 4 & 5: top & right lines lacking.

This obviously results from the "frame" line bordering the picture. It would take at least 258x194 to get a complete picture, as I already suspected. Yet, for a strange reason I stated yesterday, but am still unable to explain, 258x193 (offset 35, 53) seems to generate a correct result (cf my previous attachments).

The way IrfanView's cropping is working does not allow accurate 256x192 Dragon screenshots. Which is unfortunate - to say the least. I can't think of any other way of stating it.

I'm afraid I'll have to keep using 258x193/194 (offset 35, 53) because this seems to be the only way of getting acceptable screenshots. I only regret we cannot use standard 256x192, which would have been consistent with the Dragon's actual display.

There is nothing lacking in those pictures and IrfanView does allow accurate 256x192 Dragon screen shots. To prove this, open the number 4 I created in IrfanView then from the "Image" menu choose "Add border/frame" and from the "Frame style list" click on "Plain white" then on "OK". The result tallies pretty much with what you see in XRoar (though with the default IrfanView settings the white border will not be as large as that in XRoar). I agree that the cropped 256x192 screen shot does look a little odd when compared with what we see in XRoar or on a real Dragon, which is why I suggested using 258x194 because this larger size will retain a one pixel border in the background colour around the image.

I suspect that the choice of using the 258x194 or 256x192 setting to create a screen shot depends on each program. With graphics mode screens where the graphics go right to the edge being best served with the larger setting, and all text mode screens cropped at 256x192.