The Great Screen Shot Conundrum

[Rockphed]

I need a good way to collect screen shots. Specifically, I need a way to take screen shots and save them to the hard disk at a single press of a button on a PC. I tried using fraps (http://www.fraps.com/), but it didn't recognize that the game I want to take screen shots of was running. I suspect it is because the game is from 1997 and doesn't use the video card.

Here are the system requirements for the game I want to take pictures of:


Windows 95
60 MHz processor
16 MB of RAM
2x CD-ROM drive
Local bus SVGA card with =< 1 MB of Video Ram
DirectX 3


Any suggestions? I kinda want to do this Let's Play before school starts back up in earnest, but I don't want to have to pause the game every 20 seconds so I can paste a picture into paint and then save it.

[Hunter Noventa]

Looks like this utility will do exactly what you need it to do- http://www.screenshot-utility.com/

[Rockphed]

Indeed it does. However, I notice that it has a limited, 1 month free trial. I don't suppose there are any other options, should my ability to complete the LB in a month fail, or I should decide to do another at some point in the future? Chiasaur11 may be able to do a lets play in a month, but I am not Chiasaur11.

[Johnny Blade]

Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.net/). Freeware.

[Rockphed]

Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.net/). Freeware.

Looking at irfanview's list of features, I don't see "capture screen shots at the press of a button, even when running another program" in the list. Would you mind explaining how to do that with it?

[Johnny Blade]

Sure.

Here's how you get to the general screenshot options:


http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9053/rockphed0.jpg


And here are the settings:

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/968/rockphed1.jpg

Three things that I consider noteworthy:
First, it doesn't have to be a combination of two keys. It can be one, or three, or whatever.
Second, you may want to save your screenshots as .pngs if you plan to resize them later or if it is a text-rich game with a small color palette.
Third, if you go for .jpeg, go to Options (next to the line where you select the format) and make sure you save them as progressive, which means they'll load better.

Anyway, that's how to set it up.