This dialog offers a number of important options that can improve the quality of captured game screens. Several of them are, from a purely technical standpoint, too complex to cover in detail here. Because of this (it would involve pages of text and complex references to bit planes and methods of interpolating data and encoding color formats and how pictures are drawn and picture palettes are defined in 3D games) we've decided to simplify how we explain these functions.
We'll cover just the bare bones of these features, but enough so that you should know what they do, rather than "how they do it." How they do it just isn't that important for normal use of the program.
The features of the dialog relate only to DirectX, Direct3D, and Glide (generated by older 3dfx hardware) screens. If you see your screen captures from such sources appearing in a way that's not how you want them to appear, the options below used as directed may correct the problems.
Getting data from these high-speed buffersùand making that data look the way you want it to frozen into a single image rather than a dynamic animation that takes advantages of quirks in human perception like persistence of visionùis a complex task requiring some difficult finessing of the video hardware and the data itself.
You can choose which type of hardware from which you wish to capture a screen. Of course make sure it's the same as that which your game or other software is using to generate its screens.
DirectX/Direct3D Primary
Surface - check this to capture from software using Microsoft's
DirectX and Direct3D technology. Games like Combat
Flight SimulatorÖ, as well as many others use the primary surface
to display content. These are not overlaid across the main desktop such
as DVD players, which are covered below. Anything full screen is usually
a primary surface, for the most part.
DirectX Overlay (for
example, DVD or Video) - check this to capture an overlaid screen,
such as that you would see inside the region of a DVD player application.
This is different from a primary surface capture. This data is overlaid
on "top" of existing screen information and during a "regular"
capture may not appear at all (the captured region may appear distorted,
black, or be missing data).
3dfx Glide -
check this to capture screens from Voodoo, Voodoo Rush, and other various
3dfx chipset-enabled software.
Hot key
limits.
Note that the hot key for full screen game and DVD screens is most
likely going to be "forced" to the Windows standard Print
Screen. Other keys may be blocked by full screen applications,
or controlled by them. When you select the type of capture you're doing,
the DirectX capture dialog will tell you which capture hot key to use
during game play below the check box that enables it. Be sure to read
that before you jump into the
game, so you know which key to hit to fire off the capture!
HyperSnap-DX 5 has some post-capture processing tools that may improve some captures should they not appear as desired. To enable automatic post processing of these captures, check this box and then select the type of processing you wish to have applied. These are performed based on the type of capture you're making, and are designed to improve the appearance of captures from these various hardware types based on our knowledge of "typical defects" gotten from their images.
You must first select the type of graphics controller you have installed.
None, unknown, or other
than listed below - defines a "generic" post processing
environment.
K1x4 filter for 3dfx
Voodoo 1, Voodoo Rush, or other Voodoo 1 based cards - optimizes
processing based on the characteristics of the images generated by these
boards.
K2x2 filter for 3dfx
Voodoo 2, Voodoo Banshee, and Voodoo 3 based cards - optimizes
the post processing based on the characteristics of the images generated
by these boards.
Gamma correction Factor
[value] - this function works just like the Gamma processing on
the Color menu except it's applied post-processing.
It's common to see very dark screens from accelerated 3D hardware, and
you can save time by having these screens automatically brightened after
capture. You can quickly set this value back to the default by clicking
the button to the right of the value entry box.
Get your
bearings.
Perform a capture first with all values set at the default in order
to get a "reference capture." Then change the settings here,
thus you'll best be able to see how "fine or coarse" the adjustments
actually are to the appearance of the captured images.