GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[goldengreg007]

I'm having some trouble when I take screenshots using the N64 Version 3 Utilities (patched and unpatched) "Grab Video Image" button. The process seems to go smoothly, no errors reported and I regain control of the game immediately after the process finishes. However, the screenshot I get on my computer only contains roughly the top half of the screen. It is consistent, I don't think I've ever seen another result.

Does anybody know why this is happening for me? Is this a known issue with the N64 Utilities that there is no way around? Is it likely a problem on the side of the utilities or the Gameshark? And lastly, are there any easy alternatives to this process? Bear in mind that I am only looking for alternatives that will allow me to do this on console. I'm using Gameshark Pro 3.2 and a Windows 98 computer.

Thanks for any information!

[goldengreg007]

Apparently the "consistency" I was seeing was because I was only taking screenshots of menu screens, as I noticed today normal gameplay screenshots generate okay.

I recently read in an old interview that Dragonsbrethren posted that "The game runs in 320x240, but the front end is higher". I assume in this context, "front end" means menu screens, so I'm guessing that's why the screenshot functionality behaves differently in menus.

Somewhere in the midst of my troubleshooting I came across some documentation that Zoinkity put out for the various commands that can be sent to the Gameshark. So I've been playing around with getting screenshots that way. I was able to generate my own gameplay screenshot, though the color is a little off. I'll probably try with a menu screen next and see if I get the same result. Guessing I will.

[Dragonsbrethren]

GE's title sequence, menus, and credits (all regions) render at 440x330. PD's title is 576x480, while normal NTSC res is 320x222 and hi-res is 640x222 (get stretched vertically on output). Never used any of those tools, so I have no idea if they have any way to capture the higher resolutions or not.

Since you have a setup for capturing from console, would you be willing to get me an uncompressed line mode image? Perferably something easily identifable, like the part of Dam's intro camera where it moves past the guard tower.

[goldengreg007]

Thanks for the details! I'll have to do more experimenting and see how the screenshot feature works with PD. I did notice that the Gameshark is passing an incorrect height value for the menu screens in GE, so that explains why those images get generated incorrectly. I'm going to hack my program to use the correct height value when it gets that higher width value and see if it makes any difference. It's possible the GS isn't sending all the values over as well, if it isn't recognizing the height properly.

Anyway, I generated an image for you with the N64 Utils. I hope it's good enough:

http://thengamer.com/woll/damlinemode.bmp

Let me know if you need any more.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Thanks for the shot, that's good.

[zoinkity]

I have a 16bit program for capturing screenshots via GS. It might take a bit to find which floppy it's on, but it does work for any screendepth. Techncially it can also capture 32bit color, which is rarely used but a valid output mode. GSCCC2k should also capture at any depth.

Can't remember if I ever fixed GE's debugger so it sends screenshot info or not. Memdump and ramrom worked, but might not have tried screenshot. It will actually change the video mode specificly to capture 32bit images.
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[goldengreg007]

I tried the Dump V-Ram tool (assuming this is what you mean) in GSCC2K, but it gave me some sort of "your system does not support this" error; so I'm definitely intrigued by your program! I figured you'd have already created something to do this, as usual. If you do find your program, it would be great if you also had the source code for it; cause I might try to incorporate it into another project I'm working on. But even if not, your program would still be useful to me.

[zoinkity]

http://www.mediafire.com/?t7al9yaocsulhq2

Sorry, took a while to find it. I don't know why I still have all these floppies. Source is included, originally built for TurboC 2.0 or something old like that. It was one of my very first programs and a total mess.

Not quite as elegant as I'd like. There's actually a method for interfacing the shark within its menus as well. One day I'll have to rebuild this thing to take advantage of that.
Also, a proper screencap would take advantage of pulling both buffers.

Source is usually included. I think I broke enough of the source in the F-Zero X uploader that it was pulled out. Messy anyway. Really messy.

Also, you may want to try this:
http://www.mediafire.com/?krrvcuxe5dfa8a7
It's a patched-up version of GSCC2k that should allow N64 breakpointing and (probably) fixes the screencapture thing.
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(\_/) Beware
(O.o) ze
(> <) Hoppentruppen!