how to screenshot while in a game

For those purposes I use Jing. The advantage is that you can program Jing to a function key and when you hit the F-key, everything on the screen freezes and you get a correct shot. Plus you can make annotations, highlights, arrows, etc. on the captured shot which is not possible with the snipping tool or ptr scrn.

Ravanx said:

Wouldn't a normal screenshot be able to capture Aero desktop? I'm confused by what you mentioned.

i meant video capture.

mitchell65 said:

Ravanx said:

Seven Eleven said:

Fraps is the king. it even captures Aero desktop.

Wouldn't a normal screenshot be able to capture Aero desktop? I'm confused by what you mentioned.

Screenshot captures a still screen, FRAPS and others capture the moving images (video capture) from where you can isolate a single frame of your choice.

The problem with video capture is that it takes a lot of CPU power. And that may have a significant impact on the behavior of a game. If the game does not need a lot of CPU power, that may be fine. But otherwise you will get a significant slowdown of your game (unless you have some super CPU).
On my 2.5GHz duo core CPU, the screen capture program (video) uses about 70% of the CPU.

mitchell65 said:

Good point. I have never played a game on a PC apart from Solitaire when it first arrived with windows 3.1 so would not appreciate that point. Getting old you see!

LOL - I never played a game either. But it just figured that this is what would happen. And you are right, we are getting too old.

Seven Eleven said:

Ravanx said:

Wouldn't a normal screenshot be able to capture Aero desktop? I'm confused by what you mentioned.

i meant video capture.

whs said:

mitchell65 said:

Ravanx said:

Wouldn't a normal screenshot be able to capture Aero desktop? I'm confused by what you mentioned.

Screenshot captures a still screen, FRAPS and others capture the moving images (video capture) from where you can isolate a single frame of your choice.

The problem with video capture is that it takes a lot of CPU power. And that may have a significant impact on the behavior of a game. If the game does not need a lot of CPU power, that may be fine. But otherwise you will get a significant slowdown of your game (unless you have some super CPU).
On my 2.5GHz duo core CPU, the screen capture program (video) uses about 70% of the CPU.

Looking at the two posts I quoted, does that mean that normal computers will have difficulty capturing the Aero desktop on video due to the immense amount of CPU power required and the lack of it on average computers?

Looking at the two posts I quoted, does that mean that normal computers will have difficulty capturing the Aero desktop on video due to the immense amount of CPU power required and the lack of it on average computers

I don't think so. As I stated, I have an average CPU (AMD 4800+, 2.5GHz duo core). And video capture works quite well. But I would think that you cannot play a CPU demanding game at the same time.

Ravanx said:

Looking at the two posts I quoted, does that mean that normal computers will have difficulty capturing the Aero desktop on video due to the immense amount of CPU power required and the lack of it on average computers?

just did some testing: Fraps uses ~35% of CPU when capturing Aero at 1280x1024@25fps. at lower resoultions it eats even less CPU.

Seven Eleven said:

Ravanx said:

Looking at the two posts I quoted, does that mean that normal computers will have difficulty capturing the Aero desktop on video due to the immense amount of CPU power required and the lack of it on average computers?

just did some testing: Fraps uses ~35% of CPU when capturing Aero at 1280x1024@25fps. at lower resoultions it eats even less CPU.

Wha's the CPU?