Screenshots in windowed view Civ 4

[Cornflakes]

Is it possible to take screenshots the normal way in windowed view (i.e. hit screenshot on the keyboard and it gets captured automatically to the folder in My Games)? It's much easier to alt-tab between civ and the browser in windowed mode without having to enter and exit full-screen each time. The downside is that the screenshot button now just captures the entire screen (including the task bar and whatever is around the civ window) and I have to paste each one in paint one at a time and crop so I can no longer harvest a bunch of shots easily by repeatedly mashing the screenshot button.

I tried searching on google and turned up empty handed, so does anyone here know a solution? Is it just something I need to turn on in the .ini file? Here's the error that I get in game (after pressing screenshot on keyboard while in windowed mode).

[Sareln]

I can't test it until a couple of days from now, but try ALT + PRNTSCRN with the CIV window active.

I do it all the time when I'm at my desktop, so it is clearly possible.

[Cornflakes]

ALT + PRNTSCRN gave the same error. I tried with CTRL instead and it did take a screenshot, but in a weird format -- .tga instead of .jpg ... the full filename of the shot captured by CTRL + PRNTSCRN is "HiResScreenShot0000.tga"

[Krill]

The file format can be changed in the configuration file in My Games.

When I was taking screenshots in PB5 I just had the civ window open in my primary screen (I have 2 screens) and the screenshots always took, saved to the screenshot folder in the my games folder.

[Cornflakes]

The file format can be changed in the configuration file in My Games.

That's what I thought ... but it's already set to jpg (EDIT: and captures in JPG format from printscreen button while in fullscreen)



I have a work-around for now using Steam's screenshot capture (a solution that was suggested for Civ 5, but should work with any Steam game). The default Steam capture button is F12, which civ uses for the research advisor, so by changing it to CTRL + F12 I can now capture screenshots through steam. The shots are effectively the same except that they are going to the Steam folder instead of My Games. It still would be nice to know why the printscreen doesn't work in windowed.

[Hart]

You may be interested in this: ShiftWindow.

This tool lets you play Civ4 in fullscreen-size window. You need to have the tool running at the same time as the game, until it starts up and you trigger the rule that resets the window size. This might also take care of the error.

[novice]

My experience is that the screenshot function in Civ4 works in windowed mode as long as you keep your window on your primary monitor. If your window is partially or entirely outside your primary monitor, the screenshot fails.

[flugauto]

Try running with /altroot.
Try installing in c:\Z\civilization4 folder.

[Cornflakes]

My experience is that the screenshot function in Civ4 works in windowed mode as long as you keep your window on your primary monitor. If your window is partially or entirely outside your primary monitor, the screenshot fails.

I think you've hit the problem. My maximum screen resolution is 1366x768 and the minimum height resolution for civ in the .ini file 768. I moved the taskbar to the side so that I can access everything near the bottom of the UI, but when you add the bar at the top with minimize/maximize/exit/etc it pushes the bottom of the window off screen about the width of that bar.

I do wonder though why CTRL+PRNTSCRN still takes a HiResScreenShot in .tga format while the standard shots fail But I'm not really worried now that I discovered that Steam can take screenshots.

[Old Harry]

I run Civ4 in a window and PrintScreen makes jpgs just fine normally, occasionally it starts to fail (I think when I've been mucking around with other programs) and I get the same message as you. Ususally restarting sorts it out. Sorry if that's no help.

*Edit*: Hum, maybe Novice's suggestion is what's been going wrong with mine too...