More Awesome Than You!

I would like bigger screens than the settings that sims 2 offers. Does anyone know of a great screen capture program that is either free or crackable?

I usually just press 'print screen' on the keyboard, then paste it into paint or Microsoft Photo Editor. Trouble is you get the Sim UI on your picture too, so you end up cropping it anyway :D I don't know of any other program, but I am interested too.

Freeware Gadwin PrintScreen is great. Low use of system resources and has lots and lots of features. But you have to use windowed mode or it minimizes the game and kicks you to the desktop. Another slight annoyance is that a little popup comes up to notify you that a picture is being taken (you don't need to click anything, it goes away by itself when the picture has been taken), making it impossible to take many pictures rapidly. However, at least you always know your picture was actually taken.

Freeware YAFSSCREEN doesn't have the minimizing problem, and is also a good program with many useful features, but unlike Gadwin it takes pictures "silently" with no notification that the picture was actually taken. I have found that every once in a while it doesn't actually take them, especially if you take many in quick succession. I have a feeling this is a problem similar to Gadwin, in that it simply takes a while to take a picture and save it as a file on your harddrive. Gadwin shows you the process, while YAFSScreen does not, so YAFSSCREEN fools you into thinking that you can keep hitting the button quickly, when in fact the program is busy with your first request and is ignoring all subsequent requests until it finishes its current action.

If you're going to steal a program, Snagit is really the only one worth stealing. Widely available over bittorrent. Lots and lots of features, but a bit heavy on the system resources, I find.

I use Gadwin and love it.

Can I have my two cents back now?

I have tried other programs, but Gadwin always gets my vote.

Emma, F10 gets rid of the UI before you take the pic using printscreen.

Some folks love FRAPS, though...google it.

I use FRAPS 'cause it's free and I don't mind my stuff being BMPs (you can do other formats if you get the paid version), and it does movies too (not that I use that for Sims)

Thanks Jade :-*

It's too bad that FRAPS doesn't have non gaming applications... Well, it does catch when Avalon does something like Flip3D but that's it.

I've been looking for some software to capture thread screenshots for a while, and it seems like SnagIt works for that sort of thing.  It's also got a little bit of Video capture ability, but it compresses to... Microsoft Video 1.  Crap.

If you go into Gadwin's properties, you can set all of those things so there's no popups, doesn't minimize and no need for windowed mode. I have mine set to autosave with a name (I use the date and change it every playsession - it appends a number at the end) into a folder when I hit printscreen (you can use ctr-printscreen or something so you can have the regular one too.)

You do need to pause a minute after taking a pic or you'll lose one. I don't usually click that fast, so not so much trouble with that. But I've also found that the dang thing will spontaneously change its settings (either that or there's a mouse playing sims around or something). The other day it set itself to auto-email the screenie, so it kept dropping me out of the game looking for an email account that doesn't exist on that login (dropping me into a windows helper thingie) and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Of course, when I finally decided just to leave the helper up so I wouldn't drop out anymore and keep playing - then I lost a whole session of pics :p So check the properties before you play to make sure they're still set where you put them.

Or my computer's haunted. Probably that. The other one is - the mouse clicks things all on its own.

Yeah that. THe downside to using this program is I've taken about 2000 or sim pictures since I started using it :)

THanks Jade for the tip about F10 - that's handy.  Usually though when I want to really pose a picture, I will get into the approximate position I want and then use the TAB view button because the camera handles more flexibly for that.  Needless to say, I have the game paused for that.

Sagana, no need to even set the date every session. There's a macro for that:

"%m-%d-%y - "

Remove the quotes. It will automatically date it and number it, if you have automatic naming checked. The only thing I do now is tell it which family folder to place the pic in.

Hey cool, thanks :)

I use FastStone Screen Capture, and it sounds like it works the same as the Gadwin.  It will name and date your pictures according to your specs, and it's very easy on the memory resources.  Just wanted you to know of another free choice.  You can get it here:  http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm

Gadwin, all the way, for me. I don't use the in-game snapshot camera EVER, anymore.

I'll have a look at the new one, Gadwin loses my settings every time the computer gets turned off.

FRAPS works for me, but so does SimCamera, a program I used during Sims 1.

I haven't been able to find it anywhere for years, so here it is if you want it.

I use FSScreen, you can download it here:

http://www.ladymoiraine.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=11

It uses practically no resources and you can take rapid succession screenies using the print screen button.  Just read the read me or description on the download page.