Screenshot Adventure Resource Post

[backupdump002]

FINALLY
AT LONG LAST
I HAVE COMPLETED THAT SCREENSHOT ADVENTURE TUTORIAL/RESOURCE POST-TYPE THING I SAID I WAS GOING TO DO AGES AGO though this is really more of a resource post than a tutorial.

Keep in mind that since I'm pretty much just throwing this together based on what I know and do, there's probably a lot of sites or programs or methods out there that I am not aware of. Because of this, I'm asking everyone who reads this to let me know if you have something you'd like to add. If you don't have something you want to add, BUT you have a question that wasn't answered in this, ask me and I'll do my best to answer it and add it into the guide. I want to make this as strong as possible, and I'm gonna need you guys' assistance to do so. I'll even give you credit!


Getting Started
SO YOU WANNA TAKE SCREENSHOTS, HUH????? In that case, let's get down to business.

Choosing a Game

Well, the first thing we should do is, obviously, pick out a game. Now, unless you're going for a quick, satirical kind of thing like, say, something Angry Video Game Nerd-esque, then a general rule of thumb is to go with something that actually has a fairly sufficient amount of dialogue and plot, and to steer clear of things like fighting games and first-person shooters and so on. You need to give yourself something to work off of. I'm sure some of you out there are going "well DUH" at this, but hey, I've seen people try this before, and, well, needless to say, they lost steam pretty quickly. SO

Anyway! So whether you're like me and like to come up with a list of games and have people vote on 'em, or if you have one game that you're really dead-set on doing and are gonna do it NO MATTER WHAT, whatcha need now is a ROM and an emulator.

ROMs and Emulators: THE CANCER THAT'S KILLING THE GAMING INDUSTRY

I'm assuming you all know what ROMs and emulators are. If not, click those links I just linked just now.

-Emulator Sites
The Emulator Zone - Great site, gives you lists of several emulators for each console AND tells you what features they have.
Zophar's Domain - Pretty darn good! Gives you lists of emulators, ROMs, as well as a lot of extra stuff like music and savestates and the like. Very handy little site.
CoolROM - Fair -- gives you a lot of emulators to choose from, but doesn't tell you anything about them. Good place to go if you know what you want. Also has some ROMs.
DOSBox - Like it says, this site lets you download DOSBox, which lets you play old DOS games! Woo! If you're not sure how to use DOSBox (or if you're not sure what DOSBox even is), zarla wrote a really helpful tutorial on it over here.
ScummVM - Pretty much just a program that lets you run certain adventure games and the like. If you're having trouble running DOSBox or just can't get a grasp on it, then ScummVM has a much simpler interface. The downside is that it's pretty picky about what it lets you run.

Protip: Where your screenshots save depend on what emulator you're using. Sometimes they'll save where the game file is (I know ZSNES and VisualBoyAdvance do this), sometimes the .zip the emulator came in will come with a folder called "snapshots" or something like it, sometimes you have to specify where you want them to save, whatever. Be sure to find out what the deal is and test things out before you get started.

Protip #2: If you reeeeally want to do, say, a PS2 game, you could always buy a PC version of that game and then use Fraps to take screenshots. If you don't want to buy the PC version, then you could try buying a capture card to record movies of you playing the game, then use Fraps to take screenshots of the movie file. It's also possible to do an emulator, I guess, if you have the right PC. There are many possibilities!

Protip #3: Can't decide which image format you should set on your emulator? WELL (copypasted from my reply to mega_hassi):
Well, it sort of depends on what emulator you're using, since each one gives you different options. The most popular formats I've seen, though, are .PNG and .BMP. And if I had to choose between the two of those, I would definitely go with .PNG -- it's MUCH smaller than .BMP files are (I just tested this with VirtualBoyAdvance, and a 240 x 160 screenshot is 112 KB in .BMP, and 14.9 KB in .PNG, just to give you an idea), and personally, I don't see any noticeable difference in terms of quality. So definitely go with that if you have the option.

On the flipside, don't worry if you can only use .BMP (I know Project 64 and Gens do this, just off the top of my head) -- I did my Final Fantasy IV adventure in .BMP, and the loading time on those weren't too terrible, or at least for me :B .PNG just saves a bit more space.

If you're REALLY looking to save space, some emulators miiiiiight let you use .JPG (I know Demul and Fraps do this, though with Fraps you have to pay to use anything other than .BMP), though you may experience some compression. Here's an example. It's not terribly noticeable unless you look, but if it bugs you, then you may want to just use .PNG or something instead.

Aaaaand I have no idea how .GIF looks or anything since I've never used an emulator that uses it :B Which is probably just as well, in a lot of cases.

SO TL;DR: USE .PNG IF IT'S AVAILABLE, THOUGH A .BMP IS FINE TOO, I GUESS

-My Picks
In case you're having trouble deciding, here's what I like to use. You don't HAVE to use these, but they're just my personal preferences and stuff.
Amiga - WinUAE. Be sure to get the Kickstart ROM, and be sure to read this guide to figure out how to set everything up. Taking screenshots with this is pretty tricky, though, since you have to hit F12, go to the "Output" tab, and hit "Save Screenshot." Can be tedious.
NES - FCE Ultra. It's simple, it works, and it lets you take screenshots! What more can you ask? Also note that the screenshot-taking key is F9, in case you don't wanna sift through the WALL OF TEXT in the readme file.
SNES - ZSNES. Quite the popular choice, and for a good reason. Simple interface, lets you take screens, AND lets you take videos, although that process is kind of complicated (tutorial lol).
Oh yeah, also, there's a Mac version. Apparently it's still kind of under development (I'm guessing that's why it's not on the front page), but according to the people on this post, it's workin' pretty well! If you're having trouble, though, then you might wanna read through that post and maybe even ask a question yourself. You need to sign up to post, though.
Gameboy Color - GBC Emu. This also runs classic Gameboy games!
Gameboy Advance - VisualBoyAdvance. NO CONTEST, MAN. Also, this is supposed to run Gameboy and Gameboy Color ROMs, but personally, I have trouble getting them to work right. I just use the emulator above.
Nintendo 64 - Project 64. It's not flawless, but it's still pretty fantastic as far as N64 emulators go. JUST BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD THE MEMORY PAK and also note that the screenshot key is F3. The downside to this is that it's only available for Windows.
Sega Genesis - Gens. Pretty standard, really. Take a screenshot with Shift + Backspace.
Sega Master System/Game Gear - Fusion. Can't find a website for this for some reason. Anyway, you press Shift+F12 to take screens, and keep in mind that you have to set it so it takes .BMP shots instead of .TGA. Just go under Options>Set Config>Extras.
Sega Dreamcast - DEMUL. Be sure to check the compatibility list, by the way.
Playstation - ePSXe. Many consider this to be the best PS emulator out there. There's a pretty good guide on setting it up over here. As far as the SCPH7502.bin and SCPH1001.bin files go, I haven't seen a real consistent place that puts 'em up for grabs, so you're really just gonna have to search for them on Google and hope for the best. Also, go here for Pete's PSX plugins and the like.
'Just to name a few. I can't really go into EVERY GAMING SYSTEM EVER since that would take forever, haha. Not to mention that I seriously doubt anyone out there is going to do a Virtual Boy adventure or something. IF YOU CAN MAKE IT WORK THEN I APPLAUD YOU


-ROM Sites
DGEmu - This is my favorite place to go. You have to sign up and you can only download a certain amount per day (unless you post on the forums and get more points), but it's worth it.
ROM Hustler - Another great place. Has a huge selection to choose from.
ROMNation - Used to have a much bigger selection before they got hit by THE MAN, but hey, not bad! They also have emulators.
C: DOS Abandonware - GREAT place to get DOS games. You have to sign up and you have to do all these stupid surveys (I recommend using an e-mail besides your main one), but they have such a huge selection that I tough it out.
Classic PC Games - Very nice place to get some DOS games, and you can pick up some Amiga and Commodore, as well. Like C: DOS, you have to sign up and do a bunch of dumb surveys to get download credits, but again, I tough it out. I find a lot of things here that I can't find on C: DOS. It's really great.
DOS Games - What you think it is. Doesn't have NEAR the variety that C: DOS and Classic PC Games has, but it's pretty good and you don't have to sign up for anything.
Abandonia - And here we have my new favorite place to get DOS games. You don't have to sign up or do any surveys or anything, and its selection is completely awesome. Definitely worth a look. (Thanks, zekkass!)
XTC Abandonware - Yet another top-notch place to get your DOS fix! You don't even have to sign up or anything.
Hall of Light - HUGE database for old Amiga games.
AtariAge - Great site for -- you guessed it -- Atari games.
RomBay - Pretty darn good, except you have to have a premium account to get ISO files.
SuperNova - A torrent site, for all you crazy torrenters out there. Has ISOs for PS2, GCN, and I think Xbox.

If you're having trouble running any of these--ROMs OR emulators--and are too lazy can't find anything on the websites or on Google or anything, OR if you're just having trouble finding something that works for you, let me know and I'll help you out!

Protip: ROMs can be buggy, and it's pretty embarrassing to start up an adventure only to later have to go "lol sorry for the bad screenshots guys, my ROM is all weird!" I know this from experience. Save yourself the SHAME and make sure that the ROMs work before you begin.

So let's say you found and emulator that takes screenshots, you've found a game, and you're all ready to go. NOW IT'S TIME TO START WORKING ON YOUR ADVENTURE! YEAAAHH


Working on Your Adventure
Anyway, actually GETTING the screenshots isn't really a huge ordeal or anything. Just run your game, take shots of everything until you have enough (I do around 300-400 screenshots per episode), then just save, exit, and get to work.

Preparing the Screenshots

So, whatcha gotta do first is move all the screenshots to a different folder (I keep everything in a folder titled "Screenshot Adventures" and make a new subfolder for each episode) and then just cycle through all the screenshots and delete the unnecessary ones. Multiple shots (I tend to take two shots for each bit of dialogue for some weird reason (OCD)), obsessive shots (like trying to cap EVERY MOVEMENT a character makes. haha of course i haven't done this) -- anything that isn't totally necessary to show the reader, or anything that isn't totally necessary for them to get the point. It's good to try and create a somewhat "authentic" feel, though; I like to take shots of the scenery so the reader can see what the area is like, or if the character pauses in between dialogue boxes then I like to take a shot of that pause and throw it in there (so it'll be something like "(dialogue) (pause; no dialogue box) (dialogue)"). Just little things like that. Am I making sense?

Protip: Moving your screenshots to another folder before booting the emulator again is vital, because if you leave them and then start taking new screenshots, then those will save over your old ones. I had problems with this in my Chain of Memories and Superstar Saga adventures before I realized what was going on, and had these big gaps as a result. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU!!!!

Uploading the Screenshots

Right, so this and the next step are where things get kind of selective for me. I really only know my way of doing things and nothing else, so I dunno how helpful I can be, here. If you have another way, please submit it!

There are many different image hosts you can use, but I use Photobucket. It just seems like the most convenient one I've seen--free, simple, tons of space--and not to mention that you can download Flock, which automatically uploads your images to your account.

Protip: I would recommend that you make a new album for each episode, since otherwise you have all these crazy numbers tacked onto the end of your filenames that you have to look out for and then you run into size problems and adfglkhdg it's just messy.

Protip #2: Make sure that neither Flock nor Photobucket have any dumb resizing features on, and if they do, make sure they're on the highest setting possible. Otherwise, your screenshots are going to wind up looking tiny.

Right, so now that your screenshots are all sorted and uploaded and everything, it's time for the last step: coding and writing commentary.

Coding and Writing Commentary

So, coding. A very simple (if slightly long) way to do this is this:
1. - Open up Notepad and type in [img src=] (obviously using tags and not brackets). (Example)
2. - Copy and paste the (direct) URL for the first screenshot into that. (Example)
3. - Copy and paste that until it fills up Notepad's screen, then copy and paste THAT until it seems like enough. (Example)
4. - Go back to the top of the list, then input each number individually while keeping Photobucket open in the background so you can see the numbers. Make up commentary as you go. (Example)
This is what I tend to do, personally, and I've gotten to where I can do it in just a couple of hours. Not too bad, really!

Another way of doing it, as explained by zarla:
"I make a note of which chunk I'm doing (say, 237-532 since I usually screencap the whole thing in one run, or DOSbox lets you take multiple screencaps over periods of time without overwriting them), then do something like

img src= blah blah1.jpg

copy and paste that to 10, then copy and paste that set of ten to 100. Then I go back and change the tens place to twenty, thirty, fourty etc until I have a whole set of 100 done, then copy and past that 100 however many times until I got all that I need (usually two or three), then change the hundreds place and voila!

I then open up the starting screenshot with windows picture viewer and look through each shot, make commentary, and then preview to make sure I don't have any dead links (since I also takelike a billion caps of everything JUST IN CASE I MISS IT so there are blank areas) and voilaaaa"

Now, apparently there's another way you can do this by using Firefox's "Copy All URLs" extension and spreadsheets and it's supposed to be really quick, buuuut I... can't get that to work with Photobucket. Maybe it works with domains? I don't know. SOMEONE ELSE DO IT and let me know about it.

ANOTHER way to do this is to use this script, written by opaltiger (instructions are on the page). This is a GREAT alternative if you can't get spreadsheets to work. (Thanks, opaltiger!)

Commentary isn't really something I can help you with that much, though I do have a few tips/reminders:

1. I know I say that you should be funny, but at the same time, don't put too much pressure on yourself and try to force jokes. Let the humor just come to you, man

2. Don't rush! Read each bit of dialogue carefully and give yourself time to think of something to say. If you can feel that there's a joke somewhere and you can't place a finger on it, give yourself time to mull it over and phrase it the way you want to. Personally, I like to just keep all the coding/commentary in a Notepad file and poke at it every now and then when I feel like it. Sometimes I'll even open it up, write a few sentences, then just close it again and do something else for a day or so. It takes a while, but I'm much happier with the end result. This is also probably why I suck so much as a guest commentator

3. Keep in mind that screencap adventures are supposed to be for fun, and should really be a pretty low priority thing on your to-do list. Don't stress out if you haven't updated for a while, especially if you've been, say, busy with school or work or general life things, because real life (as well as your own interests) should always come first. You should start adventures with the intention of finishing them, of course, since it isn't really good to squat on a game that other people might want to do, but at the same time, don't turn what's supposed to be a fun hobby into a second job. Just be coo'.


SO! Now that you're done with that (and also assuming that you've skimmed through and made sure there aren't any broken images and you're satisfied with your comments and so on), you're now ready to post your screenshot adventure! Congratulations! by the way you better get used to this because you're going to be doing it a lot before you're done


Extra Stuff
Stuff that doesn't belong in the other categories, as you probably already figured out

Music

You don't HAVE to add music or anything, but it just makes things more ~*fun*~

-Original Music
Galbadia Hotel - Considered to be the #1 choice when it comes to video game music. Has a HUGE selection to choose from.
Blue Laguna - Fantastic site for getting RPG music (and images and FMVs, but mostly music).
SNESmusic - My favorite place to get SNES music -- has a lot of really obscure OSTs that you can't find anywhere else. The problem with this site is that everything is on an .rsn file. The solution? Well, .rsn is pretty much just a renamed .rar file, so you can actually just change the .rsn's file type to .rar and extract it (you need WinRAR to do this). From there, you can also change the extracted .spc files to .mp3, just to make them more widely available for everyone. Aaaand that should do it!
And thanks to delcat for pointing this out: a guide on .spc-.mp3 conversion, if you have any trouble.
Zophar's Domain - He may not have as large of a selection as some of the bigger sites, but he's still pretty good.
LucasArts Soundtracks - Looking for Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, or [insert old LucasArts game here] soundtracks? LOOK NO FURTHER!
FFDream - Great site for Final Fantasy music, though it's in French. Not too hard to navigate, though; just go to wherever it says "Musiques," click the album, click the music note, then click "Telecharger" and download away. They also have some great remixes.
Sierra Music Central - Awesome site for old Sierra game music. Most of the files there are .ogg, though.
Gamer's Corner - Pretty good site -- has some soundtracks, and also has a page with links to other music sites. Most of those sites are just for specific games, though. Maybe you'll still find something?
GameMP3s - A helpful anon pointed this out, and then I took my sweet time putting it up here. Sorry about that! From their comment: That site is also pretty good for game soundtracks, although everyone else already probably knew about this for like five years while I found out yesterday. You know, if you want additions to the list and suchnot. Also if there's anyone who isn't familiar with the place yet, that place requires bittorrent for you to grab the musics, but uTorrent is amazing for that. Also no it's not one of those annoying filled-with-ads torrent sites, it actually looks decent.

-Remixes
OverClocked ReMix - Probably the most well-known site for video game remixes. It's easy to see why!
VGMix - Another good site for game remixes. It's currently trying to pick itself up after a long period of downtime, though, so there's not a really huge selection right now.
VGMix: Dwelling of Duels - AWESOME ELECTRIC GUITAR REMIXES. HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG??????
OverLooked ReMiX - And this is just a site for parody remixes. GOOD FOR A LAUGH

Misc.

BugMeNot - IS THERE SOME PUNK WEBSITE TRYIN' TO MAKE YOU SIGN UP TO DOWNLOAD THEIR LAME STUFF???? USE BUGMENOT AND DON'T BOTHER WITH ANY SISSY SIGN UP FORMS FOR WIMPS!!!

I guess that's it. If I come up with anything else, though, then I'll be sure to edit this.

(Last updated on 07/03/09)


If you have any comments, suggestions, links, or hey, maybe even some helpful tutorials of your own, feel totally free to let me know and I'll work it in here.

Speaking of screenshots, I'm planning on doing another adventure... soonish. I'm still working a lot of things out right now. I think you guys will like the selection for the next voting post, though.

P.S. go join screencappery

Comments

[zekkass.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Man, if only I'd waited for this to come out before starting my screencap adventure...oh well. I'll take these tips into account. :D

Thanks for the great resource! Now I have something to throw at my friends to make them do a screencap adventure. :D

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

IN YOUR DEFENCE I didn't really mention I was doing this anywhere :B i am so secretive omg

I'm glad I could help!

[zekkass.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, are you aware of the existance of Abandonia? (http://www.abandonia.com/) I just remembered it existed, actually.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I WAS NOT, HOWEVER I WILL BE ADDING IT TO THE LIST IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE IT IS AMAZING

[zekkass.livejournal.com]

:D

[zekkass.livejournal.com]

*frown* You don't have to sign up to download the games! At least, I didn't have to...Just go to the game and find the download button and click it?

[zekkass.livejournal.com]

WAIT THAT'S C:DOS ABANDONIA. OOPS.

[neutraltwin.livejournal.com]

DOX, SOMEONE TOTALLY DREW HILARIOUS GRAFFITI ALL OVER YOUR PICTURES! :B

Oh, and I've found by lurking at the SomethingAwful Let's Play forums that fighting and platform games are much better served by doing a video-with-commentary thing. I don't have any idea how to do them, but they can be great if you are good with quips.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

THOSE DARN KIDS

That's true, I guess people could do that :O That sounds like it would be pretty difficult to pull off, though. SOMEONE SHOULD DO A TUTORIAL

[neutraltwin.livejournal.com]

It's apparently pretty easy! You'd just use the same sort of audio recording process you did for the badfic reading, and...sync it up with the video of you playing through the game, I guess? I've heard Windows Movie Maker is actually USEFUL for this, omg.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion one had all sorts of guest commentary, so if you worked out a screen-sending thing, you could do that too! :O POWER OF TEAMWORK AHOY

But yes, a tutorial would be good.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Huh, that actually sounds like it'd be pretty fun to do, once you figured out how to make everything work right. HMMMMMMMMMM.

[misheard.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I needed this. Badly.

One little question - do you know where Gamecube ROMs can be found? I can't seem to find any...

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it helped you!

Hmmmmm... PS2/GCN/Xbox emulators and ISOs are a lot more difficult to find than the older stuff and are usually kinda buggy, in my experience :O Maybe SuperNova (http://suprnova.org/) has what you're looking for, though? You need BitTorrent, but they have a pretty fair selection, from what I can tell. HOPEFULLY THEY WORK

[misheard.livejournal.com]

It looks like SuperNova does! No seeders at the moment, but I'll keep it in mind, thank you~

[zarla.livejournal.com]

Heh, my way of doing this is much simpler since I throw everything on my domain or another. :B But I basically...how do I do it...

I make a note of which chunk I'm doing (say, 237-532 since I usually screencap the whole thing in one run, or DOSbox lets you take multiple screencaps over periods of time without overwriting them), then do something like

img src= blah blah1.jpg

copy and paste that to 10, then copy and paste that set of ten to 100. Then I go back and change the tens place to twenty, thirty, fourty etc until I have a whole set of 100 done, then copy and past that 100 however many times until I got all that I need (usually two or three), then change the hundreds place and voila!

I then open up the starting screenshot with windows picture viewer and look through each shot, make commentary, and then preview to make sure I don't have any dead links (since I also takelike a billion caps of everything JUST IN CASE I MISS IT so there are blank areas) and voilaaaa

WILL ADD TO THE TOP OF SCREENCAPPERY IN A MOMENT

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

That's actually a pretty good way of doing it! :O I really ought to try that sometime.

WILL ADD THIS TO THE POST among a few other things i forgot to add, durf

[delcat.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the guide! I'm taking teeny baby steps toward my own screencap adventure, and this gives me hope that I can actually pull it off. You're so nice. You deserve ale and whores.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Hooray! :D I'm glad it helped you!

IN FACT... FORGET THE ALE!

[delcat.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy your adventures :D I haven't read the FFIV one yet 'cause I sorta-kinda want to finish it on my own first (Tower of Bab-Il = PISSING ME OFF FOR THE ZILLIONTH TIME), but I seriously worship you for playing Chain of Memories so I don't have to. I tried, man, I seriously tried, but card battle games rape me in the brain and make me cry. You're made of stronger stuff than I.

Addendum:

[delcat.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent little tutorial for getting .spc to .mp3. (http://www.geocities.com/mark7home/spctomp3.html)

Re: Addendum:

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

AW SHUCKS IT WAS NOTHIN'

Really, though, I'm happy to hear you enjoy my adventure-type things 8D Chain of Memories actually wasn't too bad once I got used to the battle system and everything, though maybe that's just because I had a lot of time to get over all my frustration. MY MEMORIES HAVE BEEN WARPED WITH TIME OMG

I shall add that link to the guide post-haste!

[delcat.livejournal.com]

No amount of time will erase the amount of time I spent trying in vain to get past...um...oh jeez, not Axel, the ice dude...okay, his NAME has been erased, sure, but THE FRUSTRATION HAS NOT. Been. Erased. ...right.

YAY I CONTRIBUTED :D

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Oh, the ice guy... ice guy ice guy WHAT WAS HIS NAME AAAAAAA oh wait, Vexen? I'm pretty sure Vexen had ice powers. I HATED THAT BATTLE TOO WITH HIS CONSTANT BLOCKING AND THE SLIDING though I don't think anything will ever compare to that one Riku Replica battle that held me up for, like, months. Or Maleficent. Those battles sucked, and I had to grind for hours on those obnoxious heartless to even stand a chance against them. THE FRUSTRATION IS ALL COMING BACK

[delcat.livejournal.com]

YES HIM I knew it had an "X" in it THANKS :D

[mega-hassi.livejournal.com]

Great tutorial!

You should add some advice about what image format the screenshots could be in also.
You know for those who do not know (me for example :D) what format would be the best to use and what to avoid and such?

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Ack, I'm really sorry about the late reply! It just kept slipping my mind XD;

Anyway, hmmm... well, it sort of depends on what emulator you're using, since each one gives you different options. The most popular formats I've seen, though, are .PNG and .BMP. And if I had to choose between the two of those, I would definitely go with .PNG -- it's MUCH smaller than .BMP files are (I just tested this with VirtualBoyAdvance, and a 240 x 160 screenshot is 112 KB in .BMP, and 14.9 KB in .PNG, just to give you an idea), and personally, I don't see any noticable difference in terms of quality. So definitely go with that if you have the option.

On the flipside, don't worry if you can only use .BMP (I know Project 64 and Gens do this, just off the top of my head) -- I did my Final Fantasy IV adventure in .BMP, and the loading time on those weren't too terrible, or at least for me :B .PNG just saves a bit more space.

If you're REALLY looking to save space, some emulators miiiiiight let you use .JPG (I know Demul and Fraps do this, though with Fraps you have to pay to use anything other than .BMP), though you may experience some compression. Here's an example (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/sotiko/00000009.jpg). It's not terribly noticable unless you look, but if it bugs you, then you may want to just use .PNG or something instead.

Aaaaand I have no idea how .GIF looks or anything since I've never used an emulator that uses it :B Which is probably just as well, in a lot of cases.

SO TL;DR: USE .PNG IF IT'S AVAILABLE, THOUGH A .BMP IS FINE TOO, I GUESS

[venusrain.livejournal.com]

How do you make the NES emulator work? It is refusing to do anything but die spectacularly when I try to run it. Which makes me an angry Venus because that means I can't screencap Crystalis.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

whoop late reply

Huh, really? Have you tried running other ROMs on it, or use another NES emulator to run your ROM and see if it acts the same? It could just be that the one you're trying is buggy, because I just tried running this (http://www.dgemu.com/nes-details-770.html) Crystalis ROM and it worked just fine for me :O

If you've tried that, though, then I'm not sure what's goin' down :O Are you using an operating system other than the ones listed here? (http://fceultra.sourceforge.net/)

IF ALL ELSE FAILS then NESTopia (http://nestopia.sourceforge.net/) is an excellent alternative and seems to work with Crystalis, or at least for me 8D HOPEFULLY IT WILL WORK FOR YOU AS WELL

[venusrain.livejournal.com]

Tried it now. I remembering getting one emulator to work, but I can't remember which; NESTopia is driving me insane from just trying to open it. (WinRar hates me.)

[venusrain.livejournal.com]

OH WAIT nevermind. :D VirtuaNES works like a charm, despite the Engrish-y readme being a bit confusing. :B

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

BTW Dox.

A point you might wanna make: if you're doing a vote post, you might wanna get all the ROMs and stuff beforehand, so that noone runs into any problems when getting their adventure up and running.

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.gamemp3s.net/
That site is also pretty good for game soundtracks, although everyone else already probably knew about this for like five years while I found out yesterday. You know, if you want additions to the list and suchnot. Also if there's anyone who isn't familiar with the place yet, that place requires bittorrent for you to grab the musics, but uTorrent is amazing for that. Also no it's not one of those annoying filled-with-ads torrent sites, it actually looks decent.

durr

[dapper-dame.livejournal.com]

This is a stupid question but um how do you post the screencaps? I followed the walkthrough but they never show up when I preview the post (they work fine in replies though ._.)
Sorry for the stupid question I'm pretty new to LJ and I barely know how to use it D:

Re: durr

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's weird! If they work when you post, then maybe you could try testing things out in a private post before you let it go public? There should be a drop-down menu for that next to the "post entry" button.

Re: durr

[dapper-dame.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that was actually pretty helpful! :)

Games?

[twisted-viper.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm REALLY trying (like OMG I'M GONNA BASH MY HEAD INTO A WALL trying)to get things to work. I downloaded the visualboyadvanced but it's all black, and I have no idea what or how the games are supposed to work. Am I missing a tutorial somewhere?

Re: Games?

[twisted-viper.livejournal.com]

nvm I found one :>