Taking an actual screenshot?

dankcushions


# Directory to dump screenshots to.
screenshot_directory = /home/pi/RetroPie/MyScreenshots

needs quotes. should be:


# Directory to dump screenshots to.
screenshot_directory = "/home/pi/RetroPie/MyScreenshots"

also, does the directory exists and do you have write-access?

also, i probably wouldn't use the function keys as mame already uses them for things, so every time you take a screenshot with f8 you'll be activating some mame option (i think possibly to do with frameskip).

briankross

@dankcushions

Thanks, I made the change! This makes sense for directories.

Great point about the F8 key for mame games. I'll have a look for which keys may be unused, do you have a suggestion that's good for lr-mame2003 and lr-nestopia?

Permissions for the directory is 755, created by root.

dankcushions

@briankross said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@dankcushions

Thanks, I made the change! This makes sense for directories.

Great point about the F8 key for mame games. I'll have a look for which keys may be unused, do you have a suggestion that's good for lr-mame2003 and lr-nestopia?

i think 'p' is the default in retroarch, so that would be my preference :)

Permissions for the directory is 755, created by root.

755 is fine if it is owned by the pi user.. but i guess will be a problem if not.

briankross

@dankcushions

I just uncommented the retroarch.cfg screenshot line and it was already set to f8. It looks like input_pause_toggle is set to p, but is commented out.

I've tried print_screen and "print_screen", neither work.

dankcushions

@briankross said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@dankcushions

I just uncommented the retroarch.cfg screenshot line and it was already set to f8. It looks like input_pause_toggle is set to p, but is commented out.

I've tried print_screen and "print_screen", neither work.

my mistake! f8 is the default key.. hmm, i dunno what i would use in that case... i take screenshots via the RGUI when i need to.

briankross

@dankcushions said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@briankross said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@dankcushions

I just uncommented the retroarch.cfg screenshot line and it was already set to f8. It looks like input_pause_toggle is set to p, but is commented out.

I've tried print_screen and "print_screen", neither work.

my mistake! f8 is the default key.. hmm, i dunno what i would use in that case... i take screenshots via the RGUI when i need to.

When I use the quick menu from RGUI, it kicks me out of the game.

dankcushions

@briankross that's very odd. anything in /tmp/runcommand.log when that happens?

all this stuff should 'just work'

briankross

@dankcushions said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@briankross that's very odd. anything in /tmp/runcommand.log when that happens?

all this stuff should 'just work'

Edit: url in pastebin.com
Here's the log.

I ran Contra (nes), pressed select + x on a SNES gamepad to reach the RGUI, quick menu, take a screenshot.

dankcushions

@briankross i thought you said quick menu crashed? if it's crashing when you create a screenshot i think maybe it's that permissions problem i mentioned earlier... but not sure. IMO it would have been best to test they work in the default directories before changing them.

briankross

@dankcushions said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@briankross i thought you said quick menu crashed? if it's crashing when you create a screenshot i think maybe it's that permissions problem i mentioned earlier... but not sure. IMO it would have been best to test they work in the default directories before changing them.

Doing what I mentioned above kicks me from the game back to Emulation Station.

There were no directories set previously.

Here's the original retroarch.cfg entries:

# Take screenshot
# input_screenshot = f8

# Directory to dump screenshots to.
# screenshot_directory =

herb_fargus

@briankross if you don't set the directories I think it just dumps them in the home directory.

UDb23

@herb_fargus
Screenshots taken thru RGUI are saved in the home/pi/.config/retroarch/screenshots/ folder.
I think it's default as I have never set any screeshot_directory parameter.
Just tested with lr-mame 2003 (retropie 3.8.1).

RGUI takes a screenshot of the actual game screen area; it is not including bezel (when you enter RGUI the bezel is no longer shown). Does anybody know how to get also the bezel ?

RetroResolution

@UDb23 hi,
If you use raspi2png (I covered this earlier in the thread I think - it was a while ago!), it grabs the entire GPU frame buffer as a .PNG file, so you'll get everything that is on-screen.

[Edit: 4th post down in this thread, covers installing and using raspi2png]

Floob

@UDb23 You can keep the bezel in RGUI with an option in there - its under the overlay section, and something like "keep overlay in RGUI"
Not sure if that will help include it in the screenshot though.

briankross

Just wanted to jump in with a quick question.

Is "raspi2png" the only option if not using retroarch based emulators? (I hope I said that right!)

RetroResolution

@briankross it all depends on the emulator. The Atari ST emulator, Hatari, for example, has an in-built screen-grab (and Audi/video recording) facility. The Atari 8-bit emulator, Atari800, provides a screen shot feature.

briankross

@RetroResolution said in Taking an actual screenshot?:

@briankross it all depends on the emulator. The Atari ST emulator, Hatari, for example, has an in-built screen-grab (and Audi/video recording) facility. The Atari 8-bit emulator, Atari800, provides a screen shot feature.

Ah, nice thanks! My goal is to assign a button on the console to take a screenshot. I'll continue researching.

RetroResolution

@briankross cool, but bear in mind that for non libretro-core (non-retroarch) emulators assigning custom controller buttons can be tricky - it all depends in whether the emulator allows custom configuration (or if a controller-to-keypress tool can be used).
For the Atari800 emulator I located a retroarch port that somebody shared on github, compiled that on my Pi, and integrated it into emulation station so I could easily grab screens and record footage using retroarch.

edmaul69

@RetroResolution where does raspi2png save the screenshots to?

RetroResolution

@edmaul69 hi,
It will store them in whichever directory you're in when you run the command; if you installed raspi2png following the instructions in the fourth post in this (long) thread, you can run raspi2png from any location:

For ease of use, either add an alias, or copy the program into the /usr/local/bin directory:

sudo cp -a raspi2png/raspi2png /usr/local/bin

You can also provide a filename with the -p parameter, which probably (I haven't tried this) also accepts a path, e.g to save to a 'pngs' directory within your home directory:

raspi2png -p ~/pngs/screengrab.png