segadc

[Zunerama Ed.]

Hello Zune gamers,

  I'm preparing a Zune Games Directory page, and am looking for some good-quality screenshots of the games in our games list thread (maintained so well by our very own segadc).

  Sometimes the game developer makes a screenshot available, but in other cases I have to use well-focused pictures taken of a Zune playing the game.

  Would appreciate any pics anyone might have that are sharply-focused and that show a screen representing a game.

  I'll be posting the games directory page shortly and plan to keep it in sync with segadc's forum thread.

- Harvey

[D4V3]

There are a few in my old game demos thread that you're welcome to use [if you can- i know they're pretty small, but a few of them look like they might be alright]. About that thread... lol... I just didn't have enough freetime to keep up with it- there are too many new games coming out and too many updates to the current games out, I just dont have the time of day to keep up with them all- when the zune team releases their official games I'll try to get back on it [depending if/how much they cost ], but with private scripters writing 3 new updates in a weekend, I just dont have the manpower to keep re-filming, editing, then posting the new videos

[Zunerama Ed.]

Thanks, D4V3, I've picked a few up from there - and also from screenshots I've snapped when running your videos.

I understand about the video demos! If anyone else can help by recording and uploading demos of Zune games, please feel free. It's a nice way to help people get a feel for a game before they download.

[Darkblade]

I'd help, but my digital camera is currently nothing more than a brick. Camera has a known issue with it's battery compartment, and I guess mine's finally given up, after 2 years of (barely) getting by somehow on some rechargable batteries.

Unless someone decides to write up the code for a screen capture function on the Zune. (If possible) But you want the actual Zune device in the screenshots no?

[Zunerama Ed.]

^ No, in fact I'd prefer a straight 320x240 screenshot.

Come to think of it, that would be a very useful Zune application to have - something that captures a screenshot of a Zune's display, and saves it a pictures folder.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

^ No, in fact I'd prefer a straight 320x240 screenshot.

Come to think of it, that would be a very useful Zune application to have - something that captures a screenshot of a Zune's display, and saves it a pictures folder.

Someone already did this with some C# coding. it is on the official forums for xna http://forums.xna.com
but, that forum is a mess.

[Darkblade]

Someone already did this with some C# coding. it is on the official forums for xna http://forums.xna.com
but, that forum is a mess.

I remember seeing the topic about it, but at the time no one had made any progress. I forgot to bookmark it naturally, and a search now only shows up dead links.

[Zunerama Ed.]

^ Ah thanks. This would be very handy to have... for the games reviews, and also for screen shots of Zunes when troubleshooting. It's also something I'd use for upcoming editions of Zune for Dummies.

Would love to see a Zune app that captures a Zune screenshot!

[segadc]

I emailed SimReality (aka Nick Gravelyn) asking how to make screenshots. He emailed back with some awesome instructions!

What I did was convert Scrambled Albums to Windows. You can easily do this by right clicking the project in Visual Studio and hitting the "Create copy of project for Windows" button. Then I went into the main game class (in my case it was called ScrambledAlbumsGame, some might be Game1 or whatever. The key is to find the class that is define as 'public class Something : Game' or 'public class Something : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game'). In that class I go into the constructor for it (if you don't know code it's the method with the same name as the class) and add these two lines:

graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 240;
graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 320;

That tells XNA to run the game in a 240x320 window.

Then I make sure to set the Windows project to be the default to run by right clicking the project and hitting "Set as StartUp Project". I also go to the drop down up top (two to the right from the green play button) and make sure that's set to x86.

Next I hit F5 to build and run the game. Some things in Scrambled Albums didn't work in Windows (such as the MediaLibrary stuff), so I just commented it out. Most games should work just fine on Windows, though. I also had to manually get some album art to stick in there (since I couldn't get it from a MediaLibrary), but again most games won't suffer those issues.

Hopefully that helps out and feel free to share this with others in case they want to take screenshots themselves.

[Zunerama Ed.]

^ Beautiful! Thanks segadc - - and SimReality.