"TV Out" problems

[Capmaster]

I upgraded my PC about 2 weeks ago. The new graphics card has DVI and TV out, two features I hadn't had on the previous card.

Recently I started playing Doom 3. When it first came out several years ago, we didn't have a PC with enough "huevos" to run it, like many people complained about. iD Software even admitted their gaffe making it so large and resource-hungry.

With the new upgrade I can finally run it flawlessly 8) The game has some amazing graphics

Yesterday I played around with the TV Out feature on my card and plumbed it into my Snazzi MPEG capture box on the other PC, hoping to grab some video to play with.

All it shows is a static image of my Windows desktop, with no desktop icons or video content. Even after I start Doom 3, the scene is the same. I suspect it's because Doom 3 is a pseudo-DOS game still, and the card's driver won't support this mode. When, oh when will games be purely 32-bit or 64-bit, and get away from the legacy 16-bit programming entirely?

I know we have lots of video-knowledgeable people here as well as many gamers, and many computer and video-savvy gamers. Any ideas? Thoughts? Has anyone encountered this problem and found a workaround for it?

[jagabo]

Instead of extending your desktop onto a second display, put the second display in mirror mode (ie a copy of the desktop). And for movies enable Theater mode in the ATI drivers.

[Capmaster]

Thanks. I tried that and it looked horrible.

I think I have a workaround:

1. Created autoexec.cfg in doom3/base dir:

set startrec "recordDemo; set demorec vstr stoprec"
set stoprec "stopRecording; set demorec vstr startrec"
set demorec "vstr startrec"
bind F10 vstr demorec

That sets up F10 to toggle demo recording mode.

2. Recorded demo (file ended up as base/demos/demo000.demo).

3. Set Doom 3 to run non-full screen in Doom setup options.

4. Started Camstudio to grab video off desktop.

5. Started Doom 3 and using console, entered "playDemo demo000"

Camstudio grabbed it as an AVI. Perfect! 8)

Using Camstudio on the actual game running in a window caused the mouse cursor to show on the screen. This goes away when running it full-screen. I use the mouse for aiming, firing and turning, and a gamepad for gross movements.

[jagabo]

Instead of extending your desktop onto a second display, put the second display in mirror mode (ie a copy of the desktop). And for movies enable Theater mode in the ATI drivers.

Thanks. I tried that and it looked horrible.

Of course it looked horrible. That's what happens when you downsize a hires display for NTSC video.

[Capmaster]

Instead of extending your desktop onto a second display, put the second display in mirror mode (ie a copy of the desktop). And for movies enable Theater mode in the ATI drivers.

Thanks. I tried that and it looked horrible.

Of course it looked horrible. That's what happens when you downsize a hires display for NTSC video.

Understood. But it looked worse than just NTSC on a hi-res display (it's only a $39 card).

The AVI capture option seems to do the trick. It's a lot of work, but the results at least give me something I can work with.

Thanks for your help

[jagabo]

Maybe that card has bad tv out or you needed to make some other adjustments? I have an X300SE in one of my computers and it looks about the same as all my other computers' TV out -- similar to DVD player.

In any case, the direct screen capture you're doing now will work much better.

[Capmaster]

Maybe that card has bad tv out or you needed to make some other adjustments? I have an X300SE in one of my computers and it looks about the same as all my other computers' TV out -- similar to DVD player.

In any case, the direct screen capture you're doing now will work much better.

That's the way I'm leaning. I don't plan to spend a lot of time recording Doom 3 videos, so the few extra steps required for using Camstudio is fine. The results look very nice 8)