Guild Wars 2

Since the beginning of last month, any screenshots I take are terribly low quality, with incredible JPG artefacts.
I’m uploading two screenshots, one was from the beginning of last month (8-6-2015) and one was taken today. Notice the incredible drop in quality.

What could be causing this? Did Arenanet change screenshot settings? I haven’t touched my graphics settings at all.

Please take a screenshot of the same place with the same char. Texture quality isnt the same everywhere. I cant even tell which is before or after.

In addition to same place and same char you might also want a daytime shot as those two shots are dark and it’s hard to see anything.

… and turn a little to the right to get your good side.

It was reported some time ago after a patch as being a problem. It has still not been fixed, though I think they’re all busy fixing stuff that doesn’t work right in their last update. Hopefully it will one day get corrected to have the previous quality, or even re-implement the hi-res screenshot function without needing to take a screenshot in bmp format.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/May-19th-Screenshot-Quality

Sorry, but this is a freaking awesome look on the second SS. Mind tell me what sword is that?

MauricioCezar.2673:

Sorry, but this is a freaking awesome look on the second SS. Mind tell me what sword is that?

That would be the Daydreamer’s greatsword

Looks like different armor, different hair style, one at night outside and one in a cave. And I don’t think screen save uses the gamma setting so it always is darker than what’s on your screen.

MauricioCezar.2673:

Sorry, but this is a freaking awesome look on the second SS. Mind tell me what sword is that?

The second screenshot is mostly black dog hunts black cat at midnight in the coal cellar.

Does the -bmp command line argument still work?

Sandpit.3467:

Does the -bmp command line argument still work?

Yes. It’s currently what I use and my screenshots still look great. To the OP— I highly recommend using it if you don’t mind your screenshots being upwards of 10mb.

There are also alternative, external programs to take screen captures. Even SweetFX and other graphics PPIs have a screen capture key that you can use. They will also capture your cursor which the in-game screen capture does not. That can be useful at times.

Behellagh.1468:

Looks like different armor, different hair style, one at night outside and one in a cave. And I don’t think screen save uses the gamma setting so it always is darker than what’s on your screen.

Yah. Not the same chars in both pictures. One is dagger/dagger and looks like medium armor. The other has Greatsword and looks like heavy armor.

Armour, time of day, etc. don’t really matter for this, it’s the terrible jpeg compression artefacts in the second image that are the problem.
The first image has little to no artefacts, while everything in the second screenshot is surrounded by them.

Leaf.3156:

The first image has little to no artefacts, while everything in the second screenshot is surrounded by them.

I hadn’t even noticed it but looking at recent pics vs ones from a long while back it’s pretty noticeable.

They went from true screen cap to kittening awful. I really hope this is a bug and not some new “feature” that no one asked for.

Sept 1, 2012 vs May 28, 2015

Just look at the size and date of the image, that simply shows already that they now
have a higher compression.

Seems it has changed somewhere between May 15. and 23.

My screenshots have gotten better in that time frame. But then again I did upgrade to 4k.

it does depend on your resolution, i use 1920X1080 and my SS are HQ

You’re not alone..I’ve noticed this change as well.

Here’s example of screenshot from 2013 and now.

Note: I haven’t changed anything (pc hardware/software and gw2 options)

Bit of a thread necro but I will say I’ve just noticed this in the past week or so. I’ve been meaning to check my settings to see if something got moved to default because my recent screenshots have definitely seemed low rez.

And I’m someone that isn’t even that picky about it, I don’t need SweetFX or the like to enjoy the game’s looks. My RL eyes are extremely myopic, I’m used to a fuzzy world. So when things start looking dull and blurry on the screen to me there must be something wrong!