Guild Wars 2

I’ve been doing a bit of Screenshot photography (don’t know actual term) in GW2 lately with the in-game screenshot function, but it always ends up quite pixelated, even in pretty high graphic settings.

Does anyone know how to capture high quality screenshots in GW2? Maybe via an external software or something?

Run the game with the -bmp command line option.
More info bout how to do that and what they are here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments

Can you explain that to me like I’m 5 years old? lol

short answer: No
If you don’t understand how to do this, the best suggestion is to ask an expert to help you create two different named shortcuts (gw2 regular and gw2 hq screens) and do this for you (show him/her the wiki page and this post).

I have tried once to explain this on teamspeak to a guildmember, and I failed horrible. So I’m not unwilling to explain this, but a 5 years old won’t be able to do this.

just download a screen capture program, the free version of fraps will (or used to) give you HQ screens, you don’t need to mess with command lines if you don’t want to.

DrixTrix.7168:

just download a screen capture program, the free version of fraps will (or used to) give you HQ screens, you don’t need to mess with command lines if you don’t want to.

So your basicly saying that one should put extra restrain on the system, just if people lack the skills to make a special shortcut or find the run-program. I don’t see how editing the output folder settings and editing the hotkey in fraps is more difficult. Besides. Fraps is unsupported, any problems you have when running both Fraps and the game will not be solved by support as with the command line feature this is fully supported.

@Mercury,

i agree it is not any more difficult but some people are not comfortable or don’t want to mess with those things so that’s understandable.

as for putting strain on the system if your only using fraps, or any other capture program just for screenshots and that’s putting strain on the system then there is something horrible wrong, the only time these programs put any sort of ’’strain’’ on a system is when the video recording option is being used, even then it is normally down to you yourself using a wrong Codec option and settings rather than any problems, ofcourse if like me you have an older system you might get some or extreme lag during and only during recording.

any problems while using fraps or any other recording / capture software while a game is running…again apart from video recording this should not happen, they are separate entities and the software does not delve into any sort of folder or anywhere near that of the games you choose to record or take a screenshot with, and takes up less CPU power than most virus programs, skype, msn, the browser even as without recording it is ’’idle’’ in the background.

i was merely posting an alternative which a lot of people i know use for various reasons, some record as well for youtube, some don’t and just like the quality of shots it produces, the guy does not have to do this if he doesn’t want too i was just making him aware there are other ways of getting the same, or better results.

Not sure if this is something a 5-year old could follow but…

1. Click Start, then Computer.
2. Double click the C: drive.
3. Double click Program Files (x86). (Or just “Program Files” if you don’t have a “Program Files (x86)”).
4. Double click Guild Wars 2.
5. Right-click the Gw2 application and select Create Shortcut .
6. Right-click Gw2 – Shortcut and select Properties .
7. A Properties window will appear. The Target field should say C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe . Change it to read: C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe -bmp .
8. Double-click on Gw2 – Shortcut to play the game. You can right-click that file and select Rename to change the name to something a little nicer, and can copy that file to your desktop or somewhere else easier to get to. Just be sure you run that shortcut file to start the game, so that you’re starting it with the -bmp option.

This assumes you installed Guild Wars to the default folder. If it’s somewhere other than C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2, then you’ll need to substitute the proper location.

I have seen the discussion before, and I have a related question from a different perspective.

If I never added that switch to my command line, why do my screenshots all seem to look great?

It may also depend on your system specs. I play with “best appearance” settings and I get fantastic screens without using the -bmp command. My resolution is 1920×1080 which may or may not also have something to do with it.

I play at 2560×1440 with max settings. I hit Print Screen key on my keyboard. All the screenshots come out perfect. Look in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2 folder to review them.