The Very Best ME:A Screenshot Thread (with tips)

man. . .SRWE is a mathematical mystery to me. i installed it, ran it after starting up the game (made sure i was windowed), loaded some pre-made profiles that came packaged with SRWE, picked one. . . and my screen went black. then SRWE crashed. then my game crashed. is there no other way to hotsample? :sob:

I wanted to show you guys my new character. I liked the Ryder in my avatar, but from most angles I hated her...does that make sense? The haircut made her head look like a ball and it was driving me crazy. Amoebe, I don't want to try and copy you, but preset 7 is just too gorgeous. She really is the best preset, in my opinion...and she animates wonderfully so far!





As a sidenote, have you guys noticed banding with your screenshots? I've captured some amazing shots only to look at them and upon closer inspection noticed the banding and ended up scrapping them. I am using dithering in ReShade, but it doesn't seem to help. It really only seems to happen in dimly lit instances, on blurred backgrounds.

I'd hate to think that it's my monitor...this thing cost me an arm and a leg. And it is calibrated with a colormunki. 

Yeah, grain definitely helps. But with sci-fi fantasy games like this I tend to ditch grain for a more smooth "JJ Abramsy" feel...if that makes sense.

I use Deband, but you have to be careful with the settings because it can obliterate detail if you go too far with it. And yes, grain always helps considerably, depending on how much you're willing to use. I like grain, so it's never a bother for me, but even just a little can help.

I get more banding when using dof at high resolutions than anywhere else. But it's par for the course with a lot of post-processing effects precisely because of what bossuary says - gradients. Although it's not, in my experience, only a problem with deep shadows - skies are notorious for banding, but really any large area of single colour that contains a slight gradient - hence why I see it quite a lot in dof blurred areas. It's just too many colours being outputted in a format that can't handle that many colours. The more you tweak ReShade/ENB shaders in games, the more you'll risk introducing some banding. Sometimes you have to make compromises over the final look you want to go for if it means you can reduce some of the banding.

OVERVIEW

SRWE (Simple Runtime Window Editor) was primarily born of a project to allow windowed games to run in windowed borderless mode and/or in different aspect ratios (AR) than the user's native monitor resolution.

The benefits for people who take screenshots are that it allows us to change AR on the fly and to hotsample.

It's a lightweight program that is quick and easy to use. It doesn't work in all games. It does, at the time of writing, work in Mass Effect: Andromeda.

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WHAT IS HOTSAMPLING?

Hotsampling means you render a game at a size larger than your monitor's resolution (so you can no longer see the whole image) for the time needed to take a screenshot. The end result is similar or the same as downsampling when the large hotsampled screenshot is sized down in either an image editor or automatically by your browser.

Downsampling is when you shrink a large image down into a smaller size - in other words you 'sample down'. In practice, for video games this usually means you use something like DSR (NVIDIA's Dynamic Super Resolution) or brute force driver downsampling to render a game at a larger size than your monitor's native resolution but have it displayed at your monitor's native resolution while you're playing the game. Downsampling provides a better image quality (IQ) because more pixels are being rendered, and therefore more information about models and textures can be displayed. It is a very good method of anti-aliasing, because there are more pixels to draw an edge, meaning the empty spaces don't need to be interpolated or missed out altogether.

The downside to downsampling is that you need a very powerful PC to handle it during normal gameplay, as it is constantly rendering many times more pixels than it ordinarily would. One benefit of hotsampling is that you can continue to play at your native resolution, only increasing the resolution when you've set up a shot. The other benefit is that you can easily change the AR, something that is possible when downsampling but not in nearly as user-friendly a way. Changing the AR can be an important part of getting the right composition for a good-looking screenshot.

Screenshotters regularly aim for downsampled or hotsampled shots if their hardware and the game allow for it. The benefits to IQ become difficult to pass up once you've experienced them. Here is a comparison between the same Dragon Age: Inquisition image shot at both 1080p and 6k resolution.

Hotsampling is by no means only for those with the very best and most expensive hardware. Most people if they can run the game smoothly at their preferred settings will be able to hotsample to at least a slightly larger resolution. Those looking to hotsample to 4k and beyond should only consider doing so if their PC is reasonably powerful.

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HOW TO GET SRWE RUNNING

• Download the latest version.
• Right-click on the exe, select Properties>Compatibility and select Run as Administrator and hit Apply. (Also run any games you intend to use with this method as Admin.)
  
• You can open SRWE before or after launching your game.
  
• To use SRWE, ME:A must be running in WINDOWED mode.
  
• While the game and SRWE are running, click on Select Running Application in SRWE.
  
• In the list that pops up, find Mass Effect: Andromeda (it will be at or near the top of the list the second time you do this, but the first time it will be further down). Highlight ME:A, and click Open.
  
• The rest of the fields will populate with window size and position.
  
• To set the game to look like it is running in Borderless Windowed mode, first click Remove Borders (this removes the window) and then hit Fake Fullscreen (this fits it to your desktop at your monitor's native resolution).
  

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HOW TO CHANGE ASPECT RATIO AND HOTSAMPLE WITH SRWE

First, bookmark this Aspect Ratio Calculator - it's useful to work out smaller and larger resolutions of the same aspect ratio. You'll use it a lot until you have a good long list of profiles.

In SRWE's General tab you'll see Window Position and Size, with 4 boxes underneath.

• X and Y specify the position of the window (more precisely, the position in pixels at which the top left hand corner of the window begins on your desktop).
  
• Width and Height specify what dimensions your window should have.
  

Example: If I type in X: 400, Y: 0, Width: 1080, Height: 1080 I'll get a square window that starts 400 pixels across my screen at the top. If I change Y to 250, that window will move down the screen by 250 pixels.

Tip: You can specify negative numbers in the X and Y boxes, which can be useful when hotsampling to larger resolutions if you want to be able to see the centre of the image, for example.

When you have inputted your position (which you can leave at 0 if you'd prefer) and size values, you can click Save Profile at the top of SRWE. You can then navigate to your preferred folder (set one up in advance in an easy to remember place), and type in a file name for that resolution, and hit Save.

Tip: Choose a file name format that makes sense to you. In our example above, I would name it 1-1_1080x1080 - meaning it has an aspect ratio of 1:1, and a size of 1080x1080px. If you keep to this format, all your 1:1 profiles will be grouped together, making them easy to find when you load profiles in the future.

You can load profiles you've created previously by clicking Load Profile and selecting from the list in the folder you set up. SRWE will apply this profile immediately.

The Recent Profiles drop-down menu will contain the last 20 profiles you loaded for quick access.

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USING SRWE

The most efficient way of using SRWE is to first set up several profiles at different ARs in sizes that fit neatly within the confines of your monitor.

So, if you have a 2560x1440p monitor, you might set up the following:

1-1_1440x1440
16-9_2560x1440
21-9_2560x1080
3-4_1080x1440

That covers square shots, standard 16:9 shots, 21:9 ultra widescreen, and 3:4 portrait shots, and is a good starting point you can expand upon later.

Then, you can set up larger versions of the same, using the Aspect Ratio Calculator linked above to work out what the correct dimensions will be.

So, for our examples above, you could go ahead and create profiles along the lines of:

1-1_3000x3000 & 1-1_3500x3500
16-9_3840x2160 & 16-9_5120x2880
21-9_3840x1620 & 21-9_5120x2160
3-4_ 2880x3840 & 3-4_3600x4800

So now you have a few different smaller aspect ratios set up that will fit on your monitor. You can pick one, and go ahead to set up a shot.

Once everything is where you want it to be, you can take a test screenshot and look at it in Windows Explorer to make sure it looks good at a smaller size (useful practice for composition).

When you're happy, you can load a profile for a larger version of the same AR and SRWE will render the scene larger than can fit on your screen. Once it's loaded, take the shot again, then tab out and select the smaller profile again to fit on your screen (and to stop your computer from crying, which it is probably doing).

Now in your screenshot folder you'll have a large version of that screenshot that you can either resize down to a more manageable size (downsampling), or upload as is to your image host of choice.

Tip: Consider keeping the large versions of all your shots rather than just resizing them down and throwing the big ones away. If you ever decide to print a copy you'll be glad of the larger size. It also means you can zoom in and look at all the lovely details. I upload all my largest versions direct to flickr.

The final step is to give your computer some warm words of encouragement and to thank it for cooperating and not ruining your day. Unless it didn't cooperate and it did ruin your day. In which case apologise to it for being mean and promise to choose a less taxing resolution in the future.

Note 1: How large you can go depends on your computer's hardware capabilities. You'll eventually get a sense of what is safe for any particular game, but until then start small and only go bigger when you are confident you can handle it. In some games you may be able to achieve 8k and above, in others you might not even want to tackle 4k. I've never heard of a gpu breaking as a result of pushing hotsampling too far (I accept no responsibility should this happen, however). Your PC might freeze up and require manual shut down due to the driver quitting, but it's more likely to just freeze or close the game, or even more likely still to cause the game to hang for a while as it renders all the information. Expect everything to become sluggish while the larger resolutions are rendered. It can be a little nail-biting. This is normal. Be patient and let it do its thing.

Note 2: It's useful to keep a list of your various profiles somewhere, in a notepad file or similar, in case you need to refer back to your preferred ARs and resolutions in the future. It's also useful to make a note of how big they are in megapixels. Multiply the width by the height to get the MP value of each resolution. So, 2560x1440 is 3.68MP, and 5120x2880 is 14.74MP. These numbers are useful because once you know your computer can just about handle a 14MP resolution in ME:A, for example, you can quickly refer to the ~14MP resolution in a different AR without needing the trial and error of working out what your PC can handle again. You can even append the MP value to the end of your preset file name if you'd prefer.

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IN CONCLUSION

Despite the length of the instructions here, using SRWE is a very simple process that will become second nature, where it takes just seconds to swap between profiles. The hardest and most time-consuming part is working out all the resolutions for different aspect ratios, and going through the process of finding out what your computer is capable of dealing with. But once you do, you'll be rewarded with more beautiful screenshots - both because of their better IQ and from using the correct aspect ratio for the composition.

If you have any questions about any part of this, please ask in this thread and I'll do my best to answer.

[I'll likely continue to refine this post so it's more manageable and less cluttered.]

I don't push it too hard.

A note I should make about hotsampling and downsampling for those new to it - some shaders (either in-game or from ReShade) change their appearance the higher the resolution. This is because they don't scale well and increase their own resolution rendering to match.

A good one to notice it with is bloom. It becomes stronger and 'tighter' the larger the resolution, as the same amount of bloom ends up covering a smaller part of the image, making it appear to have shrunk but also to have become more intense.

You have to learn to compromise and decide what gives the biggest improvement to the quality of the image but also what just makes it look nice. If you kill all the bloom the game can look too sterile, for example, so you may want to reduce the resolution a little until you find a decent balance.

This is why I don't tend to go too high in most games. Plus there comes a point where the improvements to IQ are quite hard to see on a regular monitor.

In ME:A, I go to around 5k in 16:9 (5120x2880), and its equivalent for other ARs. In megapixel terms, I'm around the 12-15MP range. I have no idea what my fps is because I don't monitor it, and it doesn't matter anyway since you're not playing the game while hotsampled. Things are sluggish - if the scene is complex with lots to render and I'm using lots of ReShade effects it can take a while for it to render at that size, and it can take a while to tab back out to change back down. I'm not talking minutes or anything, but 10 seconds or so.

(I have an i7 4790 @ 4GHz, 980Ti Classified, 16GB RAM, and my game is on my HDD not my SSD.)

amoebae you are an angel. THANK YOU. gonna give it another shot.

One of the more touching moments from ME:A 

In fact I think it stimulates greater creativity to not be able to hide behind dof. Using dof blur is a bit of a crutch that can stop you from having to think about anything other than what is in the foreground. Really, while you have the main subject of your picture, it's good once in a while to think about the background as a secondary subject, or as a part of the main subject in its own right. Mise-en-scène, and all that jazz.

I use dof as a crutch too much, but I'm aware of it and try to challenge myself now and again. I mean, dof is still cool and all, and is a great way of isolating the subject and drawing focus. And it can add something to the mood of the scene, too. But I think because it's so pretty and cool it's very, very easy to go overboard and think every shot needs flashy bokeh to look pretty.

One thing I sometimes try to do is work with very slight dof that doesn't start right behind the subject and never gets very strong. The temptation is there to go strong because pretty lights, but gentle dof often looks a lot better in scenes with distinct background details. It's especially nice when you have extra subjects or details in the background who are integral to the whole feeling of the scene, but whose being in complete focus would change the intent of that scene.

A great use of dof in the game itself is when Ryder and Liam are on the bridge of the tempest near the beginning of the game, when Ryder has a brief moment of turbidity as she tries to get accustomed to having SAM in her head. Liam is out of focus even though he's standing right next to her, and it has the effect of showing how Ryder is disconnected with her surroundings and unaware of them. And then Liam comes into focus as Ryder regains her clarity. It's a nicely-done scene.

I should pay more attention to aspects of composition like that. I go through periods of doing so, but get lazy. So, not just composing something because it looks good, but so the composition choices I make compliment and say something about the scene itself and act to further the story the picture is telling.

Like tilting the camera. It's a very good way of fitting elements in the frame, and of creating good shapes and element-relations, but it's also useful from a narrative point of view, to signify moments that are off-kilter. 

I took this picture in TS4 ages ago. I love how it's very Hitchcock. For a lighthearted and fun game like The Sims, it's pretty dark and ominous in its impression because of the framing. I'm a little sad with hindsight that I didn't go all out and tilt the camera and reframe it so as to emphasise more of a Psycho vibe. Tilting the camera, and having the antagonist or crazy person in the higher position in the frame can be really powerful. Still, Bob Pancakes never looked so scary, lol.

Anyway, I think the moral of my overly-long post is that we've got all these cool and funky effects at our disposal, but rather than just using them because they look pretty, we should think about whether we're using them to avoid working harder to bring all the elements in a shot together, and perhaps challenge ourselves sometimes to use them in ways that are not just about "ooh, cool effect" but add something to the story.

Or don't, and just have fun! Whatever works for you.

Yes! At the very least, I want to see fanfic about them! I'm out of the fanfic loop - where can I go to request it?