[VicRattlehead]

Is there a way to make FSO save screenshots in a different format like PNG or JPG? Having to convert them from TGA is a hassle.

[The E]

Well, it's probably possible to get them converted to png on the fly (libpng has to be good for something after all)....

[castor]

High compression levels may be impractical for "real time" use though? But if you don't use high compression levels.. well, what's the gain to using TGA.

[The E]

Well, that's the tradeoff, isn't it? Either you get the screenshots instantly, or you have to wait for a few cycles to get them compressed.

And since I do believe that noone really wants jpg-compressed screenies, png is the only game in town.

[chief1983]

I'd suggest waiting a bit until libpng support is a little more mature.  We did just add it after all.  We should probably get support for 1.4.x first.

[castor]

And since I do believe that noone really wants jpg-compressed screenies, png is the only game in town.

Yea, most people would probably prefer png. Personally I'd rather take tga (default) and jpg (cmd line option). Many nice looking screenshots have gradients and stuff painful for png to compress (and the not so nice looking shots.. well a few artifacts won't make them much worse).

[The E]

Yes, well, if it was me? I'd take just png and let people worry about converting that to jpg as needed. 

Besides, it's not like it takes _that_ much time to compress...

[chief1983]

The important thing really is having the least latency, between compressing the data and actually dumping it to the hard drive.  Obviously no compression is lowest on the CPU but the larger file will take longer to write.  So, if png is quicker to compress and still as small as tga, it's a better choice.  If there's a tradeoff we'll have to figure out which one is best.  I don't even think we have bmp support in the engine so that's probably not up for consideration.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

You also have to take into account even small latency can cause issues with multiplayer so it's always best to error on the side of speed.  Files can be converted to other formats easy enough.