08-09-2000 23:46									#1
	Anybody ever done this with Civ2? Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Years ago, when I owned a Colecovision (or maybe it was an Atari 2600, I can't remember), I was playing some game while hooked up to the TV and happened to pop a tape into the VCR and tape my moves. Afterward, I was able to replay the game I had just played.

Anybody ever set up to tape a game of Civ2? Can you even do that? It would sure make logging moves a lot safer.

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

	09-09-2000 01:15									#2
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

We would assume that if your Graphics card has a TV Out option you could feed that straight into the VCR - but we haven't tried it.
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The SGs in concert

	09-09-2000 02:02									#3
	Put an end to popups!

I understand that there are security programs which may be purchased that will record your keyboard activity. However recording mouse movement is more complex. How would you use the information? You could not replay your game of civilisation because the game (what happens apart from what you type) is quite simply indeterminate and would change on each rerun. I.e. a goody hut content is randomly generated and result of combat will vary. If the result of a combat differs on a rerun; you either have one less unit (its recorded move would apply to a different unit OR one extra unit would survive and break the allocation of recorded move sequence to correct units. My view is that for analysis it is best to save each move and then reload saved games to snap sample your civ.

	09-09-2000 02:11									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work. It would certainly make logging moves a whole lot easier - of course then I would just forget to change the tape.

EdTKing - Check out some of the OCC game logs and you can see what kc and the Gits are talking about. More for record keeping and analysis than changing anything.

	09-09-2000 06:21									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

If your videocard has a TV Out option you should be able to feed to the set and use it like a monitor and then feed the video signal from the set to the VCR. It would probably be very grainy and ugly looking since the pixels on a TV are larger than a monitor. You might get better speed and appearance using DVD for your recording media.

The other and perhaps better option would be to install a video capture card, Big Bucks/Pounds - whatever your currency - however. From my understanding of how video capture cards work you would be able to start/stop the capture so that you would have a series of screenshots and not have to include all the City management screens involved, unless you wanted them of course. You should also wind up with a denser recording and less wasted space on the media than you would have on VHS tape.

Ken