Home/ Questions/Q 55521
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-10T17:23:25+00:00

I’ve got an application that is very graphics intensive and built on DirectX and

  • 0

I’ve got an application that is very graphics intensive and built on DirectX and Windows Forms. It has an automation and replay framework around which is built an automated testing system. Unfortunately, when the tests run unattended during a nightly build, the display is inactive or tied up with the screensaver, and our IT security policies don’t allow us to disable that.

So my question: is there a way to do a ‘screen’ capture of an application that is running without the display? I’d like to ensure that the graphics card is engaged so that my rendering pipeline is the same, but the testing framework shouldn’t need to care about the state of the display.

Any help wildly appreciated!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Since you’re mentioned rendering pipeline, so I’m assuming you’re using Direct3d, if so, you can save the backbuffer of the frame. I did that when I was still using VB.Net + MDX

    Dim tempSurface As Direct3D.Surface tempSurface = device.GetBackBuffer(0, 0, Direct3D.BackBufferType.Mono) Direct3D.SurfaceLoader.Save(tempFilename, Direct3D.ImageFileFormat.Png, tempSurface)

    You can easily converted that do any programming language of you choice, it’s basically calling Direct3d’s API. Though, you need to configure you backbuffer and Present parameters as

    ' Need to use flip to enable screen capture presentParams.SwapEffect = Direct3D.SwapEffect.Flip  presentParams.PresentationInterval = Direct3D.PresentInterval.One
    • 0