Thread: Screenshots in DX9

well, im wondering how i could take a screenshot of the DirectX window and save it to a bmp (for simplicity). At the moment, heres the code i use:

Code:

bool TakeScreenShot(IDirect3DDevice9 *Device, char *FileName, int ScreenX, int ScreenY)
{
  IDirect3DSurface9 *FrontBuffer; 
  bFailed = false;
  HRESULT Result;

  Result = Device->CreateOffscreenPlainSurface(ScreenX, ScreenY, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_SCRATCH, &FrontBuffer, NULL);

  if (Result != D3D_OK)
  {
    //FrontBuffer->Release(); Thanks Magos
    return false;
  }

  Result = Device->GetFrontBufferData(0, FrontBuffer);

  if (Result != D3D_OK)
  {
    FrontBuffer->Release();
    return false;
  }

  Result = D3DXSaveSurfaceToFile(FileName, D3DXIFF_BMP, FrontBuffer, NULL, NULL);

  if (Result != D3D_OK)
  {
    FrontBuffer->Release();
    return false;
  }

  FrontBuffer->Release();
  return true;
}

it works fine, but its EXTREMELY slow, i tried putting it in a thread, and i get a deformed image.

so, i was wondering, would it be faster/better to do this using GDI? ie. bitblt into a memory hdc and go from there? or is this the only way?

Thanks in advance.