Screencapture usage tests

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TP109
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Screencapture usage tests

#1 Post by TP109 »

Edited 5/5/16: Found a couple of issues already. I deleted the chart and link to results. More testing is required and I will post those results when completed. The changes will be significant. List of screenshot apps being tested:
7Capture 1.2.0.21
FastStoneCapture 5.3
FGWndGrab 4.0
GreenShot 1.2.8 bld12
HoverSnap 0.8 Beta
HyperDesktop 1.0.3.9
ImageUploader 1.3.1
IrfanView 4.42
Lightscreen 2.2
MWSnap 3.0.0.74
PikPick 4.1.1
Postimage 1.0.1
Purrint vb26
QipShot 3.4
ScreenShotCaptor 4.15.2
ScreenShoter 1.92
ScreenSnap 1.2.7.0
Screeny 1.3.0.44
ShareX 10.9.1
Shotty 2.0.2.216
SnapShooter 1.8
WinSnap 3.5
xScreenShot 3.0

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webfork
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#2 Post by webfork »

Very cool to see effort on this. As much as I use screenshot programs, a little speed boost goes a long way.

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#3 Post by TP109 »

These are more complicated tests. There are many config options for some screenshot apps and each one needs to be tested the same way. Some, like Sharex, can be tweaked endlessly to incrementally improve performance. Can't test for everything so I'm going to limit operating modes. I already found a lot feature limitations, so it's important to identify common feature sets before testing.
Last edited by TP109 on Sat May 21, 2016 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#4 Post by TP109 »

I broke down the screenshot apps into 3 test categories:
1. Those that can save a screenshot directly to a file (bypassing an editor or dialog)
2. Those that save screenshots using the "save as" method
3. Those that can save in both modes.

There is a another category, saving to clipboard directly and independently, which wasn't tested. Only about 1/3 of the screenshot programs have this capability and they are all in the 3rd category. There is another possible category, uploading files, which also wasn't tested. I did however, identify the screenshot apps that included an editor and/or independent save to clipboard capabilities on the data spreadsheet.

These apps were time-consuming to test because of the configuration settings that needed to be constantly changed, which is one reason the tests were limited to 3 categories.

There were some issues that were discovered too. For instance, ShareX's RAM usage tended to creep up after each screenshot, where for most of the other apps the RAM in-use actually decreases. That could be because it's using some RAM for further future processing, and that could be corrected with a configuration change. However, some of these apps have so many features that a guide-book could be created on how to tweak them for the best performance for various specific use situations.

As typical, the top performing apps are those with the most limited features, but a few feature-rich screenshot apps are not far behind. It should be noted that the most versatile screenshot apps are those in category 3. That category includes WinSnap, FastStoneCapture, MWSnap, HyperDesktop (yaP), IrfanView, and Lightscreen. The data shows that these 6 apps are very similar in performance and although Lightscreen places last in that set, it's because its floating menu screen eats up 30MB of RAM in the benchmark rankings, otherwise it would be slightly ahead of FaststoneCapture. WinSnap, by contrast, also has a floating menu, but it only uses 3MB total for that window in the benchmarks. Both WinSnap's and Lightscreen's menu windows can be minimized to optimize performance. In any case, most of the differences between the six are only a few MB. If looking at in-use RAM only, FaststoneCapture uses less by far.

The more advanced and feature-rich screenshot apps use the most resources and that could be an issue on older PCs or in multi-tasking situations.

I only included a few charts, so see the spreadsheet for additional ones on the chart sheet. The spreadsheet data was uploaded to the link below with some select charts included below:

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 2381527657

Image
Image
Image
Image

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#5 Post by TP109 »

Tested PicPick v4.2.0 and added MiniCap v1.34.01. Also, switched to a more standardized spreadsheet for the data. PicPick's memory usage improved by about 17% from the previous version.
spreadsheet_ssapps.jpg
ssapps_all.jpg
Last edited by TP109 on Fri Aug 26, 2016 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Midas
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#6 Post by Midas »

Great work, thanks. 8)

May I suggest the inclusion of personal favorites Snipaste (http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2801) and Fiastarta PrtScr (not natively portable, but yaP ready)?

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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#7 Post by TP109 »

OK. Added PrtScn v1.5 (v1.7 and above don't work on XP) and SnipPaste v1.4. Newly added app names highlighted in green. Was somewhat surprised that PrtScn used that much memory.
spreadsheet_ssapps2.jpg
ssapps_all2.jpg
ssapps_bench_by_cat.jpg
Last edited by TP109 on Mon Aug 29, 2016 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#8 Post by webfork »

As always, very interesting stuff. Also, it makes Irfanview that much more palatable. That much functionality with such a low overhead ... amazing.

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#9 Post by TP109 »

In case anyone didn't know, to setup Irfanview for screenshots, open Irfanview and hit "c" or select capture/sceenshot under the Options menu, which takes you to the screenshot setup options. Screenshots can be sent directly to file, to Irfanview's window, to a printer, or to the clipboard. A screenshot hotkey can be setup to take screenshots with Irfanview minimized. Screenshots can be setup to scroll windows or use a timer. Those are the main options, but there are some more too. The only thing missing is a magnifier for pinpointing custom selection areas.

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Midas
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#10 Post by Midas »

TP109 wrote:Added PrtScn v1.5 (v1.7 and above don't work on XP) and SnipPaste v1.4. Newly added app names highlighted in green. Was somewhat surprised that PrtScn used that much memory.
  • Thanks a lot. And given the highly interactive, if somewhat cartoon-ish, way of working, the findings about PrtScr don't surprise me as much... :mrgreen:

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#11 Post by TP109 »

Added a benchmark by category graph to the other two above. Since many of the screenshot apps have either a "save as" (cat 1) or save to file (cat 2) option, but not both (cat 3), there should also be a comparison made by category. The overall graph provides general info, but is not fully accurate. For instance, an app with only "save as" capability will have a lower benchmark in the overall graph since Pk-RAM usage for saving directly to file doesn't exist and therefore that isn't calculated into the total benchmark score. The new graph helps to identify and correct those differences by separating by category (1,2, and 3).

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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#12 Post by Userfriendly »

I've been using faststone for ages. From what I can understand from the graphs and charts, its still one of the better ones. Every time I see picpick get updated so often I think hmmm maybe that can replace it. Nope. Even though they're pretty much identical... I think its because I haven't figured out how to stop picpick from opening the editor after every capture.

TP109
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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#13 Post by TP109 »

Userfriendly wrote:I've been using faststone for ages. From what I can understand from the graphs and charts, its still one of the better ones. Every time I see picpick get updated so often I think hmmm maybe that can replace it. Nope. Even though they're pretty much identical... I think its because I haven't figured out how to stop picpick from opening the editor after every capture.
FS uses less RAM than any other category 3 screenshot app and is 3rd overall for all tested screenshot apps. The reason it isn't the lowest on the charts is because VM and Pk-RAM are also used to calculate a benchmark and that bumps it up a bit, but it's still very low in overall usage. I use FS myself most of the time.

As for PicPick, you can bypass the editor by going to Options->Capture and change the output type to image file, clipboard or something else and then go to Options->Autosave and check "automatically save images" and set a directory to save to and then click OK. You may need to restart the program for the settings to take effect.

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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#14 Post by Userfriendly »

TP109 wrote:As for PicPick, you can bypass the editor by going to Options->Capture and change the output type to image file, clipboard or something else and then go to Options->Autosave and check "automatically save images" and set a directory to save to and then click OK. You may need to restart the program for the settings to take effect.
"OUTPUT" How could I miss that? I thought auto save was enough. Well it's still not stealth either and needs absolute paths for auto save unlike FS which at least has environment variables for save paths. PicPick still inferior in a few ways.

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Re: Screencapture usage tests

#15 Post by TP109 »

Added KidSnapper.

Jumped the gun. PostImage can't save directly to file. It's a "save as" category 1 app. It doesn't provide an option for a save directory. So this update is for KidSnapper only. I didn't check KidSnapper for portability, but it comes as a zip file and doesn't have an install process.

Decided to look at these again in detail after reading Webfork's post for configuring ShareX to externally optimize captured images: http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... =2&t=22181.

Updated charts:
ssapps_spreadsheet.jpg
ssapps_all.jpg
ssapps_cat.jpg

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