Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Hey, Lately I've been doing a lot of recording with the wonderful software called FRAPS. One thing that annoys me is, I have no idea about optimal settings and how it really works underneath to get the best result. I mean, isn't it possible to do a recording without the game getting bumped down to 20-25 Frames Per Second whilst recording because that severely hampers the use of the software when trying to do some 'kill movies', it certainly adds to the challenge. Does the above have any bearing on what FPS you choose to record at? I've found out it's best not to pick an FPS-number above what you can actually achieve, so if I can push the game to about 80 FPS average, I can record at around 60FPS and so forth but no matter how many frames I'm getting In-game or what I chose to record at, it always gets bumped down to 20-25 FPS when recording. I know the actual output, the video file seems to be running smooth because it basically just queues the frames but in so many 'kill' videos as I'd like to call them, the players seem to have no problems whatsoever with low FPS from the recording and I'm thinking I must be doing something wrong. I even tried using another HDD as output location, as I'm thinking I must be maxing out the read speeds with gaming AND recording yet it made no difference. So is there no way to do a smooth recording while playing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre S. Veteran Posted February 24, 2010 Veteran Share Posted February 24, 2010 Lower the resolution. I find that getting 30fps at 1280x720 is almost impossible, but a steady 24 fps still looks good in a video. If I lower the resolution, I can easily hit 30fps and up. Of course playing a game at such framerate can be a pain especially a first-person shooter, hence I use the replay feature when that is possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 That's really not an option as I'm using 24" monitor(s) and anything below native just looks terrible, especially for prolonged sessions. I also tried the Half-size recording which doesn't seem to make much of a difference? So is that basically the only solution, lowering resolution :( ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre S. Veteran Posted February 24, 2010 Veteran Share Posted February 24, 2010 1280x720 isn't native for me either, but recording at a decent framerate at 1920x1200? Not going to happen unless you got some sort of alien hard drive from the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 Alright, guess I'll have to skip that idea and just stick to footage that doesn't require a high recording FPS. Thanks for the help and insight (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berserk87 Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 huh? Ive done 60+ fps recordings on fraps before at 1680x1050 without stuttering, and the game running smoothly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 huh? Ive done 60+ fps recordings on fraps before at 1680x1050 without stuttering, and the game running smoothly. ... Well, back to square one then :laugh: Now I need to know how and why I can't :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan R. Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 What are your specs? Performance is going to be directly related to your hardware. As far as I know about video recording, there is real-time encoding taking place and at the same it is writing that data continuously to the hard drive. Whilst doing this, your game could very well be trying to access data on the same drive. Those two factors are probably the most responsible in this case. Perhaps FRAPS uses your video card, I would have no idea, but nonetheless, that remains dependent on your hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 Core i7 940 4870X2 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F1s 750GB 6GB DDR3 Ram And using the second HDD, which is basically a passive backup drive should yield a better result you'd think but it's exactly the same - So it seems like there's something else getting in the way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berserk87 Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 ... Well, back to square one then :laugh: Now I need to know how and why I can't :p under the "movies" section you have your "video capture settings" set to 60fps right??? (i actually had mine on 30 when i first started using fraps, and couldn't understand why my fps wasn't higher.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 under the "movies" section you have your "video capture settings" set to 60fps right??? (i actually had mine on 30 when i first started using fraps, and couldn't understand why my fps wasn't higher.) Oh yeah, I've been through the entire mill - 30, 40, 50, 60, Half-size, Full-size etc. and the real-time recording FPS seems to be stuck at the magic 20-25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan R. Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Core i7 940 4870X2 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F1s 750GB 6GB DDR3 Ram And using the second HDD, which is basically a passive backup drive should yield a better result you'd think but it's exactly the same - So it seems like there's something else getting in the way? That is odd. If you look at my specs in my signature (the top desktop) you'll see it's not much different than mine. When I played WoW, as I know that's probably what you're referring to, I had fairly fluid recordings without any tampering of settings and not even half-size as I've heard that yields better performance. I do have a 4890 overclocked, but benchmarks usually pull the 4870X2 ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berserk87 Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 my specs GPU clock is obviously wrong, and the recording I did before were using a 9600GT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yxz Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 vsync? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 vsync? I always disable that in games, perhaps that's the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan R. Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 What exact motherboard do you have, Sethos? And the OS? I'm leaning towards some sort of hardware bottleneck or lack of quality manufacturer being that I had no need to tinker to get fluid recordings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boz Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Sethos.. I had the same problem on i7 3.6ghz, 12gb of ram and dual GTX 275s. I just couldn't figure it out, until.. Here's what you need to do: Try it like that.. You see the problem was that when you set it to 29.97 or 30fps the second, Fraps will actually make your game slower due to recording at lower frame rate so your game framerate falls down to recording frame rate. If you set your recording frame rate to 60 fps, your game will always run smooth because even if you have higher FPS in the game than 60fps, 60 is plenty smooth to play with. Try it.. you'll see it will run your game smooth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yxz Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 I always disable that in games, perhaps that's the problem? no Why doesn?t Fraps show above 30fps, 60fps, 75 fps (or any other framerate) in my game?Another possibility is that you have Vsync enabled. Vsync is used to synchronise the output of your graphics card with the display of your monitor. When your graphics card has finished rendering the next frame it waits for the monitor to finish displaying the current one before switching to the new one. This means that the maximum framerate you can obtain will be equal to the refresh rate of your monitor (which is usually 60hz, 75hz, 85hz, or 100hz). http://www.fraps.com/faq.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 What exact motherboard do you have, Sethos? And the OS? I'm leaning towards some sort of hardware bottleneck or lack of quality manufacturer. Running an Asus P6T WS professional under Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit. Sethos.. I had the same problem on i7 3.6ghz, 12gb of ram and dual GTX 275s. I just couldn't figure it out, until.. Here's what you need to do: Try it like that.. You see the problem was that when you set it to 29.97 or 30fps the second, Fraps will actually make your game like slower due to recording at lower frame rate so your game framerate falls down to recording frame rate. If you set your recording frame rate to 60 fps, your game will always run smooth because even if you have higher FPS in the game than 60fps, 60 is plenty smooth to play with. Try it.. you'll see it will run your game smooth. Problem is I tried the 60FPS and that's basically my standard record setting and the problem still persists - I only tried 30 as a trouble-shoot setting. The output seems to be the desired FPS but hitting the record button will bring down the game to an unplayable FPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOC Veteran Posted February 24, 2010 Veteran Share Posted February 24, 2010 1280x720 isn't native for me either, but recording at a decent framerate at 1920x1200? Not going to happen unless you got some sort of alien hard drive from the future. I LOLed at that, thanks :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodrain Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 do it the easy wave, record a demo of the game your playing, later, play it back and record with FRAPS. oorrrr, you could turn VSYNC on which will limit you FPS to whatever your monitor is set at for the refresh rate, typically 59 or 60hz, then recording will be smooth problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yxz Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 At max settings my computer the game between 79-91 FPS, mostly sitting at 91FPS. As soon as I start recording in Fraps it goes to a hard cap of 30fps. ... Fraps 3.1 was just released last week, much improved performance IMO. Has new checkbox to "Lock Framerate", set to half-size and 60fps and you should be golden. ... Golden indeed. The video quality is the same, but the gameplay is now working as it was in older games for me. ... Awesome tip, now recording at 1900x with everything on max at a steady, silky smooth 60 FPS while recording. Thanks! http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13499169 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 do it the easy wave, record a demo of the game your playing, later, play it back and record with FRAPS. oorrrr, you could turn VSYNC on which will limit you FPS to whatever your monitor is set at for the refresh rate, typically 59 or 60hz, then recording will be smooth problem solved. Games I play don't allow demo recordings and is that a confirm, will vsync make it smoother? Can't test it out before tomorrow. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13499169 I already have the latest version and the Lock framerate option is useless, makes the problem even worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamawesomewicked Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Games I play don't allow demo recordings and is that a confirm, will vsync make it smoother? Can't test it out before tomorrow. I already have the latest version and the Lock framerate option is useless, makes the problem even worse. What are your PC's specs if you can't even record at 1280x720 smoothly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boz Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Problem is I tried the 60FPS and that's basically my standard record setting and the problem still persists - I only tried 30 as a trouble-shoot setting. The output seems to be the desired FPS but hitting the record button will bring down the game to an unplayable FPS. Here's what I do.. there shouldn't be any problems (make sure your FRAPS is up to date too) I record to a separate drive than the one the game is running from. Usually games read data and that might be slowing you down. This drive is SATA internal. I don't record to 1920x1200 because it's really unnecessary but I tried it at 1920 as well and it worked fine. Hell I even recorded at 2560x1600 as I have a 30" screen. Make sure your sound capturing is STEREO and not multichannel (this strains everything a lot more if you capture in multichannel) I had EXACT same symptoms as you describe. Make sure you keep it at 60fps recording always. Don't debug at 30 because that's what's causing the problem I guarantee you that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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