FRAPS Alternative

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P4rD0nM3

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 5, 2007
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I'm looking for a FRAPS alternative. It could either be free/retail. So long as it won't lag the shit out of my computer.

Also any tips out there on how to compress the file? I've pretty much tried every single FRAPS-to-BLAH tutorial and they all look like shit as compared to the 'HQ/HD game play' videos I've seen in YouTube and Vimeo.
 
Also interested. FRAPS won't capture audio on my computer because I have two sound cards in use since my X-Fi Prelude won't allow mic input, so it takes audio from the onboard sound, which doesn't produce anything. Something that actually allowed you to alter the settings even a little would be gr9.
 
record demos in game and use programs like sony vegas to make movies.
virtual dub for sounds.
you will never make perfect good looking movies with fraps, but can still make them good enough, i mean really who is going to see them anyway?
 
I think those HQ videos and stuff from professional sites like a gametrailers.com or something probably use a hardware capture device. I saw one for sale in the FS/FT forums a few days ago.
 
Gamecam is decent. I used to use that instead of fraps but I've long since stopped using both. I thought the video with gamecam was darker compared to fraps, but if you spend the time to configure it you can brighten it up a bit.

If you've got an old version of fraps then you should try getting a new one. If you have a dual core CPU and are using the single core version then that alone could be your problem. Also try placing your recordings ona different speedy hard disk (regardless of the solution)
 
Although I'd prefer an application that *just* recorded the video / sound, I've been using xfire (link). Although I've only been using it for WoW, it's been recording video just fine.
 
So long as it won't lag the shit out of my computer
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As already suggested try saving on a different harddrive. As FRAPS doesnt use a very complex compression algorithm (so that it plays nicer on the cpu), it does require a fast disk, or a disk without much IO happening at the same time.

Also any tips out there on how to compress the file?
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Use a decent compression program, if you are a more experienced user who doesnt mind going through a bit more pain, then use Megui/Staxrip, use x264 (all free) as the encoder and encode with a decent bitrate. If you want something with little to no effort then try nero's recode. It gives half decent results, which even a noob can use.

As always make sure to use the highest quality/slowest encoding options to get the very best for your bitrate, it may take longer to encode but it will be worth it.

Heres a video i just uploaded, there is a slight jerk at the beginning because the system only had a single harddrive in it and we were in a rush so didnt bother to capture it again, but barring that the video looks pretty faithfull to the original video and the original game we captured from using fraps and only encoded to 2Mbit before uploading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-juYu46lrkc
 
Fliddycent said:
Also interested. FRAPS won't capture audio on my computer because I have two sound cards in use since my X-Fi Prelude won't allow mic input, so it takes audio from the onboard sound, which doesn't produce anything. Something that actually allowed you to alter the settings even a little would be gr9.
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you have to change the input its listening to.. the one thing i found that worked for me is turning stereo mix on your recording input in your sound settings.. then setting FRAPS to use the mic.. the only down fall to this is you can not use VOIP in games otherwise they can hear your game..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
you have to change the input its listening to.. the one thing i found that worked for me is turning stereo mix on your recording input in your sound settings.. then setting FRAPS to use the mic.. the only down fall to this is you can not use VOIP in games otherwise they can hear your game..
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For some reason it picks up noises via my mic, but no in-game sound.
 
record FRAPS game video to a different drive, it'll help a little, but the FPS hit is gonna be big either way, when I record S.T.A.L.K.E.R. my normal FPS without recording is usually 200+ and then it drops to ~ 30-40 FPS when recording depending on how many players there are, I have FRAPS set to record 40 FPS but it usually doesn't get much higher when recording even if I set the FPS to an amount I know I won't hit so it will record the max FPS, like say if I put 200FPS in that option in FRAPS it will still usually only top out at ~ 50 FPS, then use virtualdub to extract the raw video, it'll be huge, but editing it from there is precise, usually frame by frame, make sure your FRAPS and your windows is set to record "What You Hear", set windows to that first and then toggle the two options for sound in FRAPS until you get "What You Hear", virtualdub will make pretty good videos if you use the h264 codec for uploading to YouTube (that can be downloaded with the K-Lite Megapak)...

the only "problem" I run into with virtualdub is that the sound and video go hand in hand, if you save an edited video and add a song to that edited video then the parts of the video that are edited will cut the song out at those parts also, I usually edit my video, save with no audio and set to full processing, once that raw file is saved I then add a wav file of the song I want to add (I have a MP3 and .wav version of each song that I use for videos)...

here are some examples, and yes, I know I suck and am a n00b, but it's all just for fun, right...?

regular video with video audio (the intro was added and the intro "LOST" audio was spliced in with the game audio)...

video saved with no audio and music added later...

video 2 saved with no audio and music added later...

the audio is only a small part of the space used in the video, but a longer song does mean more video and they can get pretty big (the first one with music was 1.9GBs and the second one was 1.3GBs once encoded to h264 using a 5 for the rate factor, the lower the rate factor, the better the video quality but surprise, surprise, the bigger the video as well), if you have a lot of hdd space you can get even better quality than these videos using this tutorial and setting the rate factor to 5 or 10 (whereas he suggests 20 as a happy medium), I've never set it to 1, my guess is the file would be too large to upload then and you also have to watch the size once you encode to h264 because of the 2GB YouTube upload limit, I also go into the video options and usually sharpen the video by 15-20...
 
Honest question, why do you put the THQ/ATI/Game World/Asus logos before your videos?

Im not knocking them but i watched a few fifa demos from another user and noticed the same thing....EA Logo/EA HD Logo/Sponsers Logo and then finally i get to see the small clip i wanted. To me it seems retarded, a waste of bandwidth and a waste of time, but maybe you have good reason, that i havent thought of?

the first one with music was 1.9GBs and the second one was 1.3GBs once encoded to h264 using a 5 for the rate factor
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Thats completely over the top and i would use a higher rate factor, the first video you posted is 2mins 2seconds long. At 1.9GB, that equals just over 124Mbit a second
 
Damn that's hella big.

Here's what I'm doing right now.

FRAPS > VirtualDub (xvid) -> avi. Where can I download the latest h.264?

Anything above 720p = auto HD right?
 
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Toytown said:
Honest question, why do you put the THQ/ATI/Game World/Asus logos before your videos?

Im not knocking them but i watched a few fifa demos from another user and noticed the same thing....EA Logo/EA HD Logo/Sponsers Logo and then finally i get to see the small clip i wanted. To me it seems retarded, a waste of bandwidth and a waste of time, but maybe you have good reason, that i havent thought of?
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just showing what products I use while gaming (OMFGREDTEAMFTW!11!!1!!11!!11!!1!!!!) :p , nothing more, nothing less, if a video becomes wildly popular maybe an ASUS/ATI rep will see it and contact me with an offer for free stuff if I keep including it, I know it's a pipe dream since I don't use YouTube's "pay to spam" option, but ya never know, also, maybe even thinking that this is a possibilty makes me mildly retarded...? meh, IDK and don't really care...

Thats completely over the top and i would use a higher rate factor, the first video you posted is 2mins 2seconds long. At 1.9GB, that equals just over 124Mbit a second
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no, I stated the first video "with music" not the first video with audio, the first video with music is 4min (1.9GBs) and I used a rate factor of 10 IIRC, the second one was 2 min (1.3GBs) and I used a rate factor of 5...
 
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P4rD0nM3 said:
Damn that's hella big.

Here's what I'm doing right now.

FRAPS > VirtualDub (xvid) -> avi. Where can I download the latest h.264?

Anything above 720p = auto HD right?
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the raw video files can get really big, 60+ GBs of big before being encoded :p, IIRC you can download the K-Lite Mega pak, I think this is where I got it, it has the h264 codecs and yeah, the regular AVI will look like crap usually once you upload it...
 
wol-va-rine said:
the raw video files can get really big, 60+ GBs of big before being encoded :p, IIRC you can download the K-Lite Mega pak, I think this is where I got it, it has the h264 codecs and yeah, the regular AVI will look like crap usually once you upload it...
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yes they can, had a raw AVI File for the SF IV Benchmark, 50GB in a 3 min Vid!!

Fraps just realeased a new version recently 2.99.9 I believe is the version number.

but anothe one I use is WeGame

http://www.wegame.com/ + its free and actually works
 
just showing what products I use while gaming
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Thanks for replying. I really was trying to figure out the reason, at first i thought it was just people who worked for these companies EA etc who had posted the video, but your reply makes sense.
 
Marvin_78 said:
The only one I know of is Game Cam. Never used it so I cant comment on it.
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It's a lot more powerful than fraps, but also sucks up your CPU.

Pros:
Real time encoding so it's smaller, i recommend this for long term recording (Clan games can take up to 2 hours to finish)
Has a preview window and onscreen control panel.

Cons:
Real time processing and encoding means it sucks up CPU like there's no tomorrow.
When it resizes, there's no bilinear filtering. Ever tried resizing a picture without any smoothing? It's pretty bad. Codec doesn't like sharp edges too so it looks even worse.
It's marked as a hacking tool. So use at your own risk.

I haven't used it for a while so your own experience may vary.
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
I downloaded the 32 bit version (since I'm using the 32 bit version of VirtualDub). I don't see it in the encoders...what am I looking for? Because I don't see any x264 option in the main list.
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did you try restarting your computer...? I know I had to monkey around a bit until it showed up, I just can't remember what I did...
 
iGamer said:
yes they can, had a raw AVI File for the SF IV Benchmark, 50GB in a 3 min Vid!!

Fraps just realeased a new version recently 2.99.9 I believe is the version number.

but anothe one I use is WeGame

http://www.wegame.com/ + its free and actually works
Click to expand...

yeah, I run into problems with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a lot, if the match ends I have to hit the hotkey to stop recording or it hangs when it starts a new game or switches maps...
 
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