Using FRAPs

Gamer Bhoy 89

I've had this program for many years but never used it too much, mainly because my PC was not very powerful to be running both FRAPs and a game at the same time, the frame rate would suffer badly.

The computer I have now is slightly better than the one I used to have.

My old PC specs were;
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz
3GB of RAM
250w PSU (i forget the amp/volt and model)
and my GTS 250 @ 512MB

the PC I have NOW;
AMD A8-6600K APU @ 3.9GHz
8GB of RAM
650W PSU

(again, I didn't look at the amp/volt, but it is a Powercool X-Viper or something like that, Semi-Modular, bought today as I got advice saying that it would suit my GTS 250 better than my last PSU, 500W, blew up trying to push a high end game with the GPU)

still using the GTS 250

Could someone recommend a good way to get a decent FPS while playing my games using FRAPs? or is there another program out there I don't know of?

Many thanks in advance

PS: Sorry for flying off topic, but I figured I put my specs in anyway just incase they're needed

TheChrisD

Well, what sort of rates are you getting on your new machine while recording?

FRAPS is inherently CPU-bottlenecked, so having a good processor will help, as would a decent drive recording speed. Are you recording to the same drive that you're a) playing the game from, and/or b) running your OS on?

Since you stuck with your old graphics card, I can't advise trying out ShadowPlay since it needs a 600-series card or higher.

Gamer Bhoy 89

I went and tested Left 4 Dead twice using a contrast array of settings.

First test I had my settings set to lock at 30 fps and recorded at half the size. It did just that, stayed at 30 fps and didn't dip (if it did dip in fps, I didn't notice.)

Second test I had my settings locked at 60 fps and recorded at full size. The fps didn't go past 30, it bounced up and down a few times and it was sort of distracting.
The fact that the game runs by default at 60fps kind of irritates me a bit due to the other fact that I can't get it to reach anywhere close to that rate during recordings

To answer your question about the HDD;
I'm recording it on a secondary internal HDD I keep spare. nothing really on it, I formatted it this morning but it's only 250GB. It'll do until I can get a bigger one.

TheChrisD

Do you have any benchmarks from games that aren't Source engine? (Multicore on Source can be a bit inconsistent and plays havoc with recordings)

Since your recording drive is so small, I can't suggest trying to record uncompressed to try reducing the load on your CPU.

Ultimately, FPS drops while recording games with a lot of action is pretty par for the course from what I've experienced in the past.

Gamer Bhoy 89

Okay I tried Fallout New Vegas. I think it's a resolution issue. I play at full 1080p and the frame rate will drop around or below 30 fps

I then played it with a cap of 60 fps and used half-size. It balanced between 30 and 50 frames which I guess is okay, but resulted in slightly lower quality picture in the video.

(edit: I'm sitting here describing in detail when there's a benchmark option right there that I forgot about)

TheChrisD

Resolution will always be the biggest factor in recording. Half the size means a quarter of the total amount of pixels, so in theory it should less to less than half of the load on the CPU, but of course this has an impact in the final render. Finding the ideal balance is always a tricky thing and generally takes quite a bit of editing and fiddling with different settings and options to get it ideal.