Best way to capture ingame footage on PC?

supaidaaman

Senior member
Nov 17, 2005
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Here is the deal, I need to capture HD quality video of some pretty graphically intense games. These games need to run smooth with all the eye candy. Fraps isnt going to cut it.

This is how I think I should do it, but Im not quite sure...
1. Buy something like Black magic intensity capture card.
2. Put that capture card in a secondary computer with a fast raid array (a few 10k raptors?)
3. Go from my GTX280 HDMI out to the input on the capture card.
4. Log video footage as the game is being played on the 1st computer.

Do you have any suggestions? Or another way to go about this. The end videos need to be in 1920x1080 or close...maybe 720p would be fine.

Any hardware suggestions for the capturing PC?
 

BlueAcolyte

Platinum Member
Nov 19, 2007
2,793
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Is there a way to slow down the game so that FRAPS can work properly and then speed it up in an editor?
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
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alienbabeltech.com
How about using a HD-DVD cam to record from the screen?

What is wrong with FRAPS?

the free version is missing some video capture options of the $37 one that i have :p

My ASUS 4870 has SW called "Game OSD" that claims it can capture the video from any PC game
- i haven't tried it as FRAPS works perfectly for me - even if the amount of HD space to store Video is atrocious


EDIT:

Yes, it IS beautiful ,,, i lust for one

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

$250 - $350

that would be the best way ..
rose.gif

 

Zstream

Diamond Member
Oct 24, 2005
3,396
277
136
Originally posted by: supaidaaman
Here is the deal, I need to capture HD quality video of some pretty graphically intense games. These games need to run smooth with all the eye candy. Fraps isnt going to cut it.

This is how I think I should do it, but Im not quite sure...
1. Buy something like Black magic intensity capture card.
2. Put that capture card in a secondary computer with a fast raid array (a few 10k raptors?)
3. Go from my GTX280 HDMI out to the input on the capture card.
4. Log video footage as the game is being played on the 1st computer.

Do you have any suggestions? Or another way to go about this. The end videos need to be in 1920x1080 or close...maybe 720p would be fine.

Any hardware suggestions for the capturing PC?

First off the 10k raptors are not needed, well I record 720p without issue on my raid setup.

Black magic intensity cards are just plain awesome for the price. I honestly would not buy one for games but you just might.
 

betasub

Platinum Member
Mar 22, 2006
2,677
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Originally posted by: Zstream
Black magic intensity cards are just plain awesome for the price.

I had trouble parsing this - does it mean bad (plain awful) or good (totally awesome)?

 

wolf2009

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2008
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interesting ,

If you have one HDD for OS and recording and you play form another HDD in the same PC, does that slow things down ?

Or lets say you have one HDD for OS, one for Recording, one for Game, and you record with FRAPS , does that slow things down ?
 

wolf2009

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2008
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Originally posted by: wolf2009
interesting ,

If you have one HDD for OS and recording and you play form another HDD in the same PC, does that slow things down ?

Or lets say you have one HDD for OS, one for Recording, one for Game, and you record with FRAPS , does that slow things down ?

bum0-p
 

udneekgnim

Senior member
Jun 27, 2008
247
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I would think 2 hard drives, quad core CPU, and high end video card would work out in terms of hardware
 

bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
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Originally posted by: udneekgnim
I would think 2 hard drives, quad core CPU, and high end video card would work out in terms of hardware

Agreed.

The full version of FRAPS allows for recording in any resolution as well as specifically choosing and syncing a framerate to record to.

OS on one harddrive, setup FRAPS to dump recorded video to another. Fast harddrives not needed at all (unless you want to capture at an insanely high framerate), a two drive RAID-0 array with ordinary 7200RPM drives would be more than enough if you want to play it safe.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
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alienbabeltech.com
even [only] at 19x12, if you are playing with maxed details and 4xAA/16AF .. and you start to record with FRAPS, you will slow the game down; sometime to unwatchable
- try it with Crysis if you have any doubts; it works ok for a lot of games; IF you got the PC that is fast enough, for others not so good - i still haven't tried the ASUS capture SW :p
 

MarkLuvsCS

Senior member
Jun 13, 2004
740
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There is another program that is still in development: Taski. Its been pretty slow development, but it actually transcodes video into whatever codecs are installed. It works pretty well for DX9 but i dont think it works for DX10.

So many computers are multi-core now which provides the processing power needed to Game + transcode (just manually set affinitys).

That is my biggest grip of FRAPS. It hasn't changed much in the past 5 years (when it was like $10-20). Higher resolutions, a few more choices for recording options, but lacking any real development.

Hopefully they will develop FRAPs to better fit future technologies.
 

wolf2009

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2008
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^^^ The method i described above with 2 hard drives and a quad core, doesn't work out well at even 1280x 1024 .

I have 2 WD 640AAKS drives, OS and Game on one, and recording to the other. Things still slow down .
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: wolf2009
^^^ The method i described above with 2 hard drives and a quad core, doesn't work out well at even 1280x 1024 .

I have 2 WD 640AAKS drives, OS and Game on one, and recording to the other. Things still slow down .
that is what i said :p

now i *have* to try ASUS "Gamer OSD" SW capture utility
rose.gif

- it promises much
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
With the rig in the sig, if I try to record UT3 videos, it goes from 62 fps to 30 flat out. Doesn't matter if I set fraps to record at 30 or 60, the game runs at 30.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
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alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: dguy6789
With the rig in the sig, if I try to record UT3 videos, it goes from 62 fps to 30 flat out. Doesn't matter if I set fraps to record at 30 or 60, the game runs at 30.

have you uncapped the frame rates in UT3?
-they are capped to about 60FPS

uncheck 'smoothing' in the game's options [with the latest patch]