Recording PC gameplay

[moonbogg]

I want a good hardware solution to record PC gameplay. There are a few options, such as the Avermedia HD capture card, the Roxio HD pro etc, but they don't work with 120hz monitors without having to clone your desktop and a bunch of other crap you need to do just to make the capture cards work. They have screen tearing when doing this. Am I screwed? Is there a decent way to record gameplay without a performance hit? Software programs don't meet my needs, such as FRAPS etc. They lag.

 

[Zap]

Software programs don't meet my needs, such as FRAPS etc. They lag.

Then you need a better computer. :whiste:

Are you recording to a dedicated, fast drive?

Are you setting software to do minimal compression? Max? How is CPU utilization? Have you tried software besides FRAPS? What CPU are you using? Maybe you need more cores? What resolution?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Then you need a better computer. :whiste:

Are you recording to a dedicated, fast drive?

Are you setting software to do minimal compression? Max? How is CPU utilization? Have you tried software besides FRAPS? What CPU are you using? Maybe you need more cores? What resolution?

This would be greatly appreciated.

 

[moonbogg]

Then you need a better computer. :whiste:

Are you recording to a dedicated, fast drive?

Are you setting software to do minimal compression? Max? How is CPU utilization? Have you tried software besides FRAPS? What CPU are you using? Maybe you need more cores? What resolution?

Gaming at 1080p on the rig below and recording in FRAPS with half size, 30fps to the seperate raid array shown below:

3930K@4.3
16GB @ 1600
2X GTX670 FTW in SLI
SAMSUNG 830 (OS AND GAMES)
OCZ VERTEX 2 (STEAM GAMES)
HDD RAID 0 (RECORDING TO THIS RAID ARRAY)

The situation is this: BF3 is already dipping into the 50's on gulf of oman due to CPU limitation, so any fraps recording tends to hurt performance and sometimes locks my gameplay to 30fps for a few moments.
Something like the Avermedia game recorder takes the performance hit off your CPU, but with a 120hz monitor, things get screwy.

 

[Zap]

Have you verified that with BF3 and FRAPS you are indeed running at 100% CPU utilization? If your system isn't, but the CPU hit feels noticeable, try assigning core affinity.

Also, try other software such as MSI Afterburner. This thread has some info.

 

[mfenn]

Have you verified that with BF3 and FRAPS you are indeed running at 100% CPU utilization?

Agree. Let's not jump to conclusions about CPU bottlenecks before we get some data.