Vista and recording with FRAPS

[chizow]

Ok, so Fraps recently came out with a version supporting Vista. Downloaded and everything works fine, except the massive hit to frame rates when recording movies in-game. I have 2 panels and have all my utilities running to monitor system temps/vitals, and noticed the CPU spikes to 80-90% on my C2D when I start recording.

Recordings are of LOTRO, which is pretty graphically intense, but I never noticed more than a slight hitch in performance when recording under XP. I'm guessing it has something to do with the WDDM in Vista vs. XP, causing more overhead with the way FRAPS records from the frame buffer.

Anyways, just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this or found a work around. Would also like to know if anyone has a Quad Core and see if it would help at all. The Q6600s are selling for $260 or so, which is a great price imo and a good upgrade from my E6400.

TIA

 

[MarcVenice]

Try a different game? Even when taking a screenshot I see a game stutter sometimes, whereas another game would just keep running without a hitch. Might have something to do with the engine that's being used. Whose to say. Might be worth trying to record in another game though. If it's the same, then it's vista for sure.

 

[novasatori]

FRAPS will use a 2nd core, do you have a lot of stuff running on your second C2D core or does LOTRO use both cores?

If so its likely that fraps will be helped by a 3rd core, however it seems odd to me that your second core would be at full use by a diff app before fraps.


Hmmmmm.....

Does FRAPS have a forum? you may want to ask more about how the software works in vista there.

 

[swtethan]

If your game is dual core enabled, you could just set affinities. Like core 0,1 for the game, core 2,3 for fraps

 

[Aikouka]

I believe that you will have a massive hit to your framerate depending on your FRAPS settings, because FRAPS will cap your FR at a certain amount. My framerate when making WoW videos was always capped to 30fps, because I used 29.97fps video mode in FRAPS.

 

[chizow]

Posted this some time ago, but wanted to see if anyone had any updates/new insights. Looking to build a 2nd PC with existing components and the only thing left really is the CPU. Not sure if I should get a Q6600 for my main rig and then move my E6400, or keep my E6400 and get an E2140 on the cheap. I mainly game, so I don't expect to see too much increase from the Q6600, but being able to FRAPs games at full quality would be a good enough reason I guess.

Anyways as an update, I was able to Fraps some older games without any noticeable performance issues at 1920x1200 in XP. However with LOTRO and Vista 64, recording in FRAPs totally pegs CPU utilization close to 100% and noticeably impacts FR. Aikouka's observation is interesting, but in LOTRO frame rates in some fights will go well below 30FPS. Typically recording in full screen at 1920 will cut frame rates in half (ie. 45 to 15-25).

Anyone have experience with FRAPS in Vista with a Quad core? Thanks!

 

[Bateluer]

Incidentally, Quads are likely to become very cheap in the next 3 to 4 months . . .

 

[idiotekniQues]

fraps caps your framerate to the recording setting.

if you record at 30fps it caps your actual fps to 30. ditto with 50.

i recorded bf2142 at 50fps cause i cant play at 30fps and be competitive. but it increases the file size.

if i remember correctly before i put in my quad, my e6400 @ 3.2ghz had no issue playing 2142 and recording 50fps on fraps.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Incidentally, Quads are likely to become very cheap in the next 3 to 4 months . . .

Ya, but I don't plan to get a Penryn when it comes out....really no telling whether my mobo will even support it and even if it does, it'll just eat into any OC'ing headroom/flexibility with the higher stock FSB and lower multipliers. For only 5-10% increase in games and slightly lower power consumption under load.

The Q6600 is in a pretty nice price range now and when a comparable Penryn comes out the Q6600 will be a few bucks cheaper although it and the comparable Penryn may go to a lower price bucket. But my eye is still on the Q6600 which will become scarce once the Penryn replacement hits so there's a somewhat limited window there.

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
fraps caps your framerate to the recording setting.

if you record at 30fps it caps your actual fps to 30. ditto with 50.

i recorded bf2142 at 50fps cause i cant play at 30fps and be competitive. but it increases the file size.

if i remember correctly before i put in my quad, my e6400 @ 3.2ghz had no issue playing 2142 and recording 50fps on fraps.

Ya I noticed that, the problem is my FPS is much lower than what I'm recording at in LOTRO. For instance, if my FPS are 35-40 and I record at 30FPS, my frame rate dives to 15-20FPS as my CPU is pegged. Increasing the FPS I record at only makes it worst. Cutting resolution from full-size to half-size helps but that's to be expected. I had similar experience with older games though where I had no problems recording with FPS maxed at whatever FPS I was recording at.

What OS are you using btw? Do you see any performance hits if you're using Vista with that Q6600? I guess it probably is a Vista issue, since the WDDM Vista driver handles the frame buffer differently. Recording via Fraps really shouldn't be such a hit to the video/cpu subsystems since its just writing an image from the frame buffer, but I guess that's handled much differently than it was in XP.

 

[chizow]

Just an update, I ended up getting a Q6600 as it seems Penryn is delayed a few months. Definitely noticed improvements when recording in FRAPs, although I still see a drop in FPS. Possibly a sync'ing issue with the frame buffer in Vista or saturating the PCI bus. But overall recording is much smoother, not choppy like with my C2D with both cores pegged to 100%.

Now I can spread Fraps over 2-3 cores with the game running on 1-2 cores, however much it needs/benefits from normally. None of the 4 cores come close to 100% and it definitely results in less performance hit.

 

[cputeq]

FRAPS is just inherently slower in Vista than XP, though the Quad may help slightly.

I've done testing, using my system below, in both XP and Vista, and XP's performance is much better than Vista

Now I'm waiting for a patch for Vista 64 -- FRAPS autocashes for me as soon as I record, though tech support said to try without sound to see if things work. Using FRAPS 2.9.3