FRAPS - How to Use it and How to Get the Best Performance NCIX Tech Tips

FRAPS is an awesome program for recording gameplay footage for montages and other video projects, but at maximum quality it can produce some SERIOUSLY big files. Watch the video for some optimization tips, and even some tips for how to configure your machine if you want the best possible FRAPS performance!

[rohithkumarsp]

hello there from the future reader, bookmarked this on 2011 dec, seeing the video today on 2015 lol, cya

[pytonrevolver]

You can tell he's very proud of his rig, and that he is happy to show it off

[GameTipsAndMoreBlog]

@Sam G - To answer your question, "What does benchmark mean?":
'Benchmarking' is a way of measuring some thing against other things, comparing them to each other. It comes from tradesmen, literally, 'marking a work bench', which they would then use to measure and compare other things with. In computer terms, it is used to show the difference between two types of parts/settings/etc and their measurements. For example, if a measurement is taken of the frame rate of a game, that is a sample 'benchmark' of performance. Then, after changing some settings, another sample of the frame rate can be measured. Then, the two can be compared to see the results of the changes in the settings that were made. If you have done this in the past, you have 'run a benchmark'.

[semibreve]

WHY DOES HE SOUND THE SAME WHAT THE FUCK

[Chris.Davies]

FRAPS can also be tied to a specific CPU core. Check which cores your game uses, none of mine use more than 2 cores, so I assign FRAPS to one of the other cores. In this way, any 4-core machine can always record full-frame, full-rate movies at anything up to and including 1080P.

[HyperchaotixFox]

With Fraps I can actually still get an acceptable frame rate such as 60, but recently after recording for about 5 minutes Fraps would randomly tank the framerate. Sometimes in small bursts losing 10 fps per burst and sometimes all at once but it ends up at an unplayable 5 fps. This video helped me confirm that it's not really my gpu or cpu so much as it is the write speed of my harddrive.

What intrigues me is that I used to never get those dramatic dips. And yet I was writing to the same drive that the game was stored, which, upon receiving this information has blown my mind about how fraps was able to work so well on my system in the first place. Like, I could record for 15 minutes, 45 fps, 720p, and rarely lose a frame.

[Omarock]

This is the best recording program hands down, tried mirillis action, dxtory, msi afterburner. Fraps have the best performance.

[Felipemelazzi]

That explains my limitations when recording and saving the files on my USB 2.0 external hard drive. Thanks a lot!

[Feldkampinator]

I had no idea that the wright speed was causing me a substantual drop in FPS even with i 2600k and a 670. Now just change my save directory to my SSD's and BOOM. Thanks Linus

[TheGamersLife]

if you have the CPU yes. if you just have a dual core idk if you would notice anything. but 4 or more and you will notice a difference. like most games use at most 4 cores, if you have 6 then the dxtory could utilize the extra two. then the only issue is the write speed, but that can be ajusted down in the setting to fit your drive. it will scan the write speed and set it to the results, its cool like that( scan is done manually when selecting file folder for output video files).

[Dorde.]

indeed you do, i must clear up though 12 is mostly used for teaching people drawn animation like "the bouncing ball" just so they get used to the animation paper and light box, 12 is also used for the zoetrope, etc.

[beekaynimaruichi]

Back when SSDs were first announced it was this way but the technology has progressed in leaps and bounds since then, SSD dieing is really not much of an issue anymore (unless it was defective in the first place)

[LynWildwoodGames]

Fraps can record your voice but it outputs it with the video, so you aren't able to edit game audio and voice audio separately. You could look into another software called Bandicam. It will record your voice and the game audio, but output them as separate channels. It also compresses the files for you unlike Fraps whose files are enormous. But if you want to use Fraps, just download Audacity and use that to record your voice and sync it up in post production.

[Virus]

Just so everyone knows, you get way less lag if you set recording fps to 120.

Also, thanks for the hint about using a 2nd hdd for the video, it worked wonders :)

[MrHaunt]

There's a command you can use in Battlefield 3 to check your FPS instead of Fraps: hit the tilde key ' ~ ' and then type render.drawfps 1 then hit enter. If you want to get rid of it type the same thing then instead of 1, type 0. :) Just a quick tip

[tochbomb]

Agreed, it has more options for the people who just want video recording and screenshots and not much of the other things that are unnecessary for gaming, unless you do want the benchmark feature. :] gata love it :]

[FallenGloryGaming]

I salute him as well, he took the time to correct my troll comment, I didn't think anyone would

[jthill]

@LaserMaster332 Depends on what you want to do. If you want really high resolutions and max settings in every game for a couple years, then I would go with SLi. But if are just using one monitor and want high settings in most games, then one card will be fine. I currently use a single 6870 and it works really well for what I do. This same example pretty much applies to whatever you are doing with hardware.

[Scatcycle]

If you render in Sony Vegas, you can render in the .m2ts file format and it holds all quality while compressed to maybe 200 megabytes from 8 gigabytes of footage.

[HelplessSoldier]

trust me you can see the difference, I've been playing on a laptop at 30fps and recently got a new gaming desktop and i instantly noticed a difference. i now get 80fps avg and it's much smoother then 30fps. 30fps is good for movies but when you're the one controlling it you can truly feel it like going from a 60Hz monitor to a 120Hz.