FRAPS capabilities

Hey,

I'm trying to record the graduation in this stream: Dayton Official Athletic Site

From the description of the program on the website, it sounds like FRAPS should be able to do it. It'll probably be crappy quality, but I just want to know if it's possible before I buy it. If anyone knows of another more efficient way, I'm all ears

 

From the website: Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Come join the Machinima revolution! Throw away the VCR, forget about using a DV cam, game recording has never been this easy! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 7680x4800 with custom frame rates from 1 to 120 frames per second!

if 7k is bad quality, then I don't know what good quality is.

 

Fraps hooks onto game hooks (like Direct X) its a game recording software, not a stream ripping software.

You want to download the stream not capture it or use a screen capture program.

 

Those limits are set by the application. Without a crazy hardware setup, you wouldn't be able to record that resolution with a decent frame rate. And that has little to do with quality. As it turns out, quality has more to do with compression and performance. Dropped frames, choppy video, and compression artifacts are the biggest quality concerns with the output of a program like fraps.

 

Fraps is an amazing program with loss-less quality footage. The limiting factor will come from the quality of the stream, not the quality of the application Fraps. I use fraps all the time for recording video game footage and it always does the job, however you should keep in mind the size of the footage due to its loss-less quality. When I am recording for most video games every 3-5 mins equals 4 GBs (it records in chunks). I'm not sure if this is the optimal solution for you, however for the low cost of $37 it isn't too hefty of an investment, and you can always download the free version to test if it works before hand.

 

few points:

1. fraps doesn't use a lossless codec, they use a light compression codec that isn't too rough on the CPU and takes a lot of HDD space, but it's not lossless

2. fraps can cause a lot of performance overhead in games, and a massive performance issue related to having to write a lot of data to the hard drive (it can basically fully block your hard drive which can stall performance)

3. you will need an extremely beefy computer to record with fraps in a high resolution + high framerate, and a beefy hard drive setup as well (fast SSD or raid Hard drives)

4. fraps isn't meant to record the desktop - i'm not sure if it's possible (it might be possible if you turn on aero)

4. there are other applications that are pretty much flat out better than fraps (and free!). I highly recommend looking into MSI afterburner, which I have been able to use to record the desktop as well as games, and I consistently get MUCH better performance than fraps, and I can even record in full 1080p without issues with a regular hard drive.

5. I would also look into recording the stream directly using firefox extensions that are designed to save flash files if the stream is a flash steam. You can try converting the saved file with handbrake and/or playing it back with VLC media player.

 

Fraps can record the desktop no problem, do it all the time. Just check "monitor Windows Desktop". MSI causes issues and conflicts with some games, DICE games especially. I've had to stop using MSI Afterburner, which really just uses RivaTuner, because of conflicts and causing hangs. Afterburner menus also are not 1366x768 screen friendly. You have to hide the taskbar and even then you can only see one pixel height of the "OK" dialogs.

But otherwise MSI Afterburner is a good free option.

 

i've tested recent versions with BF3- seemed to work pretty excellently, especially compared to fraps.

I'm still looking for a better (probably hardware) option though.

And I'm pretty sure MSI afterburner is entirely its own thing, at least in terms of the video recording functionality, not that it makes any difference. But Rivatuner doesn't have that type of functionality afaik.

 

I have Fraps but like it was previously stated, it creates files that are too large and hard to deal with (especially if you intend to upload videos regularly).

I found another program called Bandicam which creates files that are MUCH smaller and have amazing quality (near perfect picture with minimal loss in fps while recording in full rez) if you set the parameters correctly.

My file size went from 4gb and up for a 3 minute video to 250 mb for a video twice as long. I originally thought that the quality would be much lower and I was surprised to see that it was nearly as good with better framerate.

Record with Bandicam in full size Xvid (CBR) Full Size, 120.00fps, 99999kbps and Audio set to MPEG-1 L2 48.0KHz, stereo, 192kbps with Target set to Direct X or if you prefer an area of your desktop or all your desktop.

It's really the most diverse and interactive recording software I've ever used. I recommend you give it a try, there is a free trial for it

http://www.bandicam.com/downloads/

 

You might be better off with Camstudio or Camtasia, only because they're able to record a fixed area of the screen rather than having to save the whole thing. Plus they'll save to compressed formats (They're both pretty inefficient, though).

 

bandicam is also rated highly. i would look into bandicam ($40) and MSI Afterburner (free) before fraps.

 

I had no idea Afterburner had a screen recorder in it, let alone such a powerful one. It appears to do the same thing as FRAPS, though (hooking DirectX) so it's not quite the best option for recording streams.

And here I was thinking I'd need to pay for a game recorder! Ha!

 

I'm not sure of the underlying technology (it's proprietary) - but I have used it to record the desktop, and it works very well.