Recording Gameplay Footage

I searched but didn't find what I was looking for and I think that this belongs in the gaming section and not the software section...

I've used fraps for the last few years to take pictures in game and to check my fps. I've used its recording function a few times and really the great picture quality and the fact that it can even record vent conversations while recording the game but whatever file format it uses leads to huge files (over a 1gb per minute) and the amount of time you can record is limited to 30 seconds on the free version of the software.

So my question is what are some other free programs that can record in game footage preferably with vent chat at the same time? Also are there some that compress the footage slightly so the files don't take up alot of space (+10gb's)?

 

I found a good article that goes over 5 alternatives to FRAPS:

Article

The problem with your request about file size is it's a tall order. The recording program is spending as little resources as possible as to not hinder your gameplay as well as providing you with a high resolution recorded video. What your requesting would require massive amounts of resources to convert, compress, and encode the video down to a smaller format all while not stealing 99% of your computers resources.

 

Record first, encode later. Just the nature of the beast.

 

Yeah I guess that is what I will do, my major complaint with fraps is if I want to record videos longer than 30 seconds I will have to buy the full version which is $37... Gonna try some of the programs listed in the previous post and see if any of them work well

 

edit: pardon my rashness.

 

The first rule of not buying software is that you don't talk about not buying software on a public forum, especially one based in the US.

 

I have tried most of the capture programs, FRAPS wins hands down for game capture.

If its something you want to do on a normal basis I would purchase it, its not even that expensive and most imortantly unlike things like photshop and stuff where you have to buy the new version each time, with FRAPS you get all future updates for free.

I use avisynth to append the files together and feed them into x264 for encoding and neroaac for the audio and then mux together with mkvtoolnix.

My final products are visually identical to the original and small enough you can email them to somebody as an attachment

 

FRAPS is $37? Wow. I've owned it for years, can't recall what I paid, maybe $15, don't recall. But like Vicious states, it's well worth it, all updates free.

 

fraps is great. barely affects performance as long as you record to a different drive than you are running your OS / games from.

 

Meh, I see this vary from game to game, also it caps your game fps to what ever your recording frame rate is.

Most of the time you want a video no more than 30fps so if its a demanding game that does not run well @ 30fps you sometimes have to go with 60fps recording and thats just a huge file and more frames than necessary (movies and stuff are less than 30fps)

I use a secondary drive, so this helps keep the game from having to load from the same drive as the video is being saved too, but the issue comes more into cpu overhead. Fraps uses quite a bit of cpu power so if you are in a game using all your cpu it will hit your performance second drive or not.

Not sure but I think it consumes some RAM too.