Video Capture process

[Inawen]

First,hats off to you guys for the world firsts that you've accomplished.
What I'm looking for here is a little advice on what programs are used for the video capture you use when making your vids.
What ones are available,where do I get them,and what requirements are there for them?
I ask because I want to make a few for friends who don't play so that I can SHOW them what I'm talking about,not just blab on sounding like I'm speaking in tongues.
Any ideas would be helpful
Also,my PC is I believe up to the task
Cpu:Athlon II x 4
Ram:8Gb
Graphics:Radeon hd 6750 w/1 Gb GDDR 5

Thanks, Inawen/Shadow Council

[Ryuusenshi]

Most people use the progam called Fraps.

Now, if you chose to use fraps (I don't know any other programs) you always want to record to a second harddrive, never the harddrive you are running WoW on. It will lag you (fps wise) like crazy.

I would suggest a terabyte - 2 terabyte harddrive at 7200+ rpm. Anything thats below 7200 rpm, you may get choppy recording while playing or stuttering.

Your computer specs seem good enough. Hope this helped, send me a private message if you have more questions.

[Tekloth]

Now, if you chose to use fraps (I don't know any other programs) you always want to record to a second harddrive, never the harddrive you are running WoW on. It will lag you (fps wise) like crazy.

That isn't exactly true. After I got my new setup working, I've never had any fps issues whatsoever with runnin wow and fraps from the same HDD, even with the max FPS rates you can get with fraps recordings (iirc 60fps). Also, when recording I can't, most of the time, tell the difference if I'm frapsing or not so I have to check the fraps folder itself if there are any recordings going on. (Oh how many first kills I've missed due to not checking before the pull....)

The setup (with only the parts affecting the situation in question listed) I use:

CPU: i7 2600K with a Coolink Corator DS
GPU: Asus AMD Radeon HD 6850 DirectCU 1GB
MB: Asus P8P67 PRO REV 3.0
RAM: Hyper X Genesis 2x4GB DDR3
HDD: 1TB SpinPoint F3

[Ryuusenshi]

Now, if you chose to use fraps (I don't know any other programs) you always want to record to a second harddrive, never the harddrive you are running WoW on. It will lag you (fps wise) like crazy.

That isn't exactly true. After I got my new setup working, I've never had any fps issues whatsoever with runnin wow and fraps from the same HDD, even with the max FPS rates you can get with fraps recordings (iirc 60fps). Also, when recording I can't, most of the time, tell the difference if I'm frapsing or not so I have to check the fraps folder itself if there are any recordings going on. (Oh how many first kills I've missed due to not checking before the pull....)

The setup (with only the parts affecting the situation in question listed) I use:

CPU: i7 2600K with a Coolink Corator DS
GPU: Asus AMD Radeon HD 6850 DirectCU 1GB
MB: Asus P8P67 PRO REV 3.0
RAM: Hyper X Genesis 2x4GB DDR3
HDD: 1TB SpinPoint F3

Unfortunately, it is true for the majority of people. I've tested it through different harddrives, and I have a very decent comp setup that can run about anything on max graphics at 60 frames consistently without dipping. I run both Fraps and WoW off the same harddrive, but I save the recordings to my second one. I never record Fraps to the same harddrive that Fraps and WoW are running on. This lags me incredibly fps wise and does not allow me to play a game properly. It's nice that you don't have this problem, but unfortunately for the rest of us, that isn't the case.

However let me ask you, as I read your post through once more, you run Fraps, the program it self, and WoW on the same harddrive, but do you save your recordings when recording to a second harddrive? I run Fraps, as I said above, and WoW on the same harddrive, I just don't save my recordings to the same harddrive when I am recording.

A suggestion as well to know when you are recording, turn the FPS indicator on within Fraps, when you start a recording the numbers turn from yellow to red, letting you know you are recording. This is a very good indicator, so hopefully that helps you with not missing out on first kill videos =)

[Inawen]

Thank you for the information,I will look into trying this all out,any further info is of course apreciated,and if I have questions I will be sure to PM someone.

[DiamondTear]

I would suggest a terabyte - 2 terabyte harddrive at 7200+ rpm. Anything thats below 7200 rpm, you may get choppy recording while playing or stuttering.

I record to a 5400 rpm drive. As long as it's not fragmented it will not be the bottleneck and the difference between 5400 and 7200 is small in any case.

[Ryuusenshi]

I would suggest a terabyte - 2 terabyte harddrive at 7200+ rpm. Anything thats below 7200 rpm, you may get choppy recording while playing or stuttering.

I record to a 5400 rpm drive. As long as it's not fragmented it will not be the bottleneck and the difference between 5400 and 7200 is small in any case.

Huh, I've been trying to record on a 5400 rpm but it's been terrible for me =( I'm glad that isn't so for yourself =P

[Emme]

Hey there,

I use fraps all the time. When i playing wow, i can't see if i recording or not too. But, know one thing, the recorded video in fullhd have really high kbits/s. Like 300000 Kbits/s (37.5 mo/s) to 1200000 (150 mo/s).

Lot of hard disk can't read/write more quickly than 35/40 mo/s. that's cause to lag, freezes, etc...

See ya'