Video game recording

8bitogre

I'm seeing a lot of information going back and forth between the pros/cons of various screen recording software when it comes to recording games. Does anyone use one on a regular basis and can shed some light? I know FRAPS is the old standard but the file sizes are absolutely huge so I'm hoping for a decent alternative.

IpseDixit

Take a picture of the screen with instagram

Kadith

IpseDixit wrote: »

Take a picture of the screen with instagram

be sure to apply as many filters as you can

you can apply more than one filter with instagram right?

8bitogre

I see what I'm doing wrong now, I was using Hipstamatic.

The Scottish Unicorn

You don't just use the files straight after fraps, you gotta fix em up them in Sony Vegas or windows movie maker.

Foomy

Any recording program is going to spit out huge files, you have to take those and edit them then re-encode down to whatever end resolution you want.

8bitogre

Maybe I'm doing it wrong or something. I know the raw files are going to be a bit large, but I'm talking 3GB for like 2 minutes worth of gameplay.

Foomy

8bitogre wrote: »

Maybe I'm doing it wrong or something. I know the raw files are going to be a bit large, but I'm talking 3GB for like 2 minutes worth of gameplay.

that's a little large. you should check your settings and make sure your not recording at like 1080p at 60fps.

The Scottish Unicorn

8bitogre wrote: »

Maybe I'm doing it wrong or something. I know the raw files are going to be a bit large, but I'm talking 3GB for like 2 minutes worth of gameplay.

No that sort of thing occurs with me as well, Fraps records with very little compression, so you get giant files. But if you compress them in the aforementioned programs it compresses them. Like a 15 minutes let's play which is a fair amount of files at 3 gigs each compressed together is 236 MB afterwards.

tl;dr You gotta compress the files because Fraps ain't doing it for you.

belligerent

It depends on what you're going to do with the files after you're done. Are you making a video for anything other than online distribution? If not, you can cut filesize by recording at 30fps instead, 1/2 size. That cuts it down dramatically.

I've done fraps and another screencap software but I can't remember what it was. You might also want to look at streaming, which can record your footage offsite for you. Adobe FLME and justin.tv worked well for me. It also was very easy to put a PIP of a webcam like some of the youtubers do.

Also, what's your source? I'm assuming it's straight PC since you mentioned fraps, but if you're using a secondary source, I like blackmagic media encoder a bunch.

8bitogre

Pretty much just for online distribution, to toss up on YouTube or whatnot. I'll try recording at 30fps, 1/2 size to see if that helps. Just recording the screen straight from the PC, no external sources.

TychoCelchuuu

Your file size is normal. 1080p at 30 FPS in FRAPS gives me file sizes of about 1 gig per minute.

8bitogre

I ended up downloading Dxtory and an x264 codec plugin and I can do 30 minutes of 1080p video at about 3.5gb.

Thanks for all the tips!

TPSou

MSI afterburner or the beta of the new Razer gamebooster thing both seem to work well, and they're free! There's also a fair few settings on how the recorded videos are stored.

Tef

I was just coming in here to recommend MSi afterburner. It's what I use and it's great. It's not really gonna solve your compression issues though. I usually do 720 @30fps and that works out well for me

Lochiel

Anyone have any suggestions for software to easily convert from AVI to WMV (or other, preferred format)? I'd like to be able to convert my raw footage in batches when I'm sleeping.

8bitogre

VirtualDub.

mr_mich

Another +1 for MSI Afterburner. I don't even have an MSI card and it works like a dream.

maximumzero

Any recommendations on hardware to record console games? I feel like uploading random nonsense to youtube.

8bitogre

I have a Roxio Game Capture HD Pro that seems to work pretty well.