FRAPS causing stuttering

MeMeMeMe

MeMeMeMe

MeMeMeMe

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3 Oct 2009
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I have been trying to record gameplay videos using FRAPS, but it frequently causes drops in frame rate and stuttering. This happens only when I'm recording, not when playing the game.

My OS is on an SSD, my games are on Drive G (a Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB), and I have FRAPS set to record videos to drive D (a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB)

The games I'm having problem with are
Dirt 2
Race Driver GRID
Need for Speed SHIFT

Any idea on how to set things up to avoid this?
 
Capturing HD+ resolution video in realtime is going to put a strain on the system - ontop of the game already using quite a bit of resources - so it is going to drop to lower framerates and sometimes stutter a bit.

Reducing the capture size to half size can help a lot tho obviously reduces the quality a lot. Or setting a lower resolution for capturing i.e. 1280x720.
 
You could try setting the capture rate to 30fps and lowering the resolution. But this can make some games hard to play. But it should be ok if your just recording replays.


I have heard recording the video to a external usb drive helps but i dont know if its true or not.
 
Depends what causing the problem shovelling that much data over USB would likely take up a lot of CPU time.

You can set it now to record at xfps while rendering as many as it can rather than the capture rate which helps a little.
 
DooMeR said:
You could try setting the capture rate to 30fps and lowering the resolution. But this can make some games hard to play. But it should be ok if your just recording replays.
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Oh yes, forgot to mention:

I already have it set to save at half resolution, and capture at 30 fps.

I have heard recording the video to a external usb drive helps but i dont know if its true or not.
Click to expand...

I think the fact I'm recording to a separate internal drive, not used by the OS or the game, should accomplish the same thing - only better. It's frustrating.
 
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You really want to be writing to an SSD if you insist on doing this. Writing video realtime while playing is inherently bad because you are accessing a drive.

A far better solution would be to just play the game WITHOUT recording, and then playback the in-game replay after the race (assuming those games have them, which I'd guess they should) and at that point do the FRAPS recording - stuttering doesn't matter during the replay.
 
When i record on fraps sometimes i get lag and it stutters but the videos them selfs come out ok.
 
HangTime said:
You really want to be writing to an SSD if you insist on doing this. Writing video realtime while playing is inherently bad because you are accessing a drive.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is, it worked fine before I installed my SSD. It's really weird. Maybe an update to FRAPS has messed things up.

Isn't writing to an SSD slow? I thought their advantage was in the fast read speeds.

DooMeR said:
When i record on fraps sometimes i get lag and it stutters but the videos them selfs come out ok.
Click to expand...

I've noticed that too. The problem is, the stuttering in driving games causes me to lose control of my cars, to overaccelerate or break at the wrong time, etc.

I may have to use the replay function as suggested above, byut that won't help when I want to do it in non-driving games.
 
MeMeMeMe said:
Isn't writing to an SSD slow? I thought their advantage was in the fast read speeds
Click to expand...

SSD write speeds are only 'slow' in comparison to the read speeds, if you compare it against standard mechanical drives they are still typically faster if it's a good SSD. The main benefit is the reduced response time which will help most in cases where you are both reading and writing to the drive.

If you look here you will see that SSDs random write performance is better than Samsung F3 1TB: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/7
 
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