ive seen a bunch of videos on youtube of fonv, what are people using today to record the game to make those vids?

Most people use Fraps I think

Yup....and then you need another program to compress (and/or edit) the Fraps files into something smaller sized, for uploading. Also, have plenty of free hard drive space. 70-100 seconds of FRAPS vid recorded at 1920x1080 = about 4GB, depending on the scene/action/graphics. it adds up very fast. Sigh.

http://www.fraps.com
There are others, but for DirectX games, this is pretty good, and seems very popular.

**The free version takes 30 second branded clips ~but its free. :celebration:

I use Fraps and Windows Movie Maker to edit. I can't afford Sony Vegas for an editor although many people can and do.

Well that and the frame rate drop due to FRAPS literally encoding the footage while recording it. For me, Fraps has gotten quite reliable for me in terms of time to disk space usage. Originally for every minute, it would be 1 - 1.5 GB. Nowadays, it's more like for every 90 seconds is 1 GB. It's not like I'm running it at half-size either. 1360 x 768 with the same graphical settings that I play without recording. Like you said though, all depends on what's happening.

For video editing, I personally use Adobe Premier Pro. It's been a simple video tool that's consistent in it's editing and re-encoding of the footage.

I really wish FRAPS had a record at 3/4 size. I'd be happy to record in 1280x720 so YT would consider it "HD" for its svcky compression process. But if I record at 1/2 size, YT takes the 960x540 and turns it into 640x360 fuzzy mush (but a 1280x720 gets the better YouTube 480 compression). Really annoying. lol

I still use VirtualDub (it's free) for compressing and most editing. I tried the Sony Vegas Movie Studio9 $100ish cheaper version but didn't like it much (and it crashes...) so I've been sticking to VDub. Just means I can't subtitle or do transitions...which I don't care much about anyway.

Edit: and yeah, if you have a hard time running a game at a consistent 40fps at least, the frame rate drop can be irritating. It drops me from 60-70fps to 35-45 and even tho it looks fine in the video, it's so much slower then what I actually see. Tho for the dancing vids, that's actually a good thing. Otherwise they all dance rather spastically...

Virtual Dub [filters] can pad the video.

Oh? I haven't found that option. I know some codecs can resize it but then it looks terrible because of that...I'll look for the other option, thanks.

Edit:wait, does 'pad' mean it'd have black bars on all sides or something? I'm not sure I want that either. I'll still check it out tho.

It can resize the video, or stretch it, or add bars to pad the dimensions a bit.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/vdub.jpg

Well, there's always changing your resolution to 1280 x 720.. but ya know, it just doesn't look as nice. The alternative would be for an option that allows you to set the resolution you want the video to be in. That way, it doesn't affect you one bit. Personally, I just upload to YT using my native, which is 1360 x 768. While it's does its infamous thing, what with the quality and all, it still looks good enough that it could be passable as if I'm playing it.

Subtitles are nice for the most part. When I tried to use the bubbles that the youtube editor provides, I kinda cringed at doing so. Felt so out of place with the colours and all. For the most part, I only use fade in and out transitions as well as text boxes for dialog.

See, here's the funny thing really. I only need 15 FPS in order for something to show up smoothly in the end result. I guess you could say this is SCIENCE!!! but since the eye can only detect 15 FPS, it doesn't notice it the frame lag a lot. I also do have the end product, after the editing has been completed, to 30 FPS, which doesn't hinder it but actually makes it seem more smoother in my opinion. It'll seem more choppy while you're recording because of what FRAPS is doing which is encoding the raw. When you're viewing it, the CPU usage from that doesn't exist. In the end, there's a difference between what you're seeing and what the viewer is seeing because of this. That or just say it's magic.. or previously said, SCIENCE!!!

Believe me, going from 1980x1080 native to 1280x720 looks terrible. Well, at least to me. It's like looking at the game through a Vaseline covered lens. I'm told I have very picky eyeballs tho - must be the photog. in me. Dunno.


I've heard that...or 30fps...repeated for years and years, and it may be true in a certain sense. But I guess what recording does is slow down the CPU speed cause it's svcking up more resources (?) - eg, it's like the difference between playing a really really old game on an ancient, slow rig or that same old game on a new, fast rig...on the fast rig that old game will be so speedy you can barely play it. So without FRAP's going, my NV chrs. can't dance to Thriller because the animations are outpacing the beat, but with FRAPS on at 40fps (what I try to record in), slowing the animation down, it syncs up much better.

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm