Game Capture/Recording

This is the place where you can conflab about all the other stuff besides videogames
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

I'm not denying that iMovie is a good program and has its use cases, especially if you're good with it. Game footage just requires far more finesse than iMovie allows for. I'm probably being unnecessarily snobbish about it, I'll admit; there's just a remarkable difference between a video that's badly encoded and one that's nicely encoded. Certainly, if it's all you have available, use iMovie — as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you — but I don't think it's something you should use now and forever.

Also, you don't need to install Windows with Boot Camp to use VDub; WINE (and CrossoverGames, I guess?) works as well.
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JaySevenZero
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by JaySevenZero »

Okay, you're gonna need to show me a sample of what you're referring to clarify this difference in quality.

iMovie has three basic options to encode movies in; Movie, which uses the Apple standard .m4v, Final Cut XML and finally Quicktime. The Quicktime option however, opens up with no fewer than 67 different codecs to export video in which include professional level formats such as Apple ProRes 4444.

Most of this is neither here nor there since you're limited to what YouTube will accept anyway but the options offered within Quicktime's .avi and in particular .mp4 format allow for plenty of customising of the export as specified within YouTube's advanced encoding settings.
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

Ah, my mistake; I only remembered iMovie having the one export option, which limited you to "Mobile, Low, High and HD" options.
Sly Reflex

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Sly Reflex »

I notice when you upload it tells you that altering some options regarding quicktime will shorten the upload. I did look into it but I couldn't seem to figure it out in Vegas.
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JaySevenZero
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by JaySevenZero »

I think it's always worth the time to investigate the true extent of your export settings and to also take a look at YouTube's Advanced encoding settings page to try and get the best results for your videos. Some of the settings won't guarantee a quicker upload but may benefit general video quality once it has.
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

The best way to help video quality when uploading to YouTube is to make sure it has a vertical resolution of 720 or higher. The HD pipeline treats the video a lot nicer than its legacy pipeline.
MrTingg

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by MrTingg »

Hey there, I do a youtube channel and have now managed to get a Machinima partnership deal. Check out my channel if you like. Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/Tingg101

Also, I record with bandicam and render with sony vagas.
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

Has anyone tried Playclaw? It's supposed to utilise every core your processor has to offer so in theory should make for less frame rate drop when you start recording.

I'm having real issues with Fraps and DayZ at the moment, if I'm in a city the game drops to a ridiculously slow frame rate if I hit record making the game pretty much unplayable :(
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

How does DayZ run on its own?

Have you turned down settings?

What are your Fraps settings?

Are you recording Fraps to an external drive?

Basically, you should really make sure there's nothing you can do to record your video with the tools you have, without needing to spend any more money, before you start buying other programs.
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

The game runs ok, but it's a fairly CPU heavy game my frame rate tends to drop to around 15-20 fps in large cities without recording, I can record if I drop the graphics down but then it doesn't look as good as I want for video, Fraps is currently recording to its own dedicated 7200rpm drive that I never let drop bellow 40gb free

I'm just interested to see if anyone else has used it and what their opinions are, the current version of Playclaw is a paid for bit of software but the previous version is free

I'm currently re-formatting my PC as it's long overdue and the os has been slow for a while so I'm hoping that may be part of the issue
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

If the game can't run perfectly without recording, no recording program will be of use to you.
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

Yes but even if it could record at the 15-20 fps I'd be happy but dropping down to a frame rate that makes the game unplayable is not good

I've noticed the 3rd and 4th cores of my processor do pretty much nothing while the game is running so if I could get the recording software to utilise them I'd be a happy man
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TomFum
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by TomFum »

Guy, i think Ram really helps with Fraps.

Even my computer struggles with DayZ while recording. its just one of those games
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

I'm feeling an upgrade coming on, I don't think my Core 2 Quad is up to it any more :(
MrTingg

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by MrTingg »

Guy_JD wrote:I'm feeling an upgrade coming on, I don't think my Core 2 Quad is up to it any more :(

I have an i7 sandybridge over clocked to 4.0Ghz and 16 Gb RAM and I get around 20-30 frames when recording DayZ. I still get the lag spikes around built up areas and sometimes for no reason at all my frames drop to around 10-15. It is to do with Arma and the grass. You can turn off grass and some trees to max out your FPS in arma 2 SP, but not on servers. This is because the "mission file" you download has the grass and trees within it. In SP with no grass or fancy trees i can get up to 60 FPS even when recording, in multiplayer 30 FPS is my max. (normally around 22 fps for DayZ).
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

wow Tingg that is a beast of a machine :o

my recording issues are sorted after a windows re-install, getting a steady 30fps with drops to around 20 in large towns

Happy days 8-)
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RoboticMonk3y
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by RoboticMonk3y »

is it worth investing in an SSD now they're starting to get cheap and a gaming/recording drive?
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Guy_JD
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Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Guy_JD »

It will reduce the bottleneck caused by the drive, at 1080p recording you're sending 1gb per minute to the drive so not having to worry about spin speeds will be a great help for getting the best out off your recordings but if you are like me and just hit the record button when you start playing and don't turn it of until you stop you'll find drive space an issue.
Roy42

Re: Game Capture/Recording

Post by Roy42 »

RoboticMonk3y wrote:is it worth investing in an SSD now they're starting to get cheap and a gaming/recording drive?
Definitely not. SSDs are good for read times more than anything else. You'd get an SSD to put your OS on and a few choice programs you use very frequently. For raw 1080p video recording, you would most likely want two 7200rpm hard drives in RAID 0. A single external drive may do the trick, of course; would depend on your computer, I suppose. Mine seems to go okay with 720p to a single drive, and it's not an amazing piece of kit even by the standards of the year it was made. In any case, a proper hard drive is far more useful to you for Fraps.
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