Fraps and sound quality.....

postman · Post by **postman** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:49 am

I've been messing around with youtube a bit, and was wondering what the best way was to record gameplay videos.

So far I've tried SnagIt and it doesn't work too well.......

Any recommendations?

ArrogantBastard · Post by **ArrogantBastard** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:55 am

FRAPS, Hyper Cam, and Camtasia works well for recordings.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:04 am

Do these work for Emulators across the board?

postman · Post by **postman** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:08 am

Thanks for the help! Evaluating now.....

ArrogantBastard · Post by **ArrogantBastard** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:17 am

GaijinPunch wrote:Do these work for Emulators across the board?

No idea. Haven't tried it out on various emulators. Sorry I can't help you out there with that one.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:20 am

ArrogantBastard wrote:No idea. Haven't tried it out on various emulators. Sorry I can't help you out there with that one.

Baah... such a bastard. An arrogant one as it were.

I'm probably going to lift FRAPS so I can encode the two half-decent MAME replays I have. I guess I could just check it out then. I'll definitely need a bigger HD though, as it doesn't compress.

ArrogantBastard · Post by **ArrogantBastard** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:38 am

Sorry about sounding quite curt and short.

I currently have FRAPS 2.6.4, and I just tested it out by running couple of emulator programs like WolfMAME and ZSNES, and it seems that it doesn't work at all. For me, at least.

I haven't tried Camtasia or Hyper Cam so I have nothing to contribute for these two programs.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:41 am

I thought a couple of emulators like SNES9x had their own built-in AVI encoders.

I tried Camtasia and wasn't impressed. Then again, I was using like a 600MHz machine or something like that.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:25 am

ArrogantBastard wrote:Sorry about sounding quite curt and short.

You weren't. I always try to incorporate people's names into replies when applicable (usually can't).

I currently have FRAPS 2.6.4, and I just tested it out by running couple of emulator programs like WolfMAME and ZSNES, and it seems that it doesn't work at all. For me, at least.

Cheers. zlk in another thread mentioned that you have to have D3D turned on in MAME to get it to record, so something tells me emulators that don't use that will not work. Bummer.[/quote]

ArrogantBastard · Post by **ArrogantBastard** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:40 am

It works for me when I enable D3D and just tried to record something in ZSNES once again with full screen this time, it works.

zlk is pretty much right about needing D3D to record stuff with FRAPS. Looks like it applies to OpenGL as well.

postman · Post by **postman** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:04 pm

Fraps gave me tons of trouble on my pc, my choice for what I'm looking to do will be Camtasia, which I like. Simple recording and also editing features that are understandable.....

Thanks for the help people! I'll be adding replay vids to Youtube soon, lots of doujin pc stuff....

postman · Post by **postman** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:59 pm

Ok next question............

I love Camtasia, however it cannot convert files into mpeg format.....looks like I'll have to make an AVI first, then convert to MPEG. I uploaded a wmv file to youtube and lost a lot of quality, mpeg seems the way to go.......

So what's the best program to convert AVI or WMV to MPEG?

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:35 pm

AVI (=Audio Video Interleave) is not a codec, it's a container. You can use AVI with pretty much any codec you like. I suggest you use an mpeg 4 codec like XviD (free codec) for best results (small size, good quality). MPEG 1 (VCD etc.) is no good. Use Virtual Dub Mod (freeware) for transcoding the video and Nandub (also freeware) for transcoding the audio to mp3, in case it isn't already.

About wmv, that's a closed source codec by Microsoft that can't easily be converted to anything. That's why it sucks. There are ways to convert it, but it's difficult.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:04 pm

Be cautious about FRAPS. I tried to use it to record stuff from a PC game (Nocturne, incidentally running via GameTap, but that doesn't really matter). It is pretty picky about what views you use! It wouldn't even acknowledge non-D3D stuff.

What's more, this ancient (going on 8 years old) program experienced short stutters and hangups while I was running FRAPS.

My computer is a top-of-the-line Intel Core 2 Duo.

I might be able to fix this by tweaking the Affinity settings in the Task Manager (Affinity is XP's term for what processors it can run on; most stuff is allowed to run on both). We'll see. So far there have been some troubles, however.

I was recommended to use some codec or other for the gradius strategy tape...I'll have to see what it was again...I agree with Ceph that AVI is a good idea, and that WMV sucks.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:59 pm

Aha, here we go:

http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html

postman · Post by **postman** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:21 am

Fraps rubbed me the wrong way.....

Camtasia works with MAME Gaijinpunch, I love it, it suits my needs just fine......

Mpgs look the best on youtube, I think I finally have this stuff figured out......I've got a Magical Amber and Twilight Insanity vid uploaded, my user name is shmupnut.

postman · Post by **postman** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:45 am

Ok, so now I use Camtasia for windowed programs, and Fraps for fullscreen. Only problem is Fraps records fine with the AVI output file, but then when I convert the AVI to an mpeg the sound has a horrible buzzing in it........

Any way to fix this? I checked the readme files and they don't help at all....

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:23 am

postman wrote:Fraps rubbed me the wrong way.....

Camtasia works with MAME Gaijinpunch, I love it, it suits my needs just fine......

Mpgs look the best on youtube, I think I finally have this stuff figured out......I've got a Magical Amber and Twilight Insanity vid uploaded, my user name is shmupnut.

I've tried to use FRAPS for recording, but it causes tremendous stuttering in games- even with a 3.2 GHz CPU. FRAPS does write a large quantity of data when it is capturing the screen, so that may be the issue.

One thing I've used is Windows Movie Maker with a hardware vidcap box hooked to the computer, but unfortunately it captures in a WMV format only. This setup doesn't cause the horrid choppiness that I have gotten with FRAPS, but you are not allowed to switch resolutions or WinMM will quit. I used this for my Rolling Thunder 2 and Thunder Blade replays.

Yaridovich · Post by **Yaridovich** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:58 pm

ArrogantBastard wrote:It works for me when I enable D3D and just tried to record something in ZSNES once again with full screen this time, it works.

zlk is pretty much right about needing D3D to record stuff with FRAPS. Looks like it applies to OpenGL as well.

What is D3D, zlk, and OpenGL?

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:03 pm

Hello there, and hello old thread!

D3D stands for Direct 3D, a component of Direct X.

OpenGL is another (competing) graphics interface (like Direct 3D).

zlk is a poster here.

More info needed? Try a web search.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:54 pm

Lol, thanks for bumping this thread. I was looking for a program to record runs and this is just what I needed to read

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:29 pm

I know this is an old thread, but ZSNES can encode replays (it's better than SNES9X) to .avi and it could back when this thread was started too; no need for an external recorder for that. As for MAME, I've record a couple of my replays just fine with HyperCam 2; no need to get FRAPS for that.

Yaridovich · Post by **Yaridovich** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:56 pm

MathU wrote:I know this is an old thread, but ZSNES can encode replays (it's better than SNES9X) to .avi and it could back when this thread was started too; no need for an external recorder for that. As for MAME, I've record a couple of my replays just fine with HyperCam 2; no need to get FRAPS for that.

I noticed that it came with a recording device. Once I record something, I can't figure a way to convert it to AVI or WMV. Anyone know how to do this?

Moleculoman · Post by **Moleculoman** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:12 pm

I've not used Fraps for recording games, but I do find that it tends to lag and its not as user friendly as you'd expect, especially as its commonly used capture program.

It would be interesting if there were a means to record someone else's playthrough on their computer remotely.

For instance, I have a capture card. I remotely connect to a person's computer so whatever they're playing on their screen, It would display on my own, and record it etc. Probably a bit haphazard of a method...

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:40 pm

Yaridovich wrote:I noticed that it came with a recording device. Once I record something, I can't figure a way to convert it to AVI or WMV. Anyone know how to do this?

Well, first off, make sure you're using the most recent version, 1.51. You also need to have a copy of mencoder (for video encoding) and lame (for audio encoding) in the folder where the ZSNES executable is kept. In ZSNES, go to MISC > MOVIE OPT, and make sure your movie is selected. Click on the DUMPING tab and make sure "DUMP AUDIO" and "MERGE AUDIO WITH VIDEO" are checked.

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:45 am

version151 has crap compatibility with lots of games

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:27 am

Like what? I've never had a single problem with 1.51 other than older incomplete emulation issues (such as with Axelay).

EDIT: Finally found one in Kirby's Dreamland 3, but other than that I haven't encountered anything else.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:14 pm

Sorry for bumping this, but I didn't want to create another thread on the subject.

I managed to record a video (Hypercam 2 works wonders) and compress it to a good size. But now I'm facing progressive audio desynch (audio starts fine, desynchs as video progress). It's only really noticeable by the end of the video (about half a sec), but it's still there.

I lurked on the web and found this, but I didn't notice any difference, no matter how much I tweaked the sound.

How do I fix that?