Fraps + Games in general

[BendyBread]

Hi there.

So I have Fraps and I was thinking of doing LP's (like the other hundred thousand people doing it nowadays). Now I want to record with fraps and I've noticed there is slight lag when recording, which is said to be normal.

My question is, what are the ideally 'best' settings for recording the game in high quality? That is, I'm currently recording at 60FPS and the "lock framerate when recording" box is unticked. Are these bad options?

Also, when I'm recording, fraps eventually splits big files in 2+ files because theyre just so big (even 5-6 minute things are massive). How do I retain the video quality but reduce the filesize, and thus upload to youtube? Also, how do I work with the multiple files to make it seem as if its just 1 huge recording? (Like pewdiepie does 15 minute LP's for DeadSpace 2, and that raw file would be massive, but the video only looks like its a single file).

Any help is appreciated, and if you know anything more for Fraps or recording/editing/uploading in general, thanks in advance.

[TFEF]

If you're recording for YouTube, you should probably have the game at 1280x720 resolution. That seems to be the ideal spot for good YouTube videos. I've tried a test recording for YouTube at 1920x1080, and it didn't look better at all, even though the Fraps video had been recorded at the same resolution. I like to keep the 'Lock framerate while recording' option ticked, but that's just me.

The only way to reduce the Fraps video sizes are to have Fraps record at less FPS and/or at a lower resolution. The file sizes are still going to be huge, though.

You should also be editing the video. I just use Windows Movie Maker for the simple tasks (putting the clips together, etc), then export at the same resolution the videos were saved as. It makes the files sizes a lot smaller.

Links to the tests:
-Portal 2 at 1280x720: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN0dVVIQWNY
-Portal 2 at 1980x1080: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFa9sBI75k

I think the 1280x720 video looks a bit better, but that's just me.

[Yuhaney]

Now I want to record with fraps and I've noticed there is slight lag when recording, which is said to be normal.

The lag is normal if you have low end CPU.
Many average CPU models today have the ability to record solid 60 frames. As you see, Fraps takes 2 of your CPU cores when recording.
So, if you have 4-core CPU, recording takes 2 and the rest 2 are left to other stuff.

My question is, what are the ideally 'best' settings for recording the game in high quality? That is, I'm currently recording at 60FPS and the "lock framerate when recording" box is unticked. Are these bad options?

Well, this depends...
There are few options in the Fraps menu that are very important, such as:

Half-size
Full-size

25 fps - 60 fps (I talk about this option later)

Let's say, you are recording in 1920x1080 (1080p) resolution with Full-size option...
The recorded video would be raw 1080p.

Now you switch into Half-size option and hit record...
The recorded video would only be 960x540 pixels which is much more close to a SD than HD resolution, yes?

Also, when I'm recording, fraps eventually splits big files in 2+ files because theyre just so big.

Here's a quote from Yahoo! Answers, since I didn't have an answer to this one:

Due to Fraps not supporting AVI 2.0 OpenDML extensions (and using AVI 1.0 instead) the maximum clip size is about 3.9 GB.

How do I retain the video quality but reduce the filesize, and thus upload to youtube?

Both of the Fraps' settings (Half-size/Full-size and framerate) affect the file size.

Full-size has bigger resolution, thus it has more information (data), so it needs more HDD space.
Same goes with the frames. The more frames your video has, the more data it has.

You say you want to retain the video quality but reduce file size with raw footage? Not possible.
However, you can do a lot with video editing program.

Also, how do I work with the multiple files to make it seem as if its just 1 huge recording?

You need video editing program.
And I believe you are completely newbie with video editing and stuff, so I recommend that you start of with easy programs, such as Windows Movie Maker (I started with it) for example and when you become more familiar with the video editing, you move into more advanced programs.

But this is just very minor info, since there are tons of things that affect the final video guality and even the YouTube itself affects the video.

[Apjjm]

If you are putting stuff on youtube, use 30fps for recording, this will half your file-sizes straight away if you are recording at 60fps - and youtube plays back at 30 anyway.
Secondly, i highly recommend virtual dub for appending your fraps clips together, it is free and a very useful program if you want to get around to more advanced stuff later, as it supports avisynth. For basic usage though it is also pretty friendly:

1. Open up virtual dub
   
2. open the fraps clip 1 avi
   
3. then go to file -> append avi segment and select another clip
   
4. repeat until you have loaded in all your clips (it can auto-detect segments to add too!)
   
5. go to video -> compression choose lagarith lossless codec
   
6. chose save as and save your file!
   

This will encode the avi into a better compressed, but completely lossless format (lagarith). You can then load this into any editing program (like movie maker) and compress further for youtube use (plenty of tutorials on the net for optimal settings for this). Note if you don't have lagarith lossless codec, google it and download it - it is loads better than the fraps codec and isn't prone to inserting junk frames into your footage when decoding two clips. If you have experience with batch files you can actually just write a file to do all this automatically for you.

Virtual dub also supports saving the avi file in segments, and exporting into a gif and other fun stuff. Of course, you can also delete sections of the footage too - there is plenty to play around with.

Finally, a note on fraps:
For OpenGL games (like amnesia), fraps is by far and away the best capture program i've used. Playclaw is pretty good too, but that was having some MAJOR audio sync problems last time I checked up on it. Just make sure you have a fast enough hard disk, and plenty of free space (by plenty, I mean much more than you need - having your file get fragmented will most-likely drop some frames).

[BendyBread]

Thanks for all your help guys.