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View Full Version : Good FRAPS alternatives?

mzso
20th May 2013, 17:13
Hello!

Is anyone familiar with a good FRAPS alternative. Lossless video capture, well supported capture format (maybe free too).
TheSkiller
20th May 2013, 17:20
Dxtory. Much more options compared to Fraps. You can select any VfW Codec installed on your system for video compression and unlike Fraps it does have some useful audio options as well. Dxtory is not free though.
mzso
20th May 2013, 17:28
Thanks. I'll have a look.
mzso
20th May 2013, 17:39
Dxtory. Much more options compared to Fraps. You can select any VfW Codec installed on your system for video compression and unlike Fraps it does have some useful audio options as well. Dxtory is not free though.

BTW what codec is recomended for similar performance to fraps/fps1?
Atak_Snajpera
20th May 2013, 19:01
maybe UT VIDEO
mzso
20th May 2013, 19:14
maybe UT VIDEO

And other software like ffmpeg support UT video for conversion?
osgZach
20th May 2013, 20:12
Dxtory gets my vote. It's not free like has been noted, but it is well worth the money once you get it setup properly.

Just for the simple fact, if you are bandwidth constrained on the storage side, it allows you to record to multiple disks and then assemble the complete video afterwards.

Dxtory is the only software solution I've tried that let me record 1920x1080x32@60fps in real-time. (i5 @ 4.5Ghz, 16GB RAM, HD7950, several 7200RPM HDD's)


As for what codec to use, Lagarith works for me.
Atak_Snajpera
20th May 2013, 23:00
lagarith is very slow for real time capturing. ut video if i'm not wrong is included in ffmpeg.
osgZach
21st May 2013, 13:40
I didn't care for figuring out how to pipe video into ffmpeg, although I did play around with it. However my experience with Lagarith has been fine. It's not a CPU hog like other lossless codecs might be, that's for sure. Like I said, the issues I had were storage bandwidth, which will probably come up before you hit any real CPU problems on a decent gaming PC.

I did a lot of googling back then, and it seems I wasn't the only one who preferred Lagarith.
Atak_Snajpera
21st May 2013, 16:10
Take a look here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=165745

Current version of UT VIDEO is probably even faster. Also x264 is really excellent in terms of encoding speed and compression efficiency.
osgZach
22nd May 2013, 10:20
I honestly don't remember the last time I tried UT video. But I had some problem or another that I didn't like.
If people want to try it, more power to them.

As for x264, I experimented with that before as well and was not satisfied. I would rather save my CPU cycles for maintaining Game and Recording performance and delivering a consistent experience in that regard.

People can use whatever they want, in the end. I simply prefer Lagarith, it works for me.
mzso
23rd May 2013, 00:28
Withdrawn. :)
Yups
27th May 2013, 00:26
Bandicam is another alternative.
mzso
1st June 2013, 20:35
I used DXtory a bit, with UT video. But why on earth ffmpeg -i "concat:input1.avi|input2.avi" doesn't work??? Only the first file is encoded. (no errors...)
jackuars
3rd June 2013, 05:12
Active Presenter Free is the best free screecasting/video capture (http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/free-edition/) software that's available out there. The best part is that unlike other freewares, there is no time limit and no watermarks
mzso
4th June 2013, 15:24
Active Presenter Free is the best free screecasting/video capture (http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/free-edition/) software that's available out there. The best part is that unlike other freewares, there is no time limit and no watermarks

Also I can't see directx/opengl support
Octo-puss
4th June 2013, 16:28
I use MSI Afterburner and it works perfectly. The most important benefit over FRAPS is it does not lower FPS at all.
jackuars
4th June 2013, 16:31
Also I can't see directx/opengl support

ActivePresenter cannot capture games that use DirectX or OpenGL for rendering.

For such games, you can use other recorders like: Bandicam Free nd then use ActivePresenter to edit (import recorded video to a blank project to trim, cut, sync, add annotations, comments,....)

The problem with other freeware alternatives is time limit for individual files and watermarks, such is the case for Bandicam.
mzso
4th June 2013, 18:22
I use MSI Afterburner and it works perfectly. The most important benefit over FRAPS is it does not lower FPS at all.

I assume that's not necessarily true to anyone, since encoding and saving video has cost no matter what. What sort of codec does it use?

It looks very good so far though. I can record in UT video too, the audio is no problem, and it's free. I couldn't get it to show framerate though. It only shows a throbber when recording and nothing otherwise.
Octo-puss
4th June 2013, 19:52
Well, I typically capture video in raw format, so there's no FPS drop. I also started using the lagarith (I think) lossless codec lately, and still don't get any drop at all :P It also has the benefit of significantly lower files.
You can configure several output formats though.

There is a new version in the works, btw. Not sure about showing the FPS, I believe you might need to configure the OSD part of the program, and it might not work with everything. I never felt the urge to try it, so I cannot comment on it any further.