FRAPS vs PlayClaw - PGN

FRAPS has always been the weapon of choice by gamers when it comes to video capture and it has gone uncontested for quite some time now. There really isn't any video capture software that can offer the same quality the way FRAPS can thanks to its nearly lossless codec. However this high quality capture comes at a price...a huge one in terms of performance as FRAPS is know to even make the strongest systems out there crawl capturing video in real-time at 1280x720 and above especially when in-game settings are set to high with AA/AF turned on. In short if you want to capture real-time videos in high definition and in high quality then you need a monster system, otherwise you either have to turn down the detail by a lot or simply record in low definition. The choice has been like this forever and frankly gamers don't want to make that choice anymore as they both want to play their games with details turned up while recording it in high definition. Thankfully a new challenger comes in t...

[imvix]

Never tried recording with Fraps, however any quad core equipped with recent midrange(GTX 460, 5850, 6850etc) gpus can easily push over a 100fps in most games today @ 1080p. I dont see how much of a hit those systems can take while recording to make games unplayable.

[WhiteNoise]

I can't say about current version but even in fraps in games like UT3 where it runs at 60 frames while recording, it still randomly slows down during the recording, maybe current harddrives are too slow for recording 1080p/maxed game footage at 60 frames.

A 30 second clip through fraps at 1080p is like 3gb...

[imvix]

I guess the hardrive could be a limitation. Having an SSD in this case might be very useful.

[Motorola]

yeah 30 seconds clip at 1600x900 here is 3 GB with fraps

[distorted_reality]

You generally find most people suffer performance hits because they're recording to the same hdd that their games are running from, and that their CPU and GPU load isn't increasing much at all.

[morganfell]

Even running cross drive you take a huge performance hit. I am running Quad GPUs in a Falcon Mach V with 12GB of RAM topped by an Intel 3GB system and it takes a massive nose dive. That's why I have always stuck with a Hauppage (for consoles)or a Black Magic Pro (for PC capture) running into a second system.

[user1337]

I've been using fraps for years. But yea it does kill my performance in game.

[Jikla]

Uhm...I tried fraps and playclaw on dead space 2. And fraps is making my pc play the game in 10-40 fps and it splitts videos too often. And when that happen FPS goes below 10 for 2-3 secs. With Playclaw I had 60 FPS all the way with no problems at all.

[iamgoatman]

Tried Playclaw a few weeks ago, the performance impact was the same as if I was using Fraps, plus the video is recorded in some odd format which isn't supported on most video players, not even on VLC.

If I record with Fraps I normally cap the FPS at 30 anyway, as places like youtube don't support 60FPS playback. I only have problems recording games that are already hovering around that 30FPS in-game, although that's only a handful.

[Jikla]

The "odd format" is an raw .avi file. You have to use programs such as windows movie maker, after effects, sony vegas pro etc to make it viewable for most players. And the size goes down as well if you edit the movies. I would recommend a h264 format with around 5-9 mbps. Usually my movies end up with 450mb (give or take) size with 15 mins of film.