Simple Guide to "INGAME" Video Capture

[MRG]

Greetings all,

Welcome to how to capture video while playing ingame. While I am well aware there are several better programs that are available, I will be covering video capture taken with the free program called "FRAPS" This version of Fraps has been developed with the 43.45 Detonators for Geforce cards, and the 3.2 Catalysts for Radeon cards. Please make sure your installed video card drivers are at least these versions! Earlier drivers may suffer performance problems. (LMAO! These are waaaay older versions of these drivers. Of course you'll have newer versions installed.... Right? )

Since I am not the maker of "FRAPS", my recommended system requirements will differ than of what the makers suggest. I have tried on a "Lesser PC" & had mundo problems & performance issues.

Recommended PC:
Pentium 4 or AthlonXP @ 1.50ghz or faster
Radeon 8500, GeForce 3 or better
At LEAST 512mb RAM. More = BETTER.
40gb HDD or larger
WinXP HE or PE

The Programs I used are free (Other than WinXP) & have no time limit or Watermark stamped onto the edited Video.

1)FRAPS http://www.fraps.com -Ingame Video Capture Program that saves video in .AVI Format.

2)VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org - VirtualDub is a video
capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

3)TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder http://www.tmpgenc.net -Converts .AVI files to MPEG. Allows editing of source video & joining of an audio file such as .WAV or MP3 to the source Video. Also converted files to MPEG are smaller in size than most other formats. After you used "Windows Movie Maker 2" & saved your movie, you could then use "TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder" to convert the finished video to MPEG which would then also be smaller in size, while keeping the videos overall quality.

4)Windows XP Home or Professional.

5)Windows XP Windows Movie Player 2 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker/downlads/moviemaker2.asp (Need to Download)

Start FRAPS & wait until the Yellow "99" is down in your taskbar. (Next to your Clock) Next Right click on the "99" & click on "Settings" Experiment with the "Sampling Rate", "Overlay Style" & the "Overlay Corner"

My Settings:
a)Sampling Rate = Continous
b)Overlay Style = Transparent
c)Overlay Corner = Bottom Right Corner
d)Enable Video Capture Hotkey = This lets you start & stop video capture ingame. I have mine set to "Num 0"
e)Movie Framerate = 20fps (Believe me, your video will look just fine framerate wise.)
f)Enable Screen Capture (Takes Screenshots while ingame) Set the HotKey to whatever you like. Mine is the "Num Lock" key.

The following settings after that I have left unchecked.

After your done, minimize, or You can also Exit out & then restart FRAPS & your settings will be saved. FRAPS must be running for it to work.

6)Start Game
Now when you capture ingame video with FRAPS, your gaming performance will take a big hit. So I would recommend that you have 2 or more people to film. One to actually do the video capture & the rest to "Act" Of course you already knew this. If you want to do a solo
video, then simply turn the ingame resolution down to 640x480 16bit. This will greatly improve your gaming performance while capturing video at the same time. FRAPS will capture the video @ 640x480, even if your ingame graphics are higher. At the normal screen size of the capture that FRAPS takes, your videos will be of good quality. Any & all videos you
capture will be saved to the FRAPS directory located here (By Default) "C:\Fraps"

**CAUTION!!**
RAW video taken with FRAPS will be VERY BIG in size. 3 minutes of ingame capture can easily be over 300mb.

Be sure you have the free space on your Hard Drive before you begin. Once you are done capturing the video, go to the FRAPS directory "C:\Fraps" You will now see your video. the name of the video will often be the name of the game you were playing. For examply, You play COD & capture video, then the default name of the video you took will look something like "COD2342163-663-234" The file type will be .AVI.

Here is where it starts to get tricky & it would take me way too long to type out each step on how to convert & edit the video from .AVI to MPEG. Converting the RAW .AVI video to MPEG, will hugely cut the size of the video. For example. A 300mb .AVI video will be around 4mb after you convert it to MPEG. You can convert the video to MPEG by using the
"TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder" I listed earlier above. I would highly advise that you install, FRAPS, TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder & VirtualDub all into the "C:\Fraps" folder. Makes it MUCH easier to find & do everything. I will gladly tell you via TS, Ventrilo or ICQ Voice Chat on how to convert the RAW video. It would take only about 10 minutes. Very simple to "Tell You", very time consuming if I were to type it all out. The GOOD news is that it's pretty straight forward. Anyone can do it if they have a little patience. If I had DSL, I could easily "record my voice" & place the audio file online, but on my lowly 56k & lack of online storage, thats not a feasible way for me to do things at this point.

Either before or after you converted the RAW video to MPEG, you could then use "Windows Movie Maker 2" to make the video. Some people won't have "Windows XP" & "Windows Movie Maker" or "Windows Movie Maker 2" Thats why I didn't just say Use "Windows Movie Maker."

I'm tired of typing. Post your questions & i'll see if I can help. Remember i'm a noob at this myself. But thought I could pass on what I had learned.

-MRG

 

[Ennui]

Just a side-note: there are more effective ways for doing this in Source based-games that don't involve FRAPS. Rather, take a demo, save it on playback on highest settings with fixed framerate, import the demo file into RAD game tools, export an AVI, and compress from there. It's generally MUCH greater quality and fps than FRAPS, though the latter works if you're not being too serious about it.

 

[hool10]

Holy smokes this thread=win! I already know all this but it's nice for people who don't really know how or are unsure. I always wondered how to compress those videos too. Sticky plz. *Hey hold on a sec you made 2 threads like this. I think your just copying someone else's work. :frown:

 

[Ennui]

He's said in another thread that these are reposts of his posts on other forums over the past few years, so they're legitimately his, and there are more than 2, more like 10

 

[MRG]

Holy smokes this thread=win! I already know all this but it's nice for people who don't really know how or are unsure. I always wondered how to compress those videos too. Sticky plz. *Hey hold on a sec you made 2 threads like this. I think your just copying someone else's work. :frown:

LOL! Thank you for the first part of your post....

Sad that so many people are quick to think someone else is copying someone elses work. Did that make any sense? Anyways, quite funny really. A couple years ago, I started posting on some forum & within 5 mins, some guy started screaming that I stole his work. Came to find out that he had stolen mine almost word for word. He shut up real fast and "faded" away when he saw my original post on another forum that was dated like 6 months before his. He ended up getting his info from another person that also took mine.

I could care less if someone copies my work. As long as someone finds it useful, thats all I care about.

-MRG

 

[Ennui]

Well, it's a bit odd that you joined and posted about 15 guides right off the bat, but certainly appreciated! Keep us updated

 

[MRG]

Just a side-note: there are more effective ways for doing this in Source based-games that don't involve FRAPS. Rather, take a demo, save it on playback on highest settings with fixed framerate, import the demo file into RAD game tools, export an AVI, and compress from there. It's generally MUCH greater quality and fps than FRAPS, though the latter works if you're not being too serious about it.

Thanks for that info. To be honest, I haven't dealt much with making movies from games built on the Source Engine. I went through a faze where I went movie making crazy & knew WMM2 like the back of my hand. I remember for the game F.E.A.R alone, I must have "made" (More like copied in game footage..lol) 10 movies.

Thanks again.

-MRG

 

[The Brick]

I use yet another way to record movies in the source engine, using demos and the "startmovie" command. This makes a screenshot of every frame and records a .wav file with it. Then I use virtualdub to make an Avi of it.

I prefer the "x264 - H264/AVC encoder" codec over any other for video compression. I use the mpeg-layer 3 codec to compress the audio, though I'm not really satisfied with the quality. I'll have to find another one.

 

[MRG]

Well, it's a bit odd that you joined and posted about 15 guides right off the bat, but certainly appreciated! Keep us updated

Gotta feel like I am adding something to the community. Give it time, once you get to know me, you'll not be able to shut me up!

-MRG

 

[hool10]

LOL! Thank you for the first part of your post....

Sad that so many people are quick to think someone else is copying someone elses work. Did that make any sense? Anyways, quite funny really. A couple years ago, I started posting on some forum & within 5 mins, some guy started screaming that I stole his work. Came to find out that he had stolen mine almost word for word. He shut up real fast and "faded" away when he saw my original post on another forum that was dated like 6 months before his. He ended up getting his info from another person that also took mine.

I could care less if someone copies my work. As long as someone finds it useful, thats all I care about.

-MRG

I'm not used to people making coherent senteces lol. I thought it was weird that all these threads were started by one person and automatically assumed it was some spammer. Great work on the guides though. They are very usefull. You have a guide on overclocking by any chance?

 

[Shasta]

Lol "I'm using the 43.45 Detonator drivers for GeForce cards" Aren't we up to like at least 93.71 FORCEware drivers now? How old is this guide????

 

[MRG]

I'm not used to people making coherent senteces lol. I thought it was weird that all these threads were started by one person and automatically assumed it was some spammer. Great work on the guides though. They are very usefull. You have a guide on overclocking by any chance?

Thank you for the kind words, they are much appreciated!

As for your question about Overclocking, I do actually have several guides on "How-To" but I saw a sticky that talked about overclocking already. I will review it and see what it covers & if I am able to add anything to it, I shall. As most of you know, overclocking can be an extremely rewarding procedure to perform, however, if the user is not familiar with the basics, a lot of damage can occur. Again, I shall review the sticky that I saw on this subject and see what all it covers. Provided what I read, perhaps I might start out small and cover the basics & then proceed from there.

In my current PC, the CPU, RAM & Video Card are overclocked, as have been every PC I have owned that allowed access to and changes in the Bios to be made. I'm married & so that means i'm poor. I gotta squeeze all I can out of my old hardware...

-MRG

 

[Shasta]

I use the mpeg-layer 3 codec to compress the audio, though I'm not really satisfied with the quality. I'll have to find another one.

You use MP3 for audio compression? How revolutionary. Almost every high-compression video codec makes use of MP3 for the audio compression part. Not satisfied with MP3 quality? (Most of the rest of he world doesn't seem to mind it.) Then change your MP3 settings, or don't compress your files so much. (Or buy the DVD if THAT'S what you are doing).

 

[MRG]

Lol "I'm using the 43.45 Detonator drivers for GeForce cards" Aren't we up to like at least 93.71 FORCEware drivers now? How old is this guide????

Not old, only the requirements for the program when it was created, though the info basically stays the same. Thats also why I mention:

This version of Fraps has been developed with the 43.45 Detonators for Geforce cards, and the 3.2 Catalysts for Radeon cards. Please make sure your installed video card drivers are at least these versions! Earlier drivers may suffer performance problems. (LMAO! These are waaaay older versions of these drivers. Of course you'll have newer versions installed.... Right?

Also as you'll notice, the original version of FRAPS is quite old, though it still works.

-MRG

 

[Shasta]

Not old, only the requirements for the program when it was created, though the info basically stays the same. Thats also why I mention:



Also as you'll notice, the original version of FRAPS is quite old, though it still works.

-MRG

I mention it because if the driver info is THAT old, and lets face it, we are talking at least 7 or 8 years, it's possible that other, more important and specific info in the guide is just as outdated, and can't be fixed by just putting "(insert more current drivers names here)". I haven't bothered checking it, but the first bit with the "detonator" drivers caught my eye.

 

[The Brick]

You use MP3 for audio compression? How revolutionary. Almost every high-compression video codec makes use of MP3 for the audio compression part. Not satisfied with MP3 quality? (Most of the rest of he world doesn't seem to mind it.) Then change your MP3 settings, or don't compress your files so much. (Or buy the DVD if THAT'S what you are doing).

I don't even know why you responded to that. It was just a statement. Btw I already use the highest bitrate that virutaldub allows me to use. I want to find a better one, but I haven't found or searched one yet. That's all that I was saying.

And no, this is for fragmovies etc.


Open your console and type "cl_asshole 0.13" please.

 

[Jintor]

Calm down Shasta!

 

[Shasta]

Lol, I'm not UNcalm...

I don't even know why you responded to that. It was just a statement.

But I don't know why you told us that you use Mpeg-layer 3 (MP3) for audio. "ZOMG! U R SO 1337!!11" Come on. Seriously, why did you feel the need to drop that "bombshell" on us?

Btw I already use the highest bitrate that virutaldub allows me to use. I want to find a better one, but I haven't found or searched one yet. That's all that I was saying.

Virtualdub, like most editing programs, is ONLY limited by the codecs you have installed. You know what a codec is, right? Nothing to do with the editing program at all. You get them quite separately. So you should be able to select up to at least 320kbps 44,100 Hz, even 640kbps 48,000Hz etc. I just even checked on my copy of V-dub. Now PLEASE tell me that you think your ears are SOOOO sensitive, and your speakers / amps etc are SOOOOO good, that you can actually hear an imperfection at that quality with your ear, and need to find a better codec. PLEASE tell me that you think you are superman. Please?

 

[The Brick]

What the hell is your problem? That's exactly what I was saying. I want to find a better codec because it's limited. And I must have an older one because no, I can't select any higher than 56kbit/22050hz. That's exactly the problem.

But I don't know why you told us that you use Mpeg-layer 3 (MP3) for audio.

Because it's part of compressing a movie, and I said what I used to compress the video. So why not? And yes, asshole, I do have the equipment to hear the difference.

Your attitude might serve you better in the politics section.



Edit: Alright I made the effort to find a better one. Using the "Lame" MP3 compression now. Working like a charm. Happy now Shasta? *pets*

 

[Shasta]

What the hell is your problem? That's exactly what I was saying. I want to find a better codec because it's limited. And I must have an older one because no, I can't select any higher than 56kbit/22050hz. That's exactly the problem.

Actually, you said you weren't happy with the results that Mpeg-layer 3 (MP3) could offer. As if high quality MP3 didn't meet your high standards. It was only when you discovered that you didn't know anything about MP3 that you started to see you were out of line. You didn't mention any MP3 codecs. 56 kbps is like phone quality. It's not the codecs fault you didn't find a way to set it higher, or find one that could go higher. Or the fact you didn't seem to have a usable MP3 codec at all.

Because it's part of compressing a movie, and I said what I used to compress the video. So why not? And yes, asshole, I do have the equipment to hear the difference.

The equipment? Do you have an average human ear? Yes? Then you don't have the equipment. Name calling will get you nowhere.

Edit: Alright I made the effort to find a better one. Using the "Lame" MP3 compression now. Working like a charm. Happy now Shasta? *pets*

Now that wasn't too hard, was it? So it wasn't Virtualdub's fault, it wasn't the global format of MP3 that was the problem, it was your lack of knowledge about codecs, and the fact you didn't have anything usable installed on your PC, even by accident. Don't feel bad, next time just admit to yourself you don't have a clue, and then ASK. There is nothing worse than someone who THINKS they know what they are talking about. Especially when they get all pissy when you correct them.

 

[The Brick]

it was your lack of knowledge about codecs

Wrong. Just because my wording was a bit off doesn't mean I don't know. I said "mpeg-layer 3" because that's what Vdub calls the default windows mp3 codec.

the fact you didn't have anything usable installed on your PC

Yes that's what I meant by "I'll have to find another one".


Next time I'll be sure to wear an explosion protection suit in case you explode again.

 

[MRG]

Come on you two, no need to get carried away. Flexing your e-manhood is simply a waste of time... Since mine is bigger.. hahaha.. ok lame joke, but seriously. Lets try to keep this civil. Forum bashing is for noobs & first time posters. Since both of you are obviously neither, lets shake hands and be friends.

Have a cold one on me. :cheers:

-MRG

 

[hool10]

Come on you two, no need to get carried away. Flexing your e-manhood is simply a waste of time... Since mine is bigger.. hahaha.. ok lame joke, but seriously. Lets try to keep this civil. Forum bashing is for noobs & first time posters. Since both of you are obviously neither, lets shake hands and be friends.

Have a cold one on me. :cheers:

-MRG

Never! We just love to have butt sechs on this forum all the time!

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I use some generic mp3 recorder for the sound and gamecam free version for video, compile it all together with windows moviemaker. Works good enough for me.

 

[Jintor]

MRG for president. :O

Pah, use Premiere at least. Moviemaker is too restrictive imho.

 

[MRG]

MRG for president. :O

Pah, use Premiere at least. Moviemaker is too restrictive imho.

True, Premier is much better, but you gotta remember, i'm poor. I gotta use whats free.

.... and if you elect me I promise a bleh..bleh..bleh... in every home....

-MRG