OT: Fraps

[ReDDoT 0]

Pilot friends,

I want to record some OFF videos and upload them. Does anyone know an alternative to FRAPS ?

I don`t want to pay 37$ for that thing

 

Thanks

-=ReDDoT=-

[Flyby PC 23]

Don't know anything better than Fraps.

 

I take it you know there is a free version of Fraps? It's fully functional, and just like the full version but restricted to 1 minute of footage, and you have the fraps watermark too. Both issues are a pain after a while, but you can still do a lot with the Freeware Fraps.

 

You have to modify the footage anyway because it's so huge in AVI format, but something like Virtualdub lets you crop your image, and you can lose the watermark. The minute of footage is more tricky. I forget the number of times I filmed a torpedo on it's way to sink a ship then watch it back to see the film stop seconds from impact. Nevertheless, you can get used to it, and record what you want in bite size clips. Thing about it is, that once your clip is over a minute long, it is already a massive file size. You can fill up your hard drive in no time. Thats not a fraps defect, it's just that it records in real time, and there isn't time to compress the footage.

 

If you run with fraps, you soon get hooked, and the more you use it, the cheaper the cost of registration looks. If you're serious about doing videos, Fraps is a rare bit of software which is value for money. No frills, but it does the business.

 

The only other grief with Fraps is that it only records what's on the screen. You can't leave it on record and review your action from multiple viewpoints like you can with IL2 stuff. For some that makes it rubbish, for others that makes it a challenge. Personally I like it. It makes you get creative, and not let the sim do all the work. Fraps is like a real life video camera, you shoot what you can see and it's a one hit opportunity.

[Lewie 7]

Is there a good freeware solution to compressing the .avi file Fraps creates?

[Shiloh 12]

Fraps is worth every penny in my humble opinion and it's a one-time fee. I've had a version on my computer for over a year and just updated to the newest version recently for free. Soon, I'll start recording some dogfights and will post them to my YouTube page with some commentary. In games like Total War you can save your replays and play them back but as far as I know you can't do that on OFF. But if you had Fraps...

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

this free program has a fraps type application..though I have never tried it..but may well be worth a look?

 

The program itself is a must have anyway..so check it out

http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/

[Lewie 7]

OK some searching found this forum's list of some freeware, Fraps type of game video recorders. I'm trying out GameCam, and Gregion, and I'll get back to you guys with a report.

 

Cheers

[MikeDixonUK 5]

Personally I use a program called Growler Guncam, which for me causes less slow downs than Fraps (although the latest versions of Fraps seem to have closed the gap) and gives more recording options, such as picking a custom resolution for the video (rather than Fraps' Full Screen or Half Screen) as well as the size of the capture area (for example in WW2OL I record guncam videos off my 1920 x 1200 screen by recording a 1280 x 720 resolution box in the centre of the screen - so even though it's only 1280 x 720 resolution it's still the same size as my monitor, just in a square in the centre.)

 

Also as opposed to Fraps, Growler Guncam records the clips into it's own file types (.gcf I think) and you can then export them at different video qualities - which is probably why I find it slows my PC down less while recording.

 

Growler Guncam

Edited April 23, 2011 by MikeDixonUK

[Olham 164]

What did it cost, Mike?

[Lewie 7]

I just installed Gregion on my 'puter. For freeware it's pretty nice, if your machine is running a high end Vid card and the game you record is running faster than say 60 fps normally

 

It has a lot of features, full screen, and some percentages of full screen, user selected resolution, user selected FPS and in game FPS adjustment, plus it warns in game if the FPS's slow down because of video card restrictions. When you run it at a percentage of full screen it runs faster, but reduces your field of view severely. Lots of different video and sound codecs and choices, it's really full featured, but, it runs pretty crappy with OFF on my machine. In contrast, RC Deskpilot, which generally runs at over 100FPS on my rig, runs under Gregion great. The video's quality are nice, it comes with an additional app that does further .avi compression, and the main app saves in .avi and .wmv files. The sound is a bit muted and I've yet to find a volume control in Gregion.

[Lewie 7]

What did it cost, Mike?

 

Looks like it's about 9.95 Euro's to register. I'd like to get it if it would run decently on my machine, the register price is a bit high.

[Flyby PC 23]

Is there a good freeware solution to compressing the .avi file Fraps creates?

 

Well, I found that for best results I would keep my raw footage in the big AVI format until the film was nearly done. Yes it makes your work a very large file to handle and its hard work for your hardware, but the big advantage is that your images stay crisp and clear until the final edit. It's only once you're nearly done that I would reduce the format to an mpeg or wmv or something which is compressed and suitable to handle. Reducing format will often lose detail, and once it's reduced there's no going back, so keep it large as long as you dare. I just didn't have the Gbs of storage needed to keep stuff, and once the movie was complete the raw footage had to be dumped. Hated to dump footage you'd flown hours to collect, but you just couldn't store it, or even catalogue what you could store.

 

When I used to make a lot of movies, I used to make terrible spelling mistakes in the text, but I couldn't correct them because I didn't have the storage space to keep the raw footage to do it again. If I made an error, (did I say if?) when I made an error, I often couldn't fix it.

 

Despite it's faults and unreliability, I found windows movie maker was adequate for splicing stuff together and saving it in a format I wanted. I liked Movie maker in XP, but they've changed it Win 7 and I don't like it anymore.

 

That's Fraps, Virtualdub and Movie maker, - all free software. (Though I do have full version Fraps now).

[MikeDixonUK 5]

Growler Guncam comes with a two week trial if you'd rather test it out before seeing if you want to buy it or not.

[Lewie 7]

Well, I found that for best results I would keep my raw footage in the big AVI format until the film was nearly done. Yes it makes your work a very large file to handle and its hard work for your hardware, but the big advantage is that your images stay crisp and clear until the final edit. It's only once you're nearly done that I would reduce the format to an mpeg or wmv or something which is compressed and suitable to handle. Reducing format will often lose detail, and once it's reduced there's no going back, so keep it large as long as you dare. I just didn't have the Gbs of storage needed to keep stuff, and once the movie was complete the raw footage had to be dumped. Hated to dump footage you'd flown hours to collect, but you just couldn't store it, or even catalogue what you could store.

 

When I used to make a lot of movies, I used to make terrible spelling mistakes in the text, but I couldn't correct them because I didn't have the storage space to keep the raw footage to do it again. If I made an error, (did I say if?) when I made an error, I often couldn't fix it.

 

Despite it's faults and unreliability, I found windows movie maker was adequate for splicing stuff together and saving it in a format I wanted. I liked Movie maker in XP, but they've changed it Win 7 and I don't like it anymore.

 

That's Fraps, Virtualdub and Movie maker, - all free software. (Though I do have full version Fraps now).

 

Well I'm finding that Gregion, with suitable tweaks in the CFS3 display, is tolerable at about 20~30FPS.

 

Gregion 3.1 freeware 3D Game Capture

 

It's main advantage is that it's unlimited in capture time, has no watermarks, it's hotkey configurable so it doesn't mess with custom OFF hotkey's, You can save the movie in the original screen resolution, it's sound files are configurable and it has an onboard mixer for the mike or CD music in, Avira plays well with it running under stuff, it's a really tiny download compared to the stuff UK Widowmaker linked to, ( i.e. doesn't need to update to 3.5 Net, I'm trying to keep my Windows install small..) and it has a separate compressor application, that does on-the-fly saving to either .avi, .wmv or .divx in a couple of different codex versions of each. It's too bad it doesn't do a final save as an .flv for YouTube, but I'm sure there's some apps that can manage that.

 

Someone should give it a try, I like it a lot.

Edited April 24, 2011 by Lewie

[Flyby PC 23]

Well I'm finding that Gregion, with suitable tweaks in the CFS3 display, is tolerable at about 20~30FPS.

 

Gregion 3.1 freeware 3D Game Capture

 

It's main advantage is that it's unlimited in capture time, has no watermarks, it's hotkey configurable so it doesn't mess with custom OFF hotkey's, You can save the movie in the original screen resolution, it's sound files are configurable and it has an onboard mixer for the mike or CD music in, Avira plays well with it running under stuff, it's a really tiny download compared to the stuff UK Widowmaker linked to, ( i.e. doesn't need to update to 3.5 Net, I'm trying to keep my Windows install small..) and it has a separate compressor application, that does on-the-fly saving to either .avi, .wmv or .divx in a couple of different codex versions of each. It's too bad it doesn't do a final save as an .flv for YouTube, but I'm sure there's some apps that can manage that.

 

Someone should give it a try, I like it a lot.

 

Sounds interesting Lewie. I also like Fraps etc because I'm comfortable using it, but as ever with software, we shouldn't be surprised there's always something newer and better just around the corner. Then again, the image capture is all I want it to do, and Fraps is just fine for that. All the editing and formatting I do with other utilities anyway, and Virtualdub is both free and hard to beat - once you get the hang of it. It's not the most user friendly piece of software to pick up, but worth the effort. - (especially because CFS3 gives you so few options to compose your dramatic screenshots).

[cptroyce 0]

I use DVDvideosoft..find it a fine free program with many applications from pics to video and audio uses.