Fraps performance hit?

[clerick]

I'm thinking about using FRAPS to record my sorties since the normal film recorder doesn't record TRACKir views.  I'm I going to take much of a performance hit by doing this?

[guncrasher]

depends on your system.  I have the 2500k with evga 465 card, i dont really see much of a hit.  but on my older rig my fps would be 1/2. post your specs.

semp

[Krusty]

(my 'net is spazzing out here, tried posing this and it failed, attempt #2)

It really depends on your system, your graphics settings, and your resolution.

Generally speaking, it's a noticable hit. If you want to record full screen for any duration (and FYI I'd suggest short segments rather than entire sorties) you'll need a pretty powerful system.

[clerick]

Thanks for the input.  I'll hold off for now.  I'm barely hanging on at 55fps at 50% eye candy with game booster shutting down most processes. 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Fraps has had a bug that caused the framerate to be locked to a low multiple of refresh rate when using vsync. This bug is now either patched or going to be patched in the next update.

[Krusty]

I have found surprisingly good FPS while recording with MSI afternurner. I don't know if it's specific to AMD cards or if it also works on Nvidia, but I'm running AMD right now and even in BF3 beta and a few other games on 3 monitors I didn't notice a massive hit in FPS while recording.

It was quite impressive. Another forum post clued me into this, but can't remember who gets the credit for finding it.

[clerick]

I have found surprisingly good FPS while recording with MSI afternurner. I don't know if it's specific to AMD cards or if it also works on Nvidia, but I'm running AMD right now and even in BF3 beta and a few other games on 3 monitors I didn't notice a massive hit in FPS while recording.

It was quite impressive. Another forum post clued me into this, but can't remember who gets the credit for finding it.

I have an AMD 5570 it's just that I haven't upped the RAM on the MB yet.  I'll look into the MSI program.

[BoilerDown]

Fraps has had a bug that caused the framerate to be locked to a low multiple of refresh rate when using vsync. This bug is now either patched or going to be patched in the next update.

According to the patch notes of the new Fraps version as of a few days ago, they fixed that finally.  But I haven't tested it yet to verify myself.

I have an Intel i7-2600K and a GTX 560 Ti, and I cannot record as well as I'd like in AH.  In other games it works great, but AH not so much.  The thing is, turning off eyecandy or turning down Fraps settings has a very limited impact... given the tradeoffs I generally keep the settings maxed because turning things down doesn't get me much.  I'm going to investigate options for storage next, i.e. SSD, as maybe that'll work better.  The main problem there will be filling the SSD, but I can just transfer the files occasionally to standard hard drive for long term storage.

[Krusty]

You don't use an SSD for storage. You use it for performance, and store on your platter drive. FRAPS or MSI Afterburner should be set to save to your HDD, not your SSD.

[Ack-Ack]

I have found surprisingly good FPS while recording with MSI afternurner. I don't know if it's specific to AMD cards or if it also works on Nvidia, but I'm running AMD right now and even in BF3 beta and a few other games on 3 monitors I didn't notice a massive hit in FPS while recording.

It was quite impressive. Another forum post clued me into this, but can't remember who gets the credit for finding it.

MSI Afterburner will also work with Nvidia cards.

ack-ack

[clerick]

Other than the screen capture portion is there any benefit to using afterburner instead of the native AMD overclocking in CCC?

[Krusty]

I don't use it for any of that... I did set a fan profile based on somebody else's for my same card, but I just use it for screenshots, FPS readout, and recording.

[BoilerDown]

You don't use an SSD for storage. You use it for performance, and store on your platter drive. FRAPS or MSI Afterburner should be set to save to your HDD, not your SSD.

The objective is better Fraps performance, Fraps is very intensive on hard drives, it follows that I should use the highest performing drive for Fraps captures.  So why shouldn't I Fraps to the SSD?  Recall I said:

The main problem there will be filling the SSD, but I can just transfer the files occasionally to standard hard drive for long term storage.

Are you saying a SSD won't actually work better for Fraps recordings, right up until it gets filled?

[Krusty]

Generally speaking you want to minimize the amount of constant writing to an SSD. It shortens the life of the drive. Granted that "life" may start out to be 5 years with average use, but with heavy use you may drop that down to 3 (or fill in whatever the real values are).

Recording to a second drive for FRAPs is what I do, but it's a 1TB platter drive.

I use the SSD to boot (and I have AH on it, the only game I put on the SSD), and record to my second, so that there's no bottleneck trying to write 2 things to the same drive.

So, second drive: yes. SSD second drive: nope. Only reason for an SSD is for a boot drive, really.

[BoilerDown]

So, second drive: yes. SSD second drive: nope. Only reason for an SSD is for a boot drive, really.

That's my plan, but I was thinking a 200GB one or so, so there's room to store more than just the OS, and for example, some Fraps footage.

Generally speaking you want to minimize the amount of constant writing to an SSD. It shortens the life of the drive. Granted that "life" may start out to be 5 years with average use, but with heavy use you may drop that down to 3 (or fill in whatever the real values are).

My research has indicated that it is random writes that kill SSD life.  Fraps recordings would be sequential writes though, so I don't think they should be a problem.  Although maybe I won't use the loop buffer feature they added recently.