Game | The Don's Craptastic World

26Sep/100

How to set up your computer for gameplay recording

I've gotten a few eMails complaining that it takes a huge tool on some users computer performance while recording pc game-play. I cannot speak for any other recording software except Fraps because that's all I use.

Fraps records video and audio unencoded, uncompressed, raw. That means the files are huge. 30 minutes of recorded gameplay footage are about 50-70 gigabyte large, and there's absolutely no way around that. Which brings me to my first point of this how-to: get a large HDD/SSD. I'm talking about 1 single HDD/SDD, specifically just for Fraps. 250 Gigabyte ought to do it. Recording video and audio uncompressed also means a huge tool on your computer initially.

Now, the trick is to set up your system in a way that Fraps, while recording, takes as little a tool as possible on your running game.

I have 3 HDDs. 1st HDD is partitioned in C, F, G. 2nd HDD is partitioned in E, H and 3rd HDD is unpartitioned, D. C is my System partition, H is my games partition and D is my Fraps HDD.

You see, 1 HDD for my system, 1 HDD for my games, 1 HDD for Fraps. They are all physically separated, which is imperative. Why am I doing it this way? When a game runs the read/write heads goes back and forth reading the game and deploying the data to your CPU/RAM/GPU. When Fraps records it causes the read/write heads to move around and write data on the HDD.

Now imagine you have a game running and Fraps recording on the same HDD/partition. That means the read/write head has to do double the work namely reading the game and writing the recording (in simplified terms, realistically it's more than double the work) on the HDD which in turn translates into FPS drops and "lags" in the game. And remember, recording uncompressed with Fraps already takes a huge tool on your computer.

So ideally you'd want your game running on one HDD and Fraps recording on another, physically separated, (unpartitioned) HDD. Another important point is the swap/page file. Make absolutely sure your swap/page file is not on the same HDD as Fraps or your games are. I've my swap/page file stowed on C: .

It took me a bit experimenting back then but all this lead to a more stable, even increased, FPS while a massive drop in "lags". It may not work for each and every one of you, but it did for me.

On a side note: Perhaps some of you are using SSDs and can share your experiences? I don't have a SSD, yet, so I can't say how well it works on SSDs.

Filed under: Tips and Tricks No Comments

17Aug/090

Champions Online Beta Screenshots [and a small review]!

Today is the day Champions Online goes to Open Beta. With this happening the NDA also goes down.

I was in the closed beta, and I made a lot of screenshots during that time.

Ladies, Geeks, Nerds and Gentlemen, I present you

Champions Online Beta Screenshots

This was my main superhero, a Soviet Union Dr.Who, from 1 to 40, I'm gonna miss him (closed beta to open beta transition included complete character wipe).

In Soviet Millennium City, Dr.Who salutes you!

At level 25 you had the possibility to create your own arch-nemesis. The arch-nemesis was another way to introduce content. You'll get to fight your arch-nemesis and foil his or her evil master plans. Dr. Who's arch-nemesis was Prof. Koninchewisz, a female half-cyborg mad scientist:

[Addendum]
I've been asked via email what my opinion is about Champions Online. Well, CO has potential, but in it's current state (I left when it went Open Beta) it is not worth my money. Here's why:

Power Unbalance:
There are powers that pretty much dominate everything, and powers that have been "nerfed" into oblivion because they were to powerful, i.e. useless powers.

Bear in mind it might have changed since Open Beta, but it was frustrating to see drain life being completely useless after it was way too powerful. Same goes for Concussion Beam. Lately I've heard the took the "nerf bat" to the travel powers. I can't figure out how this has affected PVE, but I surely can understand it from the PvP perspective.

Cryptic is doing it the wrong way, in my opinion. Seeing that a power is too good in PvP it has to be toned down, which in turn can become totally useless in PvE. They need to look at both perspectives, not only one. But that's just me.

Lack of End-content:
People will tell you about Unity and Omega. Well, about Unity. You get to do 5 (6?) daily missions, which are solo-able, after you turn them in you get a daily group mission to do. Keyword "DAILY", once a day.

Omega is supposed to be raiding, which I couldn't experience in my closed beta time due lack of people who were equally interested. So I can't talk about Omega.

But that pretty much is. There's not a whole lot to do, yet. Cryptic of course will deliver content continually in the future, let's hope it'll be good. Still I can't figure out what to do once you hit 40, did ALL your low-level and remaining quests, and your daily Unity. Omega? That's it? Start another character? Yet another character?

Micro-transactions:
I loathe micro-transactions. I can't stand them. Although they will be "optional" and "mostly" "asthetic" it's been said, that IF and WHEN people can buy "game changing" stuff via micro-transactions this stuff WILL be available to everybody. Meaning you don't have to buy it, you can earn it in-game (investing a whole lot more time I'd guess).

This is usually a deal breaker for me because this WILL encourage a mentality like this "Why the heck would I grind, and grind, and grind for days, if I can just ditch out 10 buck?" among other things.

Just to clear it up: Champions Online will cost you a monthly fee on top of that you can optionally buy stuff via micro-transactions.

That being said, this game has a potential to be THE superheroes MMO. I hope it flourishes! I love superheroes games. I'll take a look at Champions Online at a much later time again.