FRAPS issue?

[Xavon]

Alright, so I have the full version of FRAPS 2.9.4 (the latest version) and recording works fine, except for the fact that after a certain amount of time passes (about 4-5 minutes of recording) my FPS drops horribly down below 15 and makes the game unplayable. I know it can't be my computer, it records at a full 60fps at all times fine, but as soon as it hits that 4-5 minute mark of recording it just bombs completely and renders the game unplayable.

Has anyone else ever had this issue? The problem seems unexplainable, most likely a programming error in fraps itself but I'm not sure. A fix for this so that I can record longer songs would be great, it makes me angry when I'm working for that AAA on a 6 minute+ song and when I'm almost done it lags me to death.

Responses are appreciated.

[Darkslave]

Re: FRAPS issue?

There are several things that can be the cause, first thing that springs to my mind is that your harddrive might have trouble keeping up somehow after that time, are you recording in full or in half size, and what resolution are we talking about?

Also you might want to check cpu usage, try recording the stepmania menu screen for 6 minutes for instance in windowed mode, and have your ctrl alt del screen next to it. If Fraps suddenly has a peak in cpu usage after awhile, the problem is most likely in Fraps.

A last thing, make sure all your drivers are up to date.

[Xavon]

Re: FRAPS issue?

There are several things that can be the cause, first thing that springs to my mind is that your harddrive might have trouble keeping up somehow after that time, are you recording in full or in half size, and what resolution are we talking about?

Also you might want to check cpu usage, try recording the stepmania menu screen for 6 minutes for instance in windowed mode, and have your ctrl alt del screen next to it. If Fraps suddenly has a peak in cpu usage after awhile, the problem is most likely in Fraps.

A last thing, make sure all your drivers are up to date.

I'm recording full size, I don't know what half size does. Does it make a big difference or should I be using half size? Stepmania is in windowed mode at 800x600 I think, it might be 640x480. I'm not quite sure what to do, I tried lowering the speed at which is records down to 30fps but it makes the game look a little sloppy and the video didn't turn out too well.

My drivers are up to date that I'm away of. Nvidia 8800 GT, 175.19 drivers.

Also, is it normal for FRAPS to be making several video files when recording for long periods of time? It makes a new video file every 3-4gb of video. I don't know if this is supposed to be happening.

(I recorded the menu for about 6 minutes or so, the fps dropped without any reason and I couldn't see any notable change in the fraps memory usage, but for some reason my CPU is being pushed somewhat hard.)

[Darkslave]

Re: FRAPS issue?

Half size cuts every frame width/height in half, resulting in about 4 times smaller vids, while still keeping very good quality. The video does lose some of it's quality, but not if you compress it you won't notice it, it's not like you're going to mail/upload the 8gb raw file I think. I think it's your best bet at the moment.
Video drivers are good, the problem isn't on that side.

Edit: if you are playing in 640x480 (which is tiny...nearly smaller than ffr), I don't know what your problem can be.
I play in 1024x768, and can record with Fraps in half size until I run out of space I suppose (longest uninterrupted record as of now is ~25mins, forgot it was on ) I haven't tried full size, as I don't feel like suddenly having 100gb of vid.

Edit (again), the making of a new file has something to do with the file allocation of your harddrive, I believe a certain type (fat32? not sure) works in partitions of 4gb, and it can only store one file on each or something.

[Xavon]

Re: FRAPS issue?

Half size cuts every frame width/height in half, resulting in about 4 times smaller vids, while still keeping very good quality. The video does lose some of it's quality, but not if you compress it you won't notice it, it's not like you're going to mail/upload the 8gb raw file I think. I think it's your best bet at the moment.
Video drivers are good, the problem isn't on that side.

Edit: if you are playing in 640x480 (which is tiny...nearly smaller than ffr), I don't know what your problem can be.
I play in 1024x768, and can record with Fraps in half size until I run out of space I suppose (longest uninterrupted record as of now is ~25mins, forgot it was on ) I haven't tried full size, as I don't feel like suddenly having 100gb of vid.

Edit (again), the making of a new file has something to do with the file allocation of your harddrive, I believe a certain type (fat32? not sure) works in partitions of 4gb, and it can only store one file on each or something.

I was able to play 3 different songs in a row, about 10-11 minutes of recording on half size, but it's very very small and would be very poor quality after I export from Vegas. I record with no sound in FRAPS, put the video in Vegas 8 and place the MP3 in sync with everything else for top quality audio. (Vegas has no impact on FRAPS, it's not the problem.)

I hate having Stepmania full screen at 1024x768 because I do worse, so I'm not sure what I could do to record the longer songs without lagging out.

Edit: The video speeds up and slows down and random parts through the entire thing for no apparent reason as well.