I bought FRAPS today, and it's horrible...

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04-19-2011, 07:49 PM
coldReactive

I bought FRAPS today, and it's horrible...

I should probably be posting this review elsewhere, but I'd rather not register for their forums, since it's completely different registration than your members area registration.

Overall: 1.5 / 5 Stars

Fraps is good, it really is. However, there are many things that can be improved upon. But before I tell you what those are, allow me to post my specifications:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.6 GHz
RAM: 8 GB DDR3 1066
HDD: 1 TB 7200 RPM ST-Model HDD
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 470 PNY (miniHDMI)

Recorded a 30 FPS 1080p Video, 60 FPS 1080p Video, 60 FPS 720p Video and 30 FPS 720p Video.

Review: As said above, fraps is an excellent program, providing you have an OEM Windows, unlike I do, and good specs, which apparently, even though I do have that, FRAPS thinks I don't, so it performs horribly. One thing I've noticed is that no matter what resolution you have FRAPS recording, if you use 60 FPS, lock it to the program, you WILL have audio sync issues gradually occur. Secondly, using 30 FPS will allow better Audio sync, no matter the resolution, even 1080p was flawless so far into a 5 minute video of Back to the Future: The Game. The problem is, while the video card can definitely handle 60 FPS on Linux, it can't, at all, handle the same FPS load on Windows, even if composition, aero, etc. is off in Windows.

Another problem is, is that FRAPS' FPS1 codec is NOT LOSSLESS. Why DO YOU NEED TO MAKE A FILE 4 GB AT 1080P WITH 30 FPS FOR ONLY A WORTHLESS TWO MINUTES. You have compression artifacts when playing a fraps video, why is it acting like a lossless codec?

Third: The price, I paid 37 USD for this, and I want at least 15 USD taken off that and given back to me for how horribly this software performed even though I had excellent specifications.

In closing, I would not recommend this software to anyone.
04-19-2011, 08:16 PM
weekpark123

I would recommend it.

Edit: Why, you might ask?

1. Fraps records games.

2. It records games very well.

All the specifics (whether it be a compressed codec, etc.) aren't always important, ya know. You may need a reason to gripe about it or find why it's so popular/accepted, but many others don't. They want something as that. A game recorder. And Fraps does that.
04-19-2011, 08:25 PM
coldReactive

I tried transcoding a fraps video via ffmpeg / x264, it gave an out-of-memory error.
04-19-2011, 08:54 PM
niightwolf

Fraps is pretty good but sometimes when i record it lags a lot
04-19-2011, 10:45 PM
TonyTonyChopper

Honestly, I wasn't all that crazy about Fraps either. It didn't really do what I wanted it to do for starters, but when it did make videos, it did indeed lag a bit.

I think it's a practical application that doesn't really have much competition.
04-19-2011, 11:28 PM
warx

Why would you buy if almost everyone uses cracked registered versions of fraps?
04-20-2011, 01:20 PM
coldReactive

I'm not sure why people are better at recording with fraps than mine. I'll see what happens after all my upgrades in several months, but I doubt it'll be any better.
04-20-2011, 02:24 PM
WildStyle*

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldReactive

I'm not sure why people are better at recording with fraps than mine. I'll see what happens after all my upgrades in several months, but I doubt it'll be any better.

It does bad because you want to much...Why would you want to record something in game in 1080p? I for example don't really care what the resolutions are as long as you can read the text...
04-20-2011, 02:58 PM
coldReactive

Quote:

Originally Posted by WildStyle*

It does bad because you want to much...Why would you want to record something in game in 1080p? I for example don't really care what the resolutions are as long as you can read the text...

Because all the mmohut first looks are in 1080p :V
04-20-2011, 03:33 PM
Selser

Sometimes, some programs just don't like certain pieces of hardware. Or maybe all the stuff you've installed or changed on your computer changed something in your computer that makes Fraps say 'noooooooo'

And while MMOHut's looks are all 1080p, Omer's specs could be better than yours.
04-20-2011, 06:50 PM
Spunkify

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldReactive

Because all the mmohut first looks are in 1080p :V

Thats the encoding software not Fraps. He plays the games in some form of 16:9 resolution and then encodes at 1080P.

Pretty much the best quality settings are 60FPS and then whatever 16:9 resolution for youtube. Fraps doesnt encode anything so its as raw and as basic of file as it can get.
04-20-2011, 06:58 PM
coldReactive

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spunkify

Thats the encoding software not Fraps. He plays the games in some form of 16:9 resolution and then encodes at 1080P.

Pretty much the best quality settings are 60FPS and then whatever 16:9 resolution for youtube. Fraps doesnt encode anything so its as raw and as basic of file as it can get.

And when I tried to encode via ffmpeg or x264, gives out of memory errors, so how would I go about encoding fraps :V
04-20-2011, 07:24 PM
Inoriana

That is a mystery even i have a hard time finding out i just use wegame for my videos. If you get membership it encodes it for you and uploads it to youtube for you. Plus it records hi def raw video like fraps. And like i said you dont have to worry about encoding because all you do is press upload and it uploads it to your youtube account that is linked with wegame account then uploads it to the wegame website.
04-20-2011, 07:54 PM
Spunkify

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldReactive

And when I tried to encode via ffmpeg or x264, gives out of memory errors, so how would I go about encoding fraps :V

I use sony vegas to edit my videos. It never has a problem with AVI. I use to use WMM but it gave me errors if I did a lot of cuts to the source videos.