Question regarding FRAPS

I recently downloaded a free version of FRAPS and started to record videos as a test.

The video stops recording after like 1 to 3 mins.
I checked the file size. It's about 312 MB.

Can anyone tell me how to record continuous videos with this?

buy it off the website.

Fraps does not do any compression whatsoever so its videos have bloated filesizes, there are also many games it doesn't work with.

I'd recommend OBS instead. It's mainly designed as a live streaming software, but can be set to do local recordings. It's open-source, free, stable, flexible, it can record any window/game you set it to, and it's rather easy once you get it all set up most optimally and to your liking.

It's also what raocow used for the latter half of his Symphony of the Night run after Fraps started going haywire for him.

Buy the full version. The free version has a limitation of 30 seconds per clip (I think).

Jaxxoon R said:

there are also many games it doesn't work with.

That would be because Fraps captures directly from the DirectX/OpenGL stream, so naturally it doesn't work with games that don't use DirectX or OpenGL, for one.

Jaxxoon R said:

Fraps does not do any compression whatsoever so its videos have bloated filesizes, there are also many games it doesn't work with.

I'd recommend OBS instead. It's mainly designed as a live streaming software, but can be set to do local recordings. It's open-source, free, stable, flexible, it can record any window/game you set it to, and it's rather easy once you get it all set up most optimally and to your liking.

It's also what raocow used for the latter half of his Symphony of the Night run after Fraps started going haywire for him.

Does OBS work well for recording let's plays?

Can't comment on OBS because I've been using FRAPS for years and now my vidoe card also has "Shadow Play" built in. However, just to be clear, the reason that your recording stops so soon is because you are using the free version of FRAPS. It is limited to short recordings and, if I recall correctly, it also puts a watermark on the video. The paid version does neither of these things.

The captured video files are indeed huge but that is deliberate. Because they are uncompressed, they are pretty clear quality-wise and therefore suitable for loading up into an editing program for post-capture tweaking. Once you've made your changes, you can save them in whatever formats your editing program supports and thereby reduce the file size.

I don't know why you're trying to use that outdated obsolete software. It was only good as a framerate counter once programs like OBS came out and then Steam and Nvidia brought out their own FPS counters and now Fraps doesn't need to exist.

I think even they (the FRAPS people) may know that. They used to update the program on a regular basis but now updates are few and far between.

Try Bandicam, it works great for low-mid end pcs without suffering that annoying freeze issue of Fraps, btw Fraps is useless now, it's outdated and it's better to upgrade to something better.

Well, I'm thinking of downloading and installing bandicam.

Can anyone tell me how I can record commentary while playing the game?

OBS is good but doesn't work in XP. :(

Zulk-RS said:

Does OBS work well for recording let's plays?

Yes, "local recording" means you just record an FLV or MP4 file to your hard drive and disregard the streaming part. All of my DWM NOVA II videos were Let's Plays recorded with OBS.

Zulk-RS said:

Can anyone tell me how I can record commentary while playing the game?

I'm not familiar with Bandicam, but I'd assume it has some form of way to record from mic/source simultaneously.

What I've always done (even back when I used Fraps) is record my voice separately using Audacity. This makes syncing a bit of a pain, but gives you the luxury of complete control over your commentary audio. So you can apply noise reduction/compression and fancy things like that.

I second (fifth?) Using OBS. Works great for recording without streaming, and it has simple compositing features if you're looking to show multiple sources.

Memfis said:

OBS is good but doesn't work in XP. :(

If you want to do modern things, use a modern OS.

Huh, I'm surprised OBS doesn't support XP. Well, if you can run it, I'll also vouch for it in terms of ease of use, at least. I've never used it to record, only to stream, but that was easy enough. If you can't, I've used Bandicam. From my experience, it's just a better version of FRAPS.

It's worth mentioning, if you do want more control over your audio in Bandicam, rather than just combining the two audio tracks, you can have it export each as individual files, though for some reason the video file still has an audio track. I don't know that OBS can do that, you'd have to check.

Jaxxoon R said:

Yes, "local recording" means you just record an FLV or MP4 file to your hard drive and disregard the streaming part. All of my DWM NOVA II videos were Let's Plays recorded with OBS.

I'm not familiar with Bandicam, but I'd assume it has some form of way to record from mic/source simultaneously.

Does OBS have some way to record directly from microphone?

Yes.

I used to be stuck with the same problem of choosing the right video recorder. The ones listed are dandy but msi afterburner, is the best for me. Works great with windows, has a voice recorder & tons of other very nice stuff. You can really optimize your performance, quite well with it, so give it a try! B-)

Link: http://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner.

I've used FRAPS since 2011. I do want to use OBS, but it does put my brain in a knot when I try to configure it correctly. I did check a tutorial, still kinda does. bandicam, I don't have the money for full version. I did try it out, it was wicked cool.

Also,

Memfis said:

OBS is good but doesn't work in XP. :(

It goes to show that some users don't want to upgrade and stick with that awesome (yet outdated and no longer supported), OS.

I still have its hard drive and have it in my PC.

While not everybody can use it, Nvidia's shadowplay feature has made fraps completely pointless for the most part assuming you have a semi-recent nvidia card.

People still use FRAPS? I think I was still watching DivX videos when I was using FRAPS.