Any idea why my game slows down when I try to record a video of it using Fraps?

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I’m working on a 2D Platformer as my starting project and I have a very bare/skeletal version of it so far. I’m documenting my progress and I record short snippets of gameplay as I go along using Fraps. What I do is run the game from Eclipse and then begin video recording through Fraps…

Does anyone have any idea why the game slows down considerably when I begin recording the gameplay video?

I’ve recorded gameplay videos before for other games (e.g. - Bioshock, Torchlight II, Diablo 3, Borderlands, Fallout 3) and I’ve rarely noticed any slowdown with those games as the recording was being done. At the most, there would be very slight stutters, but not a total slowdown like what I’m experiencing with my own game.

Thoughts?

#2

My guess is that “Fraps” is using the java Robot class to take screen shots. This class is very slow.

#3

If you use Windows, there is Microsoft Expression Encoder.

It’s free, records HD, and doesn’t interfere with performance.

#4

Hmmmmm idk how Fraps handles Java games, but I know people have used it to record Minecraft without any problems (although there are isolated cases that experience problems).

Oh, cool, I’ve never heard of that. Will try later. Thanks.

#5

Not many people have heard of it, and say “Fraps is better” etc. etc.
They change their minds later.
The only difference between the free and paid version is that if you get the free one, you don’t have to deal with Microsoft Tech Support :wink:

#6

Cpu load of the game is too high.
Quality settings of Fraps need to be lowered.

#7

You probably already checked this but make sure your code is running efficiently. Running Eclipse + your code + Fraps might be reaching a bottleneck that a game + Fraps doesn’t.

Are you isng LibGDX or something else for your base code?

On a related note: I recommend checking out VisualVM, it’s free software that monitors any JVM running and will report to you useful statistics such as CPU usage and time spent calling each method.

Pre-Post: 65K beat me to it lol

#8

I have a hard time believing that my barely 500-line code - even if it is potentially unoptimized - can cause more problems for Fraps than mainstream AAA games on high settings… :-\

All I have is a ball that can be controlled to move left, right and jump + a few platforms

Box2D’s DebugRenderer is running though… haven’t thought of turning that off yet before recording…

Yup, I’m developing using libgdx :slight_smile:

#9

You can hog cpu time with much less code…
What does the task manager say about that ?

#10

Will check when I get home :slight_smile: At work right now, unfortunately… :emo:

#11

The bottleneck may also be your harddisk, and have nothing to do with your other system specs. If you write the recordings on the same harddisk as your OS runs on, it is dead slow. I get a big performance boost using fraps when using an external harddisk (even when connected through USB). Here’s a good explanation of why this is so.

#12

Although if that’s the case, I should also experience slowdown when recording other games, right?

#13

[quote=“heisenbergman,post:12,topic:41827”]
Possibly, but I’m not sure. These things are quite complex and I’m no expert, but it may be worth trying.

#14

Thanks anyway, at least I have a number of things to look at now once I get home.

#15

Thanks a bunch! I thought for the longest time it was my crappy computer slowing the fps down when I was recording but it was just the software! Microsoft Expression Encoder works great, thanks again

#16

I’m such a dunderhead… :-/

The reason why I was experiencing slowdown is because I had my video recording FPS capped at 24fps… Y_Y

I didn’t think to look at that at first because 24fps for other games seemed nice and gave the videos - especially for FPS games - some sort of “cinematic” look.

But for this video, it flat out just slowed my game down :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway… finally got to record a vid now. Thanks.