An FRAPS alternative, open-source

[ChevyVanDude 1]

Hi guys and gals,

For people who want to show off what they did in ArmA (or just about any game), most were limited to FRAPS.

Not expensive, but it is still 30 bucks.

I found an open-source, thus free, alternative to this: Taksi.

First I didn't knew how it worked, but it is as simple as A-B-C.

Just launch the program (arma2oa.exe for example) alt-tab back in Windsows, run the program, click on Application hook, reopen ArmA and your done (well, you do need to press record etc.)

I tested it with ArmA 2 OA and found it a bit slow with 30 fps, but that could also be me.

Try it out: http://sourceforge.net/projects/taksi/

I also recommend you convert the file with Handbrake, yet again an free, open-source program: http://sourceforge.net/projects/handbrake/

Post your experiences here :)

[Pyronick 21]

Installing right now. Anything open-source beats 30 sec trial FRAPS any day.

[Posta 10]

Alright, will try it out. I have just been fooling around with Fraps and PlayClaw. PlayClaw wins easily over Fraps. Both costs around 30 bucks.

Edited January 30, 2011 by Posta

[Macadam Cow 1]

Seems interesting, will definetely have a look at it.

Thanks for sharing this !

[gossamersolid 155]

I've used FRAPs so much that purchasing a license wasn't much of a problem for me. Seemed worth it.

I'll definetly give this a try though.

[ryguy 10]

Finally. I can't believe there weren't any free screen recorders before this one. Too bad I already bought the FRAPs license.

[Walker001 0]

Finally. I can't believe there weren't any free screen recorders before this one. Too bad I already bought the FRAPs license.

This one has already been out for a while. I tried it many years ago, but then it was buggy and crashed often, but its long time ago so I guess that it's worth an other shot.

[PELHAM 10]

Is this free from unwelcome extras? No malware, spyware, viruses, browser toolbars etc.

[Dwarden 1125]

Is this free from unwelcome extras? No malware, spyware, viruses, browser toolbars etc.

such project would be very soon removed from SourceForge if anything like this was found inside ...

so answer is no, it should be clean

[celery 8]

The program's user friendliness leaves much to hope for. It lets you choose codecs that it doesn't support, the hot keys don't seem to work, and when you actually get it to record something, the frame rate is bad, the resulting video's frames are out of sync and Taksi tends to crash any program it's recording, even internet browsers. Fraps beats it in every way in game recording.

[PELHAM 10]

I can confirm it's clean but have to agree with Celery about user friendlyness!

To get it to run I had to open Taksi.ini and change the default recording directory.

Then install - Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package ATL Security Update, from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=766a6af7-ec73-40ff-b072-9112bab119c2&displaylang=en

Will see if it works but I'm not hopeful!

---------- Post added at 17:54 ---------- Previous post was at 16:59 ----------

Well the screenshot works well.

On trying to get a video capture I got:

-1 badly pixelated video with the 1st mp4 codec.

-1 crisp video with the 2nd mp4 codec but it slowed the game to a stuttering crawl.

-None of the other combinations seem to work.

-It crashed the game twice.

-It made it unresponsive requiring a PC restart 3 times.

-I can not repeat my limited success with the 2nd mp4 codec - game is unresponsive again.

My verdict - it's not worth it. Unless someone can recommend exact combinations that will not crash your game or PC.

[paragraphic l 2]

http://alternativeto.net/software/taksi/

There seem to be some better open-source alternatives to FRAPS. Haven't tested any on there yet.

[andersson 285]

I tried it and it gave me unplayable FPS while recording, the movies had low quality + I cant close arma2 without shutting it down through task manager.

Didnt like it.

[Macadam Cow 1]

Good news for those who are looking for a free alternative to FRAPS :

MSI AfterBurner !

Initially it's a - powerfull - tool to overclock your GPU, but you can also use it to take screenshot and record ingame footage.

The hit on the FPS is a little bit bigger than FRAPS, usually with FRAPS I loose about 10 FPS and with AfterBurner I loose between 10 and 15. But hey, it's free !

:)

[BasileyOne 10]

strongly suggest MSI AFterburner in THAT case.

goty FPS monitoring, OSD HW status displaying[you dont get you GFX/CPU overheated w/o notice!!], screen capturing and movie recording.

for Free !!

and bonus[fanfare]optional overclocking caps ! :P

[Macadam Cow 1]

yup, and after further testing the hit on the performances is not as bad as FRAPS.

BUT

It doesn't record sounds...

Damn, can't win...

[BasileyOne 10]

yup, and after further testing the hit on the performances is not as bad as FRAPS.

BUT

It doesn't record sounds...

Damn, can't win...

you can fill "feature request" about sound recording on MSI AB thread in MSI Forum&probably Unwinder[creator of MSI AB nad RivaTuner]will incorporate it sooner or later if he can/found it necessary.

also check "beta" versions.

[Macadam Cow 1]

Thanks for the info, I've browsed their forum a little bit and it seems it should actually record sounds :

From the Afterburner 2.2.0 beta thread :

- Fixed issue causing corrupted audio recording on certain combinations of audio sampling rates and video framerates (e.g. 48000Hz audio and 45 FPS video)

- Improved audio stream start implementation. Initial silence audio frames are now being physically stored in AVI file instead of defining non-zero audio stream start in AVI file header for better compatibility with some AVI editing tools

- Improved audio and video streams synchronization under Windows Vista and newer operating systems. Long periods of audio silence are no longer causing audio and video streams to run out of sync

I'm going to look deeper into this.

but yeah, I fully recommend this program

EDIT :

Woohooo, the BETA version does record sounds :) without any noticeable hit on the FPS. Definitely time to forget about FRAPS :)

Guys, if you don't have any recording program yet, MSI afterburner is the way to go !

Edited April 13, 2011 by Macadam Cow

[MissileMoose 10]

Thanks for sharing this, I used afterburner daily for my fan speed but didn't even know this existed! It works perfectly, no performance loss whatsoever. My only gripe is that it records the framerate in the video afterwards. Any way around this? I've tried messing with the settings, but with no luck.

-Moose

[Dwarden 1125]

MSI afterburner is really good, sadly latest 3 betas are extremely unstable but they bring lot of other improvements which seems improved recording ...

so lets hope new build will be way smoother on usage for recording

[maddogx 13]

How does it perform compared to the latest FRAPS versions?

[MissileMoose 10]

How does it perform compared to the latest FRAPS versions?

For me, I get zero loss in FPS but it does record the FPS and recording icon in the actual video. :bounce3:

Edit #1: Forgot to say, with FRAPS I get a huge FPS loss, this can make the game unplayable in some scenarios.

Edit #2: Just been messing around with a few helicopters over Zargabad, when recording FPS does drop. On the ground it should be better, Zargabad is a pain though.

-Moose

Edited April 16, 2011 by MissileMoose

[Macadam Cow 1]

Yeah it performs a lot better than FRAPS. Earlier in this thread I've said the FPS loss was bigger with Afterburner but in fact I was running FRAPS at the same time, to check the FPS.

Of course there is a FPS loss, but quite small, have been using it last few days, always with chopper or airplane, in low flyby, and really there no comparison, this is a lot better then the FRAPS freeware version

[Dwarden 1125]

there is no point to run Fraps and AB at once as AB has FPS meter ;) (including hotkeys)

[Macadam Cow 1]

:oh:

Oh...well...damn...but...I do what I want, it's my computer !

:D

Thanks for the tip, not a single reason left to keep FRAPS on my PC

Edited April 17, 2011 by Macadam Cow