Simplest way to record gameplay video?

[Barabara 10]

I want to record gameplay video of arma 3 as well as acre radio comms and acre local, but I only want the recording to pick up what's being said by me when I press either of my two push to talk keys.

What is (step by step) the simplest way to achieve this?

[mrkeeno 10]

Use a program called fraps. Lots of people in our clan use it to record coop games we have played.

[Nicholas 5]

There are quite a few options.

Fraps - This application will set you back $37 USD. I believe it is what most people use.

FFSplit - FFSplit is a free recording program that I found recently, it is a pretty good application from what I've experienced so far. Best of all, it's free.

Software applications will have an impact on your performance. That's why some people prefer hardware alternatives.

The only that I really know of is the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

For recording and streaming I use http://obsproject.com.

You can diable streaming and enable "Save to file" for your captures. There are also multiple sound inputs and the option for push to talk.

With an additional onboard graphics-chip from intel you can also use Quicksync and spare some CPU power for Arma. Performance is great with quicksync.

If you have a new NVidia card you can also use NVidia Shadowplay. Works nice with ArmA3 (good performance as encoding is completly on your graphicscard).

[toxicsludge 12]

I use MSI Afterburner which is free. With the beta version, you can choose what codec to record with. I've also heard OBS is quite good and would like to give it a try, but getting it set up scares me a little ;)

[nicolasroger 11]

Use ShadowPlay if you have an Nvidia card. Some say the FPS hit is really small with this.

[Longjocks 0]

I don't think you'll find a solution with the requirement re push-to-talk being the only mic audio which is recorded. There are numerous hardware and software solutions, just none that I can think of which would work for this. If there are recording software suites which have a bindable mute, or if your soundcard software allows for bindinng of a mute key you might be able to set this to the game's talk key. But otherwise you may have to do it the old fashioned way and mute/cut what you don't want when editing.

[Maxzy 12]

I don't think you'll find a solution with the requirement re push-to-talk being the only mic audio which is recorded.

Fraps allows to do this.

[Tonci87 163]

Fraps allows to do this.

Yeah but only with one button, he needs two (PTT and Acre Radio)

[lordprimate 159]

Free, easy to use, and Light weight :

http://obsproject.com/

[gagi 10]

dxtory :)

[10t 12]

Dxtory allows recording multiple audio inputs to multiple tracks. Also has a PTT (or push-to-record) function, which would probably cover your requirement there. There are some good YouTube videos covering good ways to set it up.

[Longjocks 0]

Fraps allows to do this.

Sometimes being quoted is bad because I end up realising I could have written a better sentence. But otherwise I'm happy to have been corrected. I've reinstalled Fraps and tested it for this functionality and it is indeed there. Same with Bandicam and Dxtory. I probably didn't notice because I moved on to AverMedia and Elgato hardware for most of my recording, plus I prefer separate audio tracks for editing purposes. But I don't see the PTT and ACRE scenario working with two separate keys.

It should be possible to work around using macros, with some software or if you have a keyboard/mouse with programmable buttons. e.g. Let's say in-game you have PTT set to 'SPACE' and ACRE to 'CAPS LOCK'. You can then set your recording software PTT to 'SPACE'. Finally, you have a programmable button or macro for ACRE which, when pressed, activates both 'SPACE' and 'CAPS LOCK'. This way your voice is recorded whether you just use PTT or use ACRE. (Note that I have yet to use ACRE so I don't know exactly how it functions alongside normal PTT, so my solution may be over-complicating things for all I know)

My advice on starting out with recording on a humble system is to use Bandicam. I don't recall many limitations to the trial, just a small watermark. Fraps' trial limits to something like 30 second recordings and Dxtory has a huge watermark (plus it's a bit more complicated to use and get optimal settings). Bandicam also has the smallest footprint on your system resources - although the trade-off is that its video quality isn't quite as good as the others (good enough though). The funny thing about all this is that thanks to ARMA's seemingly problematic low CPU usage it's actually a game which captures well because the CPU is free to handle recording.

[toxicsludge 12]

The funny thing about all this is that thanks to ARMA's seemingly problematic low CPU usage it's actually a game which captures well because the CPU is free to handle recording.

Uhh...isn't the Arma series renowned for HEAVY CPU usage?

[GReeves 10]

My FPS drops like a rock when I start recording.

[Harzach 2517]

For recording and streaming I use http://obsproject.com.

+1 for OBS. Fantastic app.

[progamer 14]

Nvidia's shadow play doesn't seem too loose me any frames.

[toxicsludge 12]

+1 for OBS. Fantastic app.

Does anyone know if there are any issues with video from OBS into sony Vegas?

[Harzach 2517]

Actually, it seems that a recent A3 update broke something. I can't hook A3 with OBS or XSplit, and others are reporting the same.

[Longjocks 0]

Uhh...isn't the Arma series renowned for HEAVY CPU usage?

Historically that may be the case. I never played ARMA beyond the SP campaign and only touched ARMA 2 more recently after getting into ARMA 3. For ARMA 3 the CPU usage would appear to be low, both from my experience and from some in the community, as evidenced by issues such as the following:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=716

It depends on a few factors. I believe the type of shadows used is one.

[SnR 1]

From Fraps, i converted to Bandicam. Very Nice.

[-4thMIB- Bram 10]

You should try using overwolf. It's really simple.

[the_demongod 31]

If you have an nVidia card, then Shadowplay, Shadowplay, Shadowplay, Shadowplay, Shadowplay. You can access shadowplay through the GeForce Experience Panel. Because it is pulling data straight out of your video card, it has almost no impact on frames per second. The only downside to this is you can't record your desktop, only games. I don't know if other programs can do this, but it can "shadowplay" (hence the name), which is basically where the card remembers the last _ number of minutes of gameplay (you can chose). It doesn't save them anywhere until you do something epic in game and want those last few minutes of footage. just press Alt-F10 (or whatever you have the key set to) and it will save those last few minutes of footage onto your hard drive. This eliminates having to dig through hours worth of footage (and saves many, many gigabytes of HD space as well) just to find that nice kill you made. And of course you can also record continuously as you would in any other program.

Edited March 17, 2014 by the_Demongod

[RushHour 11]

From what i´ve seen on Youtube, Shadowplay is a revolution in videocapture.

I use Fraps but that´s because i only have 580´s, need a 6-series card.

[Variable 322]

Can someone confirm which of the above mentioned applications allows setting multiple PTT keys for recording and not just one?