video game recording have black screen

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

Hi all,

I've tried just about everything to record criticalmass game sessions on my desktop. I have plenty of processor power, but the recordings come out with a black screen (sound is normal).

The game doesn't allow me to minimize the window with the game in it, so I have to start the recording, then click on the icon to start the game play. Then, when the game is ended, I have to switch back to the desktop screen and terminate the recording. The portions of the recording before and after the game play are normal and look great. I'm not sure if I have a problem with my system or whether the video recording program isn't being properly told to record the games window.

xub1204@xub1204-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo lshw -C display
[sudo] password for xub1204: 
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RS780L [Radeon 3000]
       vendor: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=fglrx_pci latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:d000(size=256) memory:febe0000-febeffff memory:fea00000-feafffff
xub1204@xub1204-System-Product-Name:~$

I'm running 12.04 Ubuntu.

Criticalmass is in the software center, so it's available for download if someone wants to test their system with it.

TIA

Art

[gerowen]

It's installing for me so I'll give it a shot in just a second, but I thought I'd mention something. To record games, if you're using gtk-recordmydesktop, click "Advanced" and make sure "Full shots at every frame" is checked. This will eat up more CPU power, but 3-D games and the like won't record properly if it isn't checked.

Here's a screenshot, click to enlarge.
record.png

[gerowen]

So here's what it looked like for me when I recorded using gtk-recordmydesktop. I'm guessing the game window was small because it was set to a different resolution than the desktop size that recordmydesktop was capturing. I'm trying it at a bigger resolution now and will post back.

Video: http://youtu.be/HRGHcvHCONA

[gerowen]

With the game set to the same resolution as my desktop, using gtk-recordmydesktop with "Full shots at every frame" checked, it worked fine for me. The only issue I had was when I tried changing the resolution of the game, it acted all crazy and crashed and I couldn't really tell what was going on until it closed. However, the resolution change did apply and here's a video showing how it looked under these circumstances.

Video: http://youtu.be/QExHvvcU_dY

[dannyboy79]

i use simplescreenrecorder to record my gameplays

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

This one is going to be marked as 'solved', although I think it's a bit of a cop out::>

I tried everything I could think of in 12.04 and 13.10...except for tracking down and installing a different video driver.

I finally made it work (although not perfectly), by downloading and installing the latest daily build of xubuntu 14.04. I don't have a good positive degree of confidence regarding the 'solution' but it's the best I could do.

14.04 is very buggy, I hope the programmers and developers do better with 14.04 than they did with 13.10, which is a DISASTER +++.

At this time, I am going to maintain the daily build of 14.04 for the sole purpose of playing my video games that I want to be able to record.

Enjoy

Art

[dannyboy79]

it most definitely related to your graphics driver as almost all recording software in linux captures with X11, so if you're graphics driver isn't installed properly you won't get great recordings. did you even bother trying simplescreenrecorder?

[gerowen]

This one is going to be marked as 'solved', although I think it's a bit of a cop out::>

I tried everything I could think of in 12.04 and 13.10...except for tracking down and installing a different video driver.

I finally made it work (although not perfectly), by downloading and installing the latest daily build of xubuntu 14.04. I don't have a good positive degree of confidence regarding the 'solution' but it's the best I could do.

14.04 is very buggy, I hope the programmers and developers do better with 14.04 than they did with 13.10, which is a DISASTER +++.

At this time, I am going to maintain the daily build of 14.04 for the sole purpose of playing my video games that I want to be able to record.

Enjoy

Art

I've been running 13.10 since it was released on both my computers with no issues. Don't blame the entire operating system for one particular issue. If anybody is to blame here it's AMD for providing horrible driver support for *nix operating systems. I am happy to hear you got it working somewhat though, hope you can get it all figured out.

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

did you even bother trying simplescreenrecorder?

Hi Danny,

I certainly did try simplescreenrecorder (in 12.04 Xubuntu, and 13.10 Xubuntu, before switching to 14.04 Xubuntu daily release version). I read absolutely every single bit of docs and indepenent posts about it (using google search). I wrote the author after exhausting all other self help tech support venues. I spent the vast majority of my effort trying to make simplescreenrecorder work.

In 14.04 pre-release version, it works, but the game is about 1/6 of the entire screen when the video is viewed. But, it's way better than a pure black screen!!! I can view the video in vlc, by using the 'zoom' feature. I'd like to be able to post a youtube video, but an't do it until I get something that really works. But, for now, using the 'zoom' feature in vlc works well enough to meet my needs.

Regards,

Art

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

I've been running 13.10 since it was released on both my computers with no issues. Don't blame the entire operating system for one particular issue. If anybody is to blame here it's AMD for providing horrible driver support for *nix operating systems. I am happy to hear you got it working somewhat though, hope you can get it all figured out.

Glad to hear both your systems run well in 13.10. I wish mine worked as well as yours do.

I don't blame anyone and I do not gripe or bitch about 13.10 performance. Ubuntu is free and offered as is. For me to gripe about it is inappropriate. I'll send you a direct message with more information as I don't want this thread to be about the merit of 13.10-wish I had left the reference about 13.10 out of my past post...hindsight is 20-20.

Enjoy.

Art