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View Full Version : I bought FRAPs today, and it's horrible.



Lucradia
April 19th, 2011, 08:48 PM
I should probably be posting this review elsewhere, but I'd rather not register for their forums, since it's completely different registration than your members area registration.

Overall: 1.5 / 5 Stars

Fraps is good, it really is. However, there are many things that can be improved upon. But before I tell you what those are, allow me to post my specifications:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.6 GHz
RAM: 8 GB DDR3 1066
HDD: 1 TB 7200 RPM ST-Model HDD
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 470 PNY (miniHDMI)

Recorded a 30 FPS 1080p Video, 60 FPS 1080p Video, 60 FPS 720p Video and 30 FPS 720p Video.

Review: As said above, fraps is an excellent program, providing you have an OEM Windows, unlike I do, and good specs, which apparently, even though I do have that, FRAPS thinks I don't, so it performs horribly. One thing I've noticed is that no matter what resolution you have FRAPS recording, if you use 60 FPS, lock it to the program, you WILL have audio sync issues gradually occur. Secondly, using 30 FPS will allow better Audio sync, no matter the resolution, even 1080p was flawless so far into a 5 minute video of Back to the Future: The Game. The problem is, while the video card can definitely handle 60 FPS on Linux, it can't, at all, handle the same FPS load on Windows, even if composition, aero, etc. is off in Windows.

Another problem is, is that FRAPS' FPS1 codec is NOT LOSSLESS. Why DO YOU NEED TO MAKE A FILE 4 GB AT 1080P WITH 30 FPS FOR ONLY A WORTHLESS TWO MINUTES. You have compression artifacts when playing a fraps video, why is it acting like a lossless codec?

Third: The price, I paid 37 USD for this, and I want at least 15 USD taken off that and given back to me for how horribly this software performed even though I had excellent specifications.

In closing, I would not recommend this software to anyone.

doorknob60
April 19th, 2011, 11:19 PM
Just for the record, I find that Fraps records games by far better than any other program I've ever tried, I do recommend it. GLC is a similar alternative on Linux, but that can sometimes be a pain to work with, although it usually does its job. My specs are a lot worse than the OPs too...

Quadunit404
April 19th, 2011, 11:50 PM
Same here. Fraps records my games better than anything else. If you don't like the filesizes you can always use an external drive (as I do) too :wink:

Lucradia
April 20th, 2011, 01:11 AM
Same here. Fraps records my games better than anything else. If you don't like the filesizes you can always use an external drive (as I do) too :wink:

I'd only do an external drive via network, don't really like USB ones.

Also, when I tried to transcode a fraps video, it said out-of-memory using x264 / ffmpeg.

Taksi is also an alternative, but also a pain to work with.

Merk42
April 20th, 2011, 04:23 AM
As said above, fraps is an excellent program, providing you have an OEM Windows, unlike I do.
Am I misreading this or are you giving it a low score due to it not working well in WINE?

ikt
April 20th, 2011, 05:24 AM
Am I misreading this or are you giving it a low score due to it not working well in WINE?

^

Fraps is by far the greatest game recording software out there.

NightwishFan
April 20th, 2011, 05:38 AM
I use ffmpeg on Linux using lossless h264. I used to use Camtasia on Windows back in the day.

uberdood
April 20th, 2011, 06:11 AM
Am I misreading this or are you giving it a low score due to it not working well in WINE?

^ Seriously.

I've used Fraps for countless games in Windows for the past few years and it's been flawless to me.

Lucradia
April 20th, 2011, 02:02 PM
I was using it in Windows 7 x64 actually. My signature was changed late yesterday because I'm not gaming until my system is upgraded fully. Maybe fraps will work better then, I don't know, and will not know for several months.

screaminj3sus
April 20th, 2011, 08:04 PM
fraps is by far the best app for recording games in windows. I am glad I bought it.

mikeunderwood79
April 21st, 2011, 04:02 AM
I couldn't agree with you anymore.

Fraps does not compress the video as it records, so there will always be lag regardless how good my computer is because it has to write massive files to my hard disk drive.

I'm using a brand new recording program called Bandicam.
This program compress the recording video while recording, and uses much lower CPU/GPU/RAM usage than Fraps. As a result, you may have much less lag and save your HDD space.

I hope you enjoy high quality recording experience.

Lucradia
April 21st, 2011, 04:07 AM
I couldn't agree with you anymore.

Fraps does not compress the video as it records, so there will always be lag regardless how good my computer is because it has to write massive files to my hard disk drive.

I'm using a brand new recording program called Bandicam.
This program compress the recording video while recording, and uses much lower CPU/GPU/RAM usage than Fraps. As a result, you may have much less lag and save your HDD space.

I hope you enjoy high quality recording experience.

It's too bad it isn't registered to an account though, so if you install it on more than one PC, it won't work.

Source: http://www.bandicam.com/buy/

No thanks, I'll stick with open-source. It usually ends up better anyway.

screaminj3sus
April 21st, 2011, 04:09 AM
I couldn't agree with you anymore.

Fraps does not compress the video as it records, so there will always be lag regardless how good my computer is because it has to write massive files to my hard disk drive.

I'm using a brand new recording program called Bandicam.
This program compress the recording video while recording, and uses much lower CPU/GPU/RAM usage than Fraps. As a result, you may have much less lag and save your HDD space.

I hope you enjoy high quality recording experience.

There would still be lag (possibly even more) if it compressed on the fly which takes cpu power that is very valuable when playing a games. On my machine I set fraps to record to a separate hard drive. A compression option would be nice though.

ikt
April 21st, 2011, 11:32 AM
There would still be lag (possibly even more) if it compressed on the fly which takes cpu power that is very valuable when playing a games. On my machine I set fraps to record to a separate hard drive. A compression option would be nice though.

Indeed, I would really like to see how it records lossless then manages to compress the files on the fly while using less cpu uage and hard drive usage than fraps.

And yeah, let fraps save files on a separate hard drive = gg

Ubom
April 21st, 2011, 12:26 PM
If fraps says you don't have OEM Windows and you get poor performance, perhaps a corrupted install?
What install media have you used? Did you buy an electronic copy and burn it yourself? or is it store bought copy?
It's unusual for Windows to perform a lot less than Linux (I think due to the state of drivers and DirectX support games will often run far faster on Windows than Linux, but that might only be AMD graphics).
Have you installed the latest drivers for your graphics card? I get perfect video from FRAPs no artefacts, my specs are similar to yours too:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.6 GHz
RAM: 6 GB DDR3
HDD: 500gb 7200 RPM HDD
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD5870

Lucradia
April 21st, 2011, 01:10 PM
If fraps says you don't have OEM Windows and you get poor performance, perhaps a corrupted install?
What install media have you used? Did you buy an electronic copy and burn it yourself? or is it store bought copy?
It's unusual for Windows to perform a lot less than Linux (I think due to the state of drivers and DirectX support games will often run far faster on Windows than Linux, but that might only be AMD graphics).
Have you installed the latest drivers for your graphics card? I get perfect video from FRAPs no artefacts, my specs are similar to yours too:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.6 GHz
RAM: 6 GB DDR3
HDD: 500gb 7200 RPM HDD
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD5870

I had latest NVIDIA Drivers for Windows x64.

It can't be a corrupted install because it's a pre-installed ASUS Build of Windows Home Premium x64, so reinstalling won't help if ASUS' factory install was corrupted.

I would be willing to buy Windows 7 OEM Pro x64, but I'd rather wait until I upgraded my motherboard, as I will be upgrading it in a few months. If I upgrade the motherboard after I buy Windows 7 OEM, I need to buy another Windows 7 OEM, because OEMs are tied to the motherboard.

I should also note my DDR3 ram is 1066. (AMD Phenom IIs can't handle more than 1333 unless you O.C, and I hate overclocking ever since I made my computer infinite loop restart.)

And the artifacts aren't block artifacts, which you'd see on a compressed video. No, I see color artifacts because I have digital vibrance up.