Why is this game so hard to record?

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Wed May 21, 2008 11:29 am

I've used many screen recording programs including fraps, yet none of them give a good image quality on this game, and I wonder why.

I still don't know how you did it fhko to get such a good quality on our last vid.

And yes, I'm interested in making more videos.

morbydvisns · Post by **morbydvisns** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:13 pm

frams always worked just fine here

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Wed May 21, 2008 3:23 pm

you mean fraps? I cant find a frams on google search.

morbydvisns · Post by **morbydvisns** » Wed May 21, 2008 6:23 pm

yea fraps XD

wasnt watching my typeing lol

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Thu May 22, 2008 7:50 am

depends on your computer hardware and its settings more then the game itself.

video recording is quite hardware intensive. especially if you want a good fps in it. an example would be the videos i've made in GTA San Andreas. before i compress them, recording at 30fps and at half my resolution, a 640x512 6min video is close to 4gb (under 20mb once compressed using a different program). so if you want to record a good length or several videos, you need plenty of hard drive space to store them. you also need a good enough cpu and enough ram to not only allow the game to run fine, but to also allow the recording program to view, copy, and save each frame of each second that it is recording.

lazyredhead · Post by **lazyredhead** » Thu May 22, 2008 12:51 pm

zaroba wrote:depends on your computer hardware and its settings more then the game itself.

and we all know how crappy mishka computer is

Gavinbaisk · Post by **Gavinbaisk** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:11 pm

Was there really any need for that?

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:55 pm

wasn't that childish?

*cough* atleast I can run the most high demanding games and am not stuck to TU *cough*

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:58 pm

depends on your computer hardware and its settings more then the game itself.

video recording is quite hardware intensive. especially if you want a good fps in it. an example would be the videos i've made in GTA San Andreas. before i compress them, recording at 30fps and at half my resolution, a 640x512 6min video is close to 4gb (under 20mb once compressed using a different program). so if you want to record a good length or several videos, you need plenty of hard drive space to store them. you also need a good enough cpu and enough ram to not only allow the game to run fine, but to also allow the recording program to view, copy, and save each frame of each second that it is recording.

Well I think I have a settings problem because I can record other games without any problem at all and I don't have to do any funky stuff... I've recorded games which have a really high demanding with no problem, so yeah I think this might be a settings problem. Now what settings those are, I don't know.

Post by **Fooli** » Thu May 22, 2008 2:55 pm

Are you recording the game windowed? If so, you should make sure the window is a standard size (ie 800x600, 1024x768 etc). If you don't it can cause performance & quality issues.

If you're running fullscreen... who knows.

f

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:00 pm

Actually it's worse at full screen.

fhko · Post by **fhko** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:57 pm

Did you try increasing the priority of the recorder program using the task manager (ctrl+alt+delete)? Or maybe decreasing your draw distance to 400 or below (*drawdist 400)? You might also check in the small mode under graphic options to see if there are some effects you can reduce or eliminate some of the advanced stuff.

Roboclad
...and speaking of my mad recording skills

...I have some classic robocrowing footage from claden.

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:58 am

...and speaking of my mad recording skills Very Happy ...I have some classic robocrowing footage from claden.

I can work with that.

Expect a video from me soon! Fhko&Mishka Videos ftw!

Ok back to topic, I never tried the drawdst or the graphic options, it might work.

fhko · Post by **fhko** » Fri May 23, 2008 1:56 pm

Something I just thought about: Assuming you're not planning to record sound while making the video, it could be a slight boost to turn off the game's sound completely by unchecking the 'Sound On' box under audio options while in small mode.

Then again, it may simply be a matter of what you are trying to record. Any time there are a legion of models or weapon effects going on nearby it's almost impossible to maintain a decent frame rate.

-----

If we are going to be making another video anytime soon it should be done within the next week. After that, I'll be starting a job and won't be able to access my normal computer anymore than every other weekend.

Post by **Fooli** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:19 pm

It'd be interesting to know what "high demanding" games you've successfully captured. Compared to anything released in the last few years, TU is about as demanding as a join the dots puzzle. It's possible there's something about our engine which just makes capturing programs unhappy, but then other people seem to do it ok... for any vid work you need a significantly overpowerful PC if you want to run the game at decent settings and do the capturing stuff too. Best way to do it would be to use a camera or another PC, probably :]

All the advice about settings is worth trying though, and you might want to think about the models actually being shown in the vid. For example (and I'm not having a go, it's just an example...) a world made up of zar's nice but very resource intensive stoneage models is going to really struggle cos the polycount's so high, and our engine won't automatically do the level of detail stuff; a space scene where you've imported some uber complex star wars ship with a zillion polys, same problem. Using the standard stuff ought to make life easier if you're not already doing so.
f

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:31 pm

I'm trying out these settings, let's see what I can come up with, hopefully, a vid, on youtube, more advertising.

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Fri May 23, 2008 6:40 pm

Fooli wrote:For example (and I'm not having a go, it's just an example...) a world made up of zar's nice but very resource intensive stoneage models is going to really struggle cos the polycount's so high, and our engine won't automatically do the level of detail stuff

just wait till you see sabrada and ciroz

plan to start working on them again soon.
still have too little desktop space to make it easy though.
but in 2 or 3 weeks that issue should be gone.

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:11 pm

OK I've got the music, I've got the clips, let's get working on this.

New TU video coming soon.

fhko · Post by **fhko** » Sat May 24, 2008 12:56 am

Currently my recorder is set to record a screen area of 500x400, but after fooli's suggestion that we use a standard video size for recording I'm wondering if there is a good size between 640x480 and 320x240 or should I just pick one or the other?

morbydvisns · Post by **morbydvisns** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:12 am

using 'factory settings' in a freshly installed fraps, looks the same as what i see ingame.