Post subject: Is it possible to do TAS-like video encoding for PC games?
Joined: 1/5/2011
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So I was wondering if there's any programs out there to do recording of PC game footage, but halts the game until the next frame is recorded and dump. Audio is not a priority, but I'd like every single frame to be dumped. I don't care about lag while recording as bad as it can be(it's a replay I mean so no input is required), I'd just like to not miss any frames regardless of how bad my hardware is at recording in real time. I've heard of Hourglass but it seems it's not designed yet for most modern 3D games so that's a no-go I guess(got some bad graphical glitches when using it, but it's fair, it's not designed for it, still an impressive tool tho). The point is I'd just like to get some pretty smooth 60 FPS footage stitched together, and audio recording isn't important at all since it'll end up overwritten anyway. I doubt this is really feasible given that any game might handle timing however they please, but since I've seen programs that can apply manual FPS caps I was wondering if it would work as well. If the only solution is to just throw more hardware in and just do real time recording I understand. : P Thanks in advance.
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kkapture does that, more or less.
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Neat program, but it seems it has some problems when closing down fullscreen applications and then the output video gets invalid. I'm currently trying out this guide tho using VirtualDub and a fair share of other software. Looks promising, a friend said he had really good results with it. Thanks for the help tho! http://www.genadmission.com/vdubguide.html
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Dario_ff wrote:
Neat program, but it seems it has some problems when closing down fullscreen applications and then the output video gets invalid. I'm currently trying out this guide tho using VirtualDub and a fair share of other software. Looks promising, a friend said he had really good results with it. Thanks for the help tho! http://www.genadmission.com/vdubguide.html
That doesn't do anything to help out with the problem under discussion, though. You can record at a different framerate than the game plays, but you can't slow anything down. If you want to do real time capture of a modern 3d game, dxtory is probably your best bet (well, its dshow capture pin, anyway; dunno about the rest of the app).
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natt wrote:
That doesn't do anything to help out with the problem under discussion, though. You can record at a different framerate than the game plays, but you can't slow anything down.
Yeah it doesn't, the recommendation was bad because the user just happened to have good hardware. It kinda misses the point of what I was asking, so sorry. I'll keep using KKapture, I just need to figure something out with it and I'm all good. Thanks for the help!
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Actually, I'd kind of like to find something to encode PC games myself, as I plan on making a Let's Play of Baldur's Gate.
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I agree with natt's recommendation of dxtory.
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FionordeQuester wrote:
Actually, I'd kind of like to find something to encode PC games myself, as I plan on making a Let's Play of Baldur's Gate.
In your case, get FRAPS, then run the dumps through SpeedDemosArchive's Anri-Chan tool, produce only the HQ or IQ quality and upload that on whatever video hosting service you like.
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FRAPS' output is .avi. It would give better quality just using AviSynth and x264.
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Warepire wrote:
In your case, get FRAPS, then run the dumps through SpeedDemosArchive's Anri-Chan tool, produce only the HQ or IQ quality and upload that on whatever video hosting service you like.
uck. why?
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ThatGugaWhoPlay wrote:
FRAPS' output is .avi. It would give better quality just using AviSynth and x264.
When AviSynth can capture a game, let me know.
natt wrote:
Warepire wrote:
In your case, get FRAPS, then run the dumps through SpeedDemosArchive's Anri-Chan tool, produce only the HQ or IQ quality and upload that on whatever video hosting service you like.
uck. why?
He is planning on making a lets play on a game that does not have replay files and isn't runnable in Hourglass, FRAPS captures games quite well, and that Anri-Chan program already handles FRAPS avi's pretty well. The HQ / IQ qualities look pretty good when uploaded on YT as well. And overall, it is a simple solution.
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Warepire wrote:
ThatGugaWhoPlay wrote:
FRAPS' output is .avi. It would give better quality just using AviSynth and x264.
When AviSynth can capture a game, let me know.
You don't seem to be understanding what he's saying at all, or what AviSynth is and does. You have a FRAPS AVI capture, you want to make a final encode of it. Load it into AviSynth with one of the Source() commands, make whatever modifications you want to it, and then feed that to x264. It's a perfectly acceptable processing system. (Hell, what do you think your beloved Anri-Chan does? All it is is a bunch of wrappers and scripts on top of AviSynth)
Warepire wrote:
He is planning on making a lets play on a game that does not have replay files and isn't runnable in Hourglass, FRAPS captures games quite well, and that Anri-Chan program already handles FRAPS avi's pretty well. The HQ / IQ qualities look pretty good when uploaded on YT as well. And overall, it is a simple solution.
Anri-Chan is not simple. Something like megui is simple.
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natt wrote:
Warepire wrote:
ThatGugaWhoPlay wrote:
FRAPS' output is .avi. It would give better quality just using AviSynth and x264.
When AviSynth can capture a game, let me know.
You don't seem to be understanding what he's saying at all, or what AviSynth is and does. You have a FRAPS AVI capture, you want to make a final encode of it. Load it into AviSynth with one of the Source() commands, make whatever modifications you want to it, and then feed that to x264. It's a perfectly acceptable processing system. (Hell, what do you think your beloved Anri-Chan does? All it is is a bunch of wrappers and scripts on top of AviSynth)
I know exactly what Anri-Chan does and what programs it is wrapping up. And not everyone has English as a first language you know, I interpreted ThatGugaWhoPlay's comment as him meaning that you should skip FRAPS and use AviSynth directly to capture.
natt wrote:
Warepire wrote:
He is planning on making a lets play on a game that does not have replay files and isn't runnable in Hourglass, FRAPS captures games quite well, and that Anri-Chan program already handles FRAPS avi's pretty well. The HQ / IQ qualities look pretty good when uploaded on YT as well. And overall, it is a simple solution.
Anri-Chan is not simple. Something like megui is simple.
I thought Anri-Chan was really simple to use when I opened it for the first time, I didn't have to guess once. Never used megui but it looks even simpler from the screenshots I found, megui would probably be a better suggestion.
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About your problem with .kkapture, maybe if you use the right ctrl key to end the capture instead. It may work. What the right ctrl key does is tell .kkapture to shut down and force terminate the application it is capturing and then close capture file gracefully. You would need to alt-tab to another windows first before pressing the right ctrl key as .kkapture only recognizes it then.
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Hey, you know guys, to be fair, I also misinterpreted ThatGugaWhoPlay's comment in the exact same way that Warepire did, that is, skipping FRAPS and using AVISynth to somehow capture video (as opposed to using FRAPS to record, then dumping it into AVISynth). In any case, I thank BOTH of you guys so much for your help! I'll try to make this LP real good once I get around to it!