Tips for recording gameplay?

[Xernicus]

Heya,

I've been wanting now to make a few let's play/let's build videos of some of my favourite games, and I have the hardware to do it (powerful enough GPU, CPU, and a 2nd HDD with enough space).

Recording the dual audio (mic and in-game), as well as video does not pose a problem... but the filesizes do.

I use DXTory to record my gameplay, and it's a great app. But I've found that it eats up like 80 gigs for maybe 20-30 minutes of video. I'd be fine with that... except I can't do anything with it besides watch it myself. So I was wondering if ya'll had any tips or codec suggestions to cut this filesize down. I am recording in 720p, at 30fps- so there's no reason for 80 gigs of video.

I've tried re-muxing the output (it's AVI), and compressing it, and I ended up with a black video with only the sound of the game. Kinda depressing, though the file size was more on target at 500mb.

[Sponkala]

What videocard do you have? With Nvidia you get shadowplay that has little to no performance hit and makes reasonably small files, that is if you got an geforce ofcourse

[SiD]

That sounds a little high for 20-30mins of video.

 

I have no info on dxtory.

 

Might help:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pQcx7w2du4

 

 

 

Personally I use D3Dgear for recording. Out of everything I've used and "tested" it's been really great. Average filesize for 20-30mins while running 1080p is probably 2-3gb at most. I also then use standard windows video editor and further reduce the filesizes. On average I try to keep youtube videos about 15-20mins in length and usually have about 800mb-1.4gb file sizes for uploading.

[BadRonald]

If you're wanting to make a movie from ET, the best way is to take a demo. When you are done, render the demo into frames using the /cl_avidemo command. From there, import the frames into your favorite video editor and use whatever filters (gamma always, and usually sharpen) to make it the way you want it, then compress it into an .avi (we used to use divx, then xvid; I think H.264 is the best one available now).

 

The benefit to doing it this way is that regardless of your in-game settings, when you use the cl_avidemo command during a demo you can change the settings so everything looks really nice; since it doesn't have to happen in "real time" like when you are gaming, your machine can take it's time in rendering each frame with the best graphics that you desire. You can also do things like turn off the HUD or draw the gun and such.

 

Anyway, that's the gist of it, you should be able to flesh out more details as you get going, it really isn't all that complicated once you go through it.

 

Here are a couple of links with some additional/same information, you should probably be able to find some other links with more/better information:

 

http://www.freewebs.com/tehsodclan/cmdcvarlist.htm (it's towards the bottom under "Rtcw movie making guide"

http://www.rydeath.com/movietut/ (very dated, but might give you some ideas)

[ValmirTheGamer]

To reduce filesizes (well what i do) get VirtualDub and get x246vfw codec. You don't lose that much quality (at least i didn't) Once i got a 10 gig video and compressed it to about 300 mb... its really good.. and say you want to upload it to youtube or somethin, you can uncompress it for best quality, upload it, then once uploaded, compress it again to save as a smaller file. Thats what i do and it works pretty good

[Xernicus]

Heya, thanks all for the quick replies. I'll be sure to give y'all a shoutout when I get this video I'm making done.

I didn't really go into much detail, so here's essentially what I'm trying to do:

Record gameplay through dxtory, using a hook. This is not desktop recording, rather it is reading off of the information going to my GPU. The games I am looking to record right now are:

1. Payday 2
2. Minecraft
3. Thief
4. Saints Row IV
5. Maaaaybe Burnout Paradise, because f--k it, it's fun.

You might wonder why I am wanting to use dxtory?

First of all, I paid for the goddamn program. Second of all, it was exactly cheap. Third, I paid for it. OK, you get the idea. No but really, I can use any codec I want, with any bitrate, etc. It's like FRAPS on steroids. But really I'm frustrated right now and ranting. I am completely open to other options, and I will try every program suggested (I have around 2.1tb free space, let's give these HDDs a stress test!)

 

Here are the programs I have available to me:

-I tried last night Freemake Video Converter because I couldn't find my professional software. That's what gave me the sh!t not-so-video.

-Handbrake doesn't even want anything to do with AVI files, claiming that I need to "scan it first" (Well what in the hell did I just spend 5 minutes doing then, you dumba** waste of code?)

-Sony Vegas Pro - on my primary desktop PC

-Final Cut Studio 2 - dual 2.0 PowerMac G5 (my first and favorite to this day professional desktop)

-I have a newer version of FCP on my MacBook, but it's currently missing a hard drive, and the inverter board is going bad.

Ohhhhh P.S. If these videos get enough hits on YT to enable monitization, I will give 50% of all monthly profit to FA. So let's make this count! Let's revitalize the FA YouTube channel, and make it on the same level as the now-famous "videogames" channel.

[ValmirTheGamer]

 

Ohhhhh P.S. If these videos get enough hits on YT to enable monitization, I will give 50% of all monthly profit to FA. So let's make this count! Let's revitalize the FA YouTube channel, and make it on the same level as the now-famous "videogames" channel.

DO NOT ENABLE YOUTUBE MONITIZATION!!! Get a Machinima or a different gaming contract.. Youtube will screw you over in a second with the copyright on the games... Just to make sure you know..

[SiD]

DO NOT ENABLE YOUTUBE MONITIZATION!!! Get a Machinima or a different gaming contract.. Youtube will screw you over in a second with the copyright on the games... Just to make sure you know..

 

Not true.

 

Learn the system and you'll be fine. I'm monetized on most of my vids. No contracts.

 

Machinima can suck my balls.

Edited July 7, 2014 by SiD

[MaKy]

To reduce filesizes (well what i do) get VirtualDub and get x246vfw codec. You don't lose that much quality (at least i didn't) Once i got a 10 gig video and compressed it to about 300 mb... its really good.. and say you want to upload it to youtube or somethin, you can uncompress it for best quality, upload it, then once uploaded, compress it again to save as a smaller file. Thats what i do and it works pretty good

 

This ^^ Worked well for W.T as well.