5 replies to this topic

[TheStrider]

Hi, I've been trying to come up with a method to capture videos locally of my games.

I don't have the bandwidth to stream, so I figured a local recording then uploading to YouTube.

Background:

• i7 3700k running at 4.0GHz
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• AMD R9 390
  
• Game running on an SSD
  
• Recording to a 7200RPM drive
  
• Game Resolution: 1920x1200
  
• Secondary Display: 1600x1200

In game Settings:
All set to Very High, running MSAA. Particles, shadows and Post Processing at Medium.

I've tried OBS, but I can't seem to get reliable frame rate out of it. My knowledge of all the settings is not up to snuff, so I've been trying to find a recommended set of settings.

Originally I just tried x264 with a resolution downscale of 1.5 (1280x800) at 60FPS. Sometimes I'd get a few decent recordings, but seemed to just get worse over time. I tired the AMD VCE, but that didn't do anything for me.

Do I have enough hardware to reliably record? I tried downgrading my in game graphics, but it didn't seem to do anything.



Guess I'm just looking for some help from fellow AMD recorder types.

[Wonderdog]

Try:-

• FRAPS (free demo version available so you can assess performance before paying the $30 or whatever).
  
• If you're running Windows 10, there is a built in game recording function (basically FRAPS) which I hear is pretty good and which uses your Intel CPU's h.264 encoding accelerator to minimise performance hit - though haven't tried it myself
  
• Finally (and I admit, not a particularly economical option) but if you go NVIDIA for your next GPU the inbuilt shadowplay functionality is incredible - no performance hit, can record or stream the footage direct to twitch effortlessly.

#Wonderdog

Edited by Wonderdog, 25 February 2016 - 03:01 AM.

[MaxFool]

With AMD card you can always try AMD Gaming Evolved for video capturing. It's what I use (and I have R9 R390 too), performance hit is not noticeable. It doesn't work very reliably though. In general it's not considered to be a good solution, but for me right now it's just good enough.

Edited by MaxFool, 25 February 2016 - 03:52 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Yep. Win 10 has a built in recording system from the xbox console, IIRC. Failing that, AMD's Gaming Evolved is an imitation of the nVidia geForce Experience software, and comes with a built in recorder. If it is anything like Shadowplay, it is buggy but won't adversely impact your gameplay. It instead caches 15-20 minutes of footage that you can then choose to save after the fact. Being able to record after the a game makes recording games so much easier.

[MaxFool]

AMD GE, when it works, allows capturing maximum 4.35 GB of cached footage. For me that's 14 minutes of 1080p at 30fps and 5Mb/s bitrate. You can fiddle with the setting which all of course affect on how long that 4.35GB lasts. You can also make it just record all sessions. Both of those options are however quite unreliable, it's pure luck if it captures the footage or not.

That's why I like to use manual selection for capturing (press a hotkey to start, press again to stop), simply because then you can see when it actually records and therefore works. Usually if it doesn't want to record, I'll just deactivate it, activate it again, and it starts working. Can't do that stuff if you try to capture the cached footage or if it records all sessions automatically, if you use those you'll see if it works only after the fact.

[TheStrider]

Yeh, I've tried FRAPS and it just seems to crash too often to be of use. I'm running Windows 7.