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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 4th Jun 2019 at 11:56 PM
Default Tips to record game play?
I'd like to record sims 3 under different conditions to easily compare the effects. I'd also like it to look as much as possible what it does look like to me IRL - not better nor worse.
Any suggestions for the software and the format?
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 12:02 AM
I've always used Fraps, it produces giant files and it impacts your performance somewhat but the recordings are virtually uncompressed and couldn't look more like you'd want them to.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#4 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 1:54 PM
Alright, Fraps does capture it perfectly aside from not recording desktop. I can only start recording when in game, I want to record my desktop. Yes, also got a performance hit. Normally get 60fps but while fraps is recording it is around 30-40 thus not giving me really authentic footage of the true gameplay.

I tried open broadcaster. It can record desktop too, but it does that thing where the game looks very dark and it doesn't capture reshade.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 2:00 PM
Yeah, OBS is a big bummer in that regard. I can't use it for more reasons than mentioned here, which is a real shame because it's a good tool.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#6 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 2:24 PM
Does anybody know why TS3 does that dark screenshot/video thing? And why is fraps still able to fix that?
Mad Poster
#7 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 2:58 PM
Pretty sure Fraps hooks into the game executable and uses the frame buffer or some technical crap like that, whereas OBS simply screen-captures the window. What OBS essentially does is the next best thing to pointing a camcorder at your screen and recording the whole thing like that, whereas Fraps draws from the output of the GPU......I think.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#8 Old 5th Jun 2019 at 7:21 PM Last edited by Giga : 5th Jun 2019 at 8:04 PM.
I wish I could force OBS to whatever fraps is doing.

edit: I do have a problem with fraps too. It blows out reshade settings. e.g. the UI looks washed out in fraps recording. IRL it looks fine.
Nevermind, it forgot tick lossless RGB
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#10 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 12:02 AM
Sims 3 looks dark with OBS in both, game or display capture but there is very little FPS loss. I also tried with different color formats. Do I need to get an external program to adjust the gamma correction?
I also tried Bandicam, same issue: dark. I have also tried it with different codecs
I do not have the option to check the "monitor AERO desktop" in fraps: https://imgur.com/Q4Dyb10
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#12 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 12:49 AM Last edited by Giga : 6th Jun 2019 at 1:20 AM.
I don't have that option https://imgur.com/hyyXFlA
I found something through the filters but then realised that my desktop is also going to be blown out
Yes, I got the free version of fraps. Is it still possible to buy it? There is just a link to a paypal and the last update was in 2013/

edit: The color correction filter where I found the gamma slider does it make it a little bit better but still not the same as it should look.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 1:53 AM
Don't even bother to run OBS with gamma correction if you want the best picture quality.....the way OBS records it, you're losing a lot of detail and nothing can bring it back. Trust me I've tried it all.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#15 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 12:35 PM
Whereabouts I can set it to be uncompressed? This what the settings look like
https://imgur.com/jdeWztZ
https://imgur.com/6LOAD6N
https://imgur.com/SL5R0al
So is that youtube video in uncompressed format with gamma set to 1.3? When I try to record and apply gamma it makes the UI and colors off
Mad Poster
#17 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 2:04 PM
Yeah that doesn't actually look half bad for an unembellished gameplay video. If you're running a vanilla game and you don't intend to do anything particularly visual I can imagine it's perfectly satisfying in terms of image quality and color depth.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#18 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 4:29 PM
I don't get how did you manage to fix the darkness issue with the gamma slider. I put it to 1.3 as well and it looked horrible.
So here it is what it is supposed to look like: https://imgur.com/CSjNy4g
here it is what it looks like without gamma played on VLC https://imgur.com/bsdHEb4
here with gamma: https://imgur.com/CcDSC4i see where the moodlets are, how the UI looks bad

Could it be that VLC player it making it look worse? as when I try to fix gamma & brightness in OBS preview window the UI doesn't get that look
edit: here us what the preview in OBS looks like in full window: https://imgur.com/raxqjEp
Mad Poster
#20 Old 6th Jun 2019 at 11:17 PM
The preview is a bit blown out while the gamma corrected one has a more compressed range. The whites aren't a very nice white, the blacks aren't a very nice black, and that means everything in between is going to be a little bit off. I'm also seeing some weird pixel issues that look like an unconventional type of dithering or interlacing. Either way, it'd bug me enough to rerecord the whole thing into the awkwardly large files Fraps puts out. I throw away enough money to be able to do Bridgeport'88 and other videos already, so an extra hard drive wouldn't hurt much. I think you can get 10 terabytes for under €250 nowadays, that'll get you about 4 full DAYS' worth of uncompressed QHD footage.

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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#21 Old 7th Jun 2019 at 12:18 AM
I need to set up VLC for gamma? I have never fiddled with any VLC settings. Btw, which program did you use to process your vid and which format? maybe vcl will then show the video correctly.
I'm talking about these bits and they're bothering me, maybe they don't show as much in the pictures uploaded on imgur but IRL it looks bad. I tried with 1.3 gamma and yes it was too much. those pics here are taken with gamma 0.82 and contrast 0.17 and it looks pretty good in the OBS preview window but then again bad in actual recoding viewed with vlc



Pi, Do you see that unconventional type of dithering or interlacing issue in all pics? my reshade settings are far from perfect so i wouldn't be surprised
Also I have you managed to play sims in windowed mode without reshade making everything blurry? If I put sims in windowed I have to turn off all my shaders.
I'd use fraps but I get a hit in FPS and it gets choppy. Also towards the end of the recording, the audio becomes really bad

edit: god dammit I managed to misspell every word in the pic
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#23 Old 7th Jun 2019 at 2:18 AM Last edited by Giga : 7th Jun 2019 at 2:33 AM.
I tested the vid with media player and I got the same thing.
My bit rate was set 280000 when recording that, if I increase it, I get an error "Starting the output failed"

Yes, I'm using Nvidia NVENC new because it is supposed to be the superior one. I think I tried with x264 but i'll try again. Yes, the quality stayed the same but I also got performance issues. However, I finally found an uncompressed format. That doesn't seem to look any better though: https://i.imgur.com/l6M3OrK.jpg

There is no option to not choose a downscale filter I think. Best of the 3 options is the Lanczos
Edit; okay I changed into RGB and now the preview pic and the video matches (in VLC, media player won't play the vids anymore). At least I think so.

Thank you :D
Test Subject
#24 Old 31st Dec 2020 at 1:16 PM
Heyho!

I´m going to be recording a lot of video ingame.
The desired quality is very high, 1920x1080 30fps uncompressed, which gives a data rate of ~180MB/s!
So I will obviously need another drive in the Terabyte range, and use it with a command line workaround to store files on another drive.

Does anyone have experience shooting video on classical HDD? They are not fast enough, but maybe there is hope the files are stored in RAM to compensate?
Mad Poster
#25 Old 31st Dec 2020 at 5:23 PM
My 5TB external HDDs have no trouble at all keeping up, they're fast enough. Tiny little 2.5" things. Paid €130 for each a few years ago.

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