Recording DayZ - Getting Started

[jrhesketh@gmail.com 1]

Hi all,

I'm wanting to get started recording DayZ videos so I can look at starting my own small YouTube series, and other Let's Play videos, but I don't know what software to use. Whichever I use, it's important that it can capture multiple audio streams, i.e:

• The game (inc. in-game voices)
  
• 3rd party voices like TeamSpeak/Skype
  
• My own voice for commentary
  

I've used FRAPS previously, but the FPS drop is devilish and so is the raw output file size. I have a secondary HDD to record onto with 750gb to spare, but 6 minutes of full-size 1920x1080 gameplay recording at 60fps took up 46gb. Also, the actual video file it has output seems to play at around 20fps (very noticeable) even though in-game whilst recording the counter was 45fps and running smoothly.

I've given bandicam a quick try, but couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get it to record by 'clicking the target window'.

I've given DxTory a quick try, but the settings are so complex? I took a quick video and it was very smooth whilst recording, but it only captured in-game sound and von, not my own microphone.

Which program would you recommend, that would do what I need it to do, and why would you choose it over any other program? Just replying with your preferred program's name isn't too helpful.

I need to rush off to work now so I'm hoping this thread can get some replies through the day and give me something to work with tomorrow morning.

My next question would be compression/editing software, but until I can get some decent footage recorded that's not my main concern.

For your information, my PC specs are as follows:

CPU: Intel i5-3570k OC'd to 4.4gHz

RAM: 8gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz

GPU: ATI Radeon HD7870 2GB GDDR5 Sapphire OC'd

SSD: Corsair ForceGT 120GB

HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200rpm

Headset: Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000

I play the game at mostly medium-low settings to maintain good frames.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[dgeesio 1034]

why you play at med to low ? your rig can handle at very high/ high settings

use fraps to record or msi after burner

then youll need editing software if not much money there are free progs like wmm , but alot of people will use the cheaper version of sony vegas (20-30 quid )

alot will encode to mp4 as it is still pretty decent quality for lowish amount of data to upload

good luck ;)

video files can be very big aswell i do 1-2 hrs of solid recording when playing can be 200 gig in size ! so maybe get another hard drive or just remember to stop in between recordings.

dont try to copy others do your own thing.

Edited November 26, 2012 by dgeesio

[knifely 34]

The program i use is probably by no means professional. I just started using razers game booster, its a game optimization software that happens to have a record function.

Its enough for what i use it for, us im a razer fanboy...

[4L4N 276]

at 60fps took up 46gb. Also, the actual video file it has output seems to play at around 20fps (very noticeable) even though in-game whilst recording the counter was 45fps and running smoothly.

Did you try rendering it first ?

If your watching a 6min vid with a file size of 46GB then it could most likely be way too much bandwidth for the HDD to put out smoothly so it will look choppy and laggy. But once renderd to a more acceptable file size the playback will be smooth.

Some tips -

For DayZ unless you wanna do slow mo action scenes then just record at 30fps and then render at 30fps. Youtube prefers 30fps vids anyway.

I do half size res in fraps and then just upscale to 720 in whatever editing software im using ( usually Sony Vegas ) Takes longer to render when upscaling but saves on HDD space.

If you want actual 1080 raw footage though then file size is gonna be an issue.

There is ofc other programs out there that compress the file size as it's recording, but that can take up quite a bit of CPU power so you may experience loss of FPS or some choppiness ingame while recording.

I've tried other programs too, DxTory, Bandicam, I just can't get on with them either.

Only other decent one I used before besides fraps was MSI Afterburner Beta. Hardly any loss of ingame FPS and small file size for the raw footage, but irc that too had problems with the audio side when picking up multiple sources.

[jrhesketh@gmail.com 1]

Thanks for your replies so far guys.

4L4N, I didn't render it no so this is probably the issue, in which case Fraps is very easy to use and does what I want it to do. When I get home Ill try recording at 30fps.

I don't know about rendering up or down, all I know is I want 1080p option for my videos available when viewed on YouTube. Can halfsize accomodate that? Will this significantly reduce the size of raw recordings?

Lastly, what editing software would you recommend? Thanks very much.

-------

UPDATE:

I've done some fiddling around, increased my DayZ settings and seem to be recording fine in FRAPS set to record at 30fps Full-size. In-game I'm 72fps pre-record, and anywhere between 30fps (sometimes judders) but mostly 60fps whilst recording. The 4 min raw output file is 10gb and plays flawlessly.

What program(s) should I use for rendering/coding/editing? And do you render THEN edit, or edit raw and then render the whole thing? I see a lot of people mentioning Sony Vegas..

Edited November 27, 2012 by Heskey

[Hetstaine 10852]

This would be a good thread to keep alive if enough people jump in with tips and tweaks for us noobs :)

I have just started mucking around , not ready to show the world my first clip yet..don't want anyone thinking i am 7 and tripped over fraps whilst drunk then uploaded something i thought was epic ;)

Tried bandicam but i cannot get it to record comms and in game sound at the same time so i am hesitant to buy the full version. Fraps can be a bit of a hog (for me) plus big file size , in firefights , explosions etc Fraps dips too much.

i5 @ 3.8ghz , gtx560ti , win7 32 4gb ram. 2 TB hdd space. Yeh i know, i need to upgrade.

Have been mucking around with MSI ..all this time and i never knew it had a record function..derp. Definitely does not dip like Fraps does in eye candy situations but struggles with sound, last night recording and i had no sound at all in playback . Have just downloaded the latest beta to see if that fixes it. Smaller file size than Fraps and seems to compress well (using cyber link power producer U11 ) or even Movie maker to compress, still trying to find a good compression tool/settings.

edit : just downloaded Razer to see how the recording side of it is.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Hetstaine

[jrhesketh@gmail.com 1]

Have been mucking around with MSI ..all this time and i never knew it had a record function..derp. Definitely does not dip like Fraps does in eye candy situations but struggles with sound, last night recording and i had no sound at all in playback . Have just downloaded the latest beta to see if that fixes it. Smaller file size than Fraps and seems to compress well (using cyber link power producer U11 ) or even Movie maker to compress, still trying to find a good compression tool/settings.

As far as I'm aware, MSI is only really good for music videos due to problems recording audio. In any case, it's my understanding that it will only record one audio stream, i.e. either in-game sound, or your microphone only. Not fit for my requirements at least.

[excelsior 20]

MSI Afterburner followed by Handbrake afterwards.

[jrhesketh@gmail.com 1]

MSI Afterburner followed by Handbrake afterwards.

You've not read my post. MSI Afterburner can't record multiple sound channels.

[Azrail (DayZ) 211]

here is what i use:

dxtory

it will still eat your harddisk alive depending on the codec you use, so make sure you have plenty GB free (80GB for 1 hour for me), according to the length of your footage, but it allows for best recording quality there is.

it has a ton of features you don't get with fraps, like recording from multiple audio sources, writing two multiple disks at once to maximize recording fps, support for 3rd party codecs, etc.... and i think its even cheaper then fraps, while still being updated.

edit: the settings are complex, but nothing you won't get to work within a reasonable time. especially setting up multiple audio channels is actually straight forward and self explanatory.

if i can do that...

and if you have additional sound apps running, like skype or media player you don't want to record, use virtual audio cable, its freeware i think.

edit 2: reading your post once again, more carefully, it appears you actually have to use virtual audio cable. because you can't seperate the sound output from multiple apps otherwise,

unless you use multiple soundcards which may cause trouble. i had the same problem when i started recording games, so this tool was a blessing.

virtual audio cable will allow you to set up virtual soundcards.

i use 4 virtual cards,

set one as default, to play game and windows sound on.

one for teamspeak, skype

one for media player

all three soundcards i will obviously route to output on speaker.

now to record only game + ts + mic, i route those to the 4th soundcard i set in dxtory to record from.

of if i'd want them to be seperate channels on the output file, i could create two more soundcards and set all three to record from seperately in dxtory,

this allows to manually fix mic static or cut out that annoying burp.

hope this helps, if you need further assistance send a pm.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Azrail

[leemo1984@googlemail.com 51]

A fantastic program that I don't hear many people mention is Action! by Mirillis.

I've just upgraded to the newest version, and it's fantastic.

It used to record in .fic format, which was sketchy at best (It allows export and conversion etc) but the recent versions have switched to MP4 I believe.

It's a pretty rock solid program with lots of customisability.

As for sound recording, I've used it with in game sounds, my mic and Teamspeak/Skype and it's all come out fine. The only one it seems to have a problem with is Steam chat. For some reason it stops recording all other sound when that's put into the mix.

Other than that I highly recommend it. I've tried Fraps and DXtory but didn't like either of them... Action! is the way to go!

In the edit, I do pretty much everything in Cyberlink Power director 9. It's a little out dated but it does more than just the basics and is really easy to get your head around!

[jrhesketh@gmail.com 1]

I've recorded two sessions with FRAPS now and the output quality is superb but I'm really not happy with how it seems to limit my in-game framerate to 30fps when I play normally at 80+fps. It's kind of making me not enjoy the prospect of filming, because I have to play a really choppy game (with poor accuracy etc) in order to get good footage. And who wants to see high quality footage of someone who can't aim because of how laggy their game is that they're constantly getting killed?

I've tried some of these alternatives and not got them to work properly. With so many people suggesting so many different programs each, I'm really struggling to find a high quality non-performance-hitting multi-audio channel enabled video recorder...

Please help! =[

[daem101 0]

I originally used Fraps but found my recording to be too dark, plus the framerate/filesize issue. Switched to Bandicam which is fine, however I can't get my mic to boost to an ideal level and if I accidentally close arma2oa.exe before I stop recording, the file often become corrupt, even though it has a 'fix' function.

[Shakis 33]

PlayClaw is quite easy to use, recording at 1600x1200, 25fps saving as mjpeg and 1 compression thread allows for 2 audio channels so you can have in game in your mic at the same time. 10 min video ~6GB (5,999,813KB). Dunno if those are the settings you would use but there is another option for you.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Shakis

[SmashT 10907]

I rate Dxtory the best (with the lagarith lossless codec), awesome quality and minimal FPS hit - also has multi-channel audio options.

Fraps is great if you have a beast PC, best quality (large filesize) but the FPS hit is pretty bad.

MSI Afterburner is the best free option imo since there are no watermarks etc.

Edited February 10, 2013 by smasht_AU

[maui.arupa@gmail.com 16]

For editing, some big names would be Sony Vegas, Final Cut, Premiere, etc... I'm used to Premiere although I started learning with a Casablanca bench ^^