New Game Recording app on Giveawayoftheday today

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 21 Feb 2009, 18:15

Could be another useful tool:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/playclaw/

I haven't heard of it before, but I will test it later and report here.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 22 Feb 2009, 01:42

As a long time game capture enthusiast, I am always eager to try out a new product. However it's not just the product itself but this GiveAwayOfTheDay site that I am VERY skeptical about. First off, they make it sound like they are giving away retail copies of the tool, vs just providing a mirror for the trial version. There's no way any software author in their right mind would allow that. Second, they are trying to convince us you need this so called anti malware tool they have, if nothing else just to prove THEY are adware and malware free.

Then there's even a bit of reason to be skeptical about the tool itself. They are claiming there's "virtually" no slow down even whilst capturing high resource games, but never tell you anything about why that is possible. Then they make it sound like it utilizes modern multi core CPUs to achieve this, but in their support page it clearly states multi cores really only help for the high compression mode, which has nothing to do with a lack of FPS drop while recording high quality video.

Anyone who's used GameCam knows that the quality setting is largely what affects how much a capture tool like this affects FPS in the game you're recording. I can almost without a doubt guarantee you that this tool, depending on how it's set, will perform no better than GameCam or Fraps. In reality, the only ways you can get high quality capture of video games without loss of FPS while playing is via a demo record tool the game has or a built in replay feature, like some racing games have.

You need the game's engine to have a capture feature built in via a console command or replay feature to get efficient, high image quality without FPS drop. About the only thing I can see that makes this tool unique is it's sort of a GameCam/Fraps hybrid. You can capture without compression as per Fraps, or with compression as per GameCam. You can also select image quality as per GameCam.

Ultimately what it comes down to in tools like this is how well they are supported. No one is really reinventing the mouse trap. Many have tried already to do what they're claiming and still only built in recording features utilizing a game's engine can record high quality game video without FPS drop. Thus I still feel it's best to go with tools that have been out a long time that have a lot of game compatibility under their belt.

I may try it anyway though, as I'm always hoping someone will make them more FPS efficient. At $30 though, my guess is Fraps, for a bit more, is the better way to go. They may give GameCam a run for their money though. Their support, despite having a forum, has always been lackluster, and sometimes game compatibility is not so good either.

No matter what support staff you have, it takes a team of dedicated engineers, like Beepa has for Fraps, to really keep on top of things. GameCam has just one very eccentric guy, the software author, whom is also the sole person on the engineering team that is responsible for product fixes, etc. I'd rather have to email Beepa and get knowledgeable, concerned responses, then deal with one guy who's clearly taken on more than he can handle.

Post by **dopefish** » 22 Feb 2009, 02:06

Let me know how it is, Frag, because I'm not trying it. ;)

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 22 Feb 2009, 02:13

Let me know how it is, Frag, because I'm not trying it. ;)

Will do, IF I try it that is. It was a frustrating enough experience using GameCam, and I have a feeling this one will be more of the same if not worse.

I'll add to what I said above for further clarification though. Unless you intend on using a tool slanted more toward convenience than image quality, you won't likely be impressed with anything that has built in adjustability for compression and/or quality.

Once a person becomes adept at video capture and compression, which isn't as hard as some might think, it is PREFERRED to capture full quality uncompressed, then compress WHILST having the option of customizing the end result with your own transitions, effects, etc.

That, in a nutshell, is why so many use Fraps. They have been at making a no compression game capture tool longer than anyone else. If uncompressed video capture could be done any more FPS efficiently, Beepa would have done it by now.

Post by **g00seberry** » 22 Feb 2009, 02:38

Just used it for a bit and it's very good. It doesn't cap the frame rate at whatever you chose to record at and produces very good video. I've found nothing fishy about it at all. I'll prob use this over FRAPS now.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 22 Feb 2009, 03:30

Just used it for a bit and it's very good. It doesn't cap the frame rate at whatever you chose to record at and produces very good video. I've found nothing fishy about it at all. I'll prob use this over FRAPS now.

Did you record uncompressed at max image quality? What games did you try recording and what were the frame rate differences from that of Fraps?

One thing I did like is the pause feature, which they say can keep appending other clips to the same file automatically. I am still skeptical that a capture tool can record with Fraps quality at higher FPS though.

That being said, when you load a Fraps clip into VirtualDub, there are many identical frames. If they could so much as eliminate those, I tend to think there would be noticeably less drain while playing. It is my understanding that those are key frames that are necessary for compression codecs to utilize though, so I'm not sure that is possible.

Cynagen · Post by **Cynagen** » 22 Feb 2009, 06:13

Giving this a test run now, GRiD style... Now you can all watch how much I suck.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 22 Feb 2009, 06:40

Well I gave it a little taste test. First the bad, this is merely a 30 sec limit trial version like the Fraps Demo. There's a big watermark at the top of the clips and you only have BMP as a screenshot format. Another minor nit pick is the bindings can be tricky. For instance I usually use NumberPad Enter for Start/Stop record. This app recognized NumberPad Enter as being the same as Enter, so in any game such as Burnout that has lots of places where you have to hit Enter, you're starting/stopping record if you like to use that key, so obviously I can't.

Now for the good, uncompressed videos seem to look true full image quality, and have just as may key frames as Fraps clips. I've yet to do a side by side visual comparison with Fraps though. Better yet, despite the game initially seeming to play at a lower frame rate than with Fraps while NOT recording, the frame rates while recording are at and at times above what I set the FPS setting to, and better than I got with Fraps.

I can only guess the initial lower FPS while not recording was the app caching and/or an erratic FPS meter. It was often times less than half of what the Fraps meter showed while not recording. However the second time I launched the game and PlayClaw, the FPS while not recording looked similar to that of Fraps, odd.

Unfortunately it is very hard to rate a product such as this on just a 30 sec trial version. There are things to consider other than FPS and game compatibility, like audio/video sync problems. For some time I did not buy Fraps due to having out of sync audio and video (I tired a friend's copy). The lack of sync would get progressively worse, the longer the clip, the bigger the sync problem. Then suddenly due to probably a Fraps update and/or audio driver update for the sound recording device I use, it started recording in sync, so I bought it.

Cynagen · Post by **Cynagen** » 22 Feb 2009, 07:24

Well I gave it a little taste test. First the bad, this is merely a 30 sec limit trial version like the Fraps Demo. There's a big watermark at the top of the clips and you only have BMP as a screenshot format. Another minor nit pick is the bindings can be tricky. For instance I usually use NumberPad Enter for Start/Stop record. This app recognized NumberPad Enter as being the same as Enter, so in any game such as Burnout that has lots of places where you have to hit Enter, you're starting/stopping record if you like to use that key, so obviously I can't.

Now for the good, uncompressed videos seem to look true full image quality, and have just as may key frames as Fraps clips. I've yet to do a side by side visual comparison with Fraps though. Better yet, despite the game initially seeming to play at a lower frame rate than with Fraps while NOT recording, the frame rates while recording are at and at times above what I set the FPS setting to, and better than I got with Fraps.

I can only guess the initial lower FPS while not recording was the app caching and/or an erratic FPS meter. It was often times less than half of what the Fraps meter showed while not recording. However the second time I launched the game and PlayClaw, the FPS while not recording looked similar to that of Fraps, odd.

Unfortunately it is very hard to rate a product such as this on just a 30 sec trial version. There are things to consider other than FPS and game compatibility, like audio/video sync problems. For some time I did not buy Fraps due to having out of sync audio and video (I tired a friend's copy). The lack of sync would get progressively worse, the longer the clip, the bigger the sync problem. Then suddenly due to probably a Fraps update and/or audio driver update for the sound recording device I use, it started recording in sync, so I bought it.

You didn't activate your free copy then, cause there's now less than 3 hours left to activate it for free.

I have a number of gripes with this application, but FRAPS now seems to run a ton better. I couldn't run it at all with GRiD, now I can, at 30fps too. I'll be posting video of my FRAPS capped race. (I think it's the drive I was saving to previously...) Either way PlayClaw was breaking files apart every 2gb or so, and causing me to lose even more frames in game and in the recording, even with dual threads on. Close but no cigar for PlayClaw.

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 22 Feb 2009, 08:32

Well I didn't get to my comments as fast as I'd hoped. PlayClaw performs fairly well for a new app. Image quality is great (customizable based on compression), it ran stable for me, and frequently it maintained higher overall fps than Fraps, though not as good as VirtualDub. Overall I think I'll keep it in my toolbox, as I have yet to find the perfect game recorder, and I can't argue with free.

BTW, GAOTD is a handy site. Often they just have random shareware screensavers or uninteresting apps, but I have picked up a number of cool/useful programs through their site.

@Frag:
You should have the unrestricted version of PlayClaw. If you can't figure out where the install went wrong, send me a PM and I'll try to help.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 22 Feb 2009, 10:35

Ah, my bad, I neglected to follow these instructions, despite having seen them a couple times:

If you have a problem with registration, do following:

1. Download http://www.sytexis.com/bin/cfgeditor.exe
2. Run it - it will open configuration folder. Delete config.txt file
3. Run PlayClaw again.

I now see Registered to: GiveAwayOfTheDay on the app's main page, so it appears the above fix unlocked the full version. Cool, now I can do a full test with it. Thanks for the responses guys, I might have deleted it off my drive had it not been for your prodding me. :wink:

Post by **g00seberry** » 22 Feb 2009, 15:47

I tested it in WoW and TF2 and received better FPS than on FRAPS. I was recording with Uncompressed at 30fps at 1920x1080 with 4 cores. Image quality seems perfect. Have closed fraps and will use this now instead. The pause feature is indeed handy and i prefer the fps counter. Looks less 'old fashioned' :P.
I would use the VirtualDub method as that's no doubt the best way, but even following GeneralAdmission's excellent guide it refuses to play nicely ! Although saying that I haven't tried it on Vista so I might give it another stab!

Post by **Abram** » 22 Feb 2009, 15:54

Damn. I'm such a Fraps whore, and i missed this opportunity.

Oh well.

"Old Fashioned"? Hows about a screenshot?

Post by **g00seberry** » 22 Feb 2009, 16:44

I'm revoking some of my previous comments ! Have used it more now and at 1920 uncompressed/low/high the frame rate of the recording is pretty damn poor. At half res, it's fine. It seems it/my PC can't handle it at such a high resolution.
FRAPS is smoother at full resolution, so for important things i want in '1080p', FRAPS is the better option. For casual recording I think PlayClaw would be good to record at half res with High Compression. You could then share the video straight away as the file size will be pretty low.

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 22 Feb 2009, 18:30

with 4 cores.

Now that I'm running a Triplehead setup I'm aching for a quad-core. Processing all those pixels for recording really punishes my X2.

I would use the VirtualDub method as that's no doubt the best way, but even following GeneralAdmission's excellent guide it refuses to play nicely ! Although saying that I haven't tried it on Vista so I might give it another stab!

I wish I could figure out why it hasn't worked for you. My previous guess was something to do with the ATI card. I'll try to help if I can.

Have used it more now and at 1920 uncompressed/low/high the frame rate of the recording is pretty damn poor. At half res, it's fine. It seems it/my PC can't handle it at such a high resolution.
FRAPS is smoother at full resolution, so for important things i want in '1080p', FRAPS is the better option.

I'm sure the problem is that your hard drive can't keep up with uncompressed video at that resolution:

1920x1080=2073600*24bpp=49766400 bits per frame /8=6220800 bytes per frame /1024 /1024 = 5.93 megabytes per frame *30fps = 177 MBps of sustained throughput.

I don't know of any non-RAID HD that can write data that fast. Fraps records lossless compressed video, thus it saves a huge amount of disk space. Try the Low Compression option with PlayClaw and see how it fairs.

Post by **dopefish** » 22 Feb 2009, 23:24

The reason why Fraps caps the frame-rate is to because it syncs vblank. This will make sure what you record does not having any tearing in it. There are plenty of applications that will record at a specified frame-rate while not slowing down the game at all. However, if the game has any tearing in it, it's going to be captured in the video. This is probably not what you want. You may not notice it at a quick play-through, but when you load it in an editor and step through frame-by-frame, chances are you're going to see some frames with tearing.

I don't see anything replacing Fraps, or in-game methods, any time soon.

If you don't like Fraps capping the game to the specified frame-rate, then record a demo, play the demo back, and have Fraps record that.

Jedediah · Post by **Jedediah** » 23 Feb 2009, 00:18

While cool it sadly has no real support of USB headsets. When you select your headset in the audio output, it only captures noises you make in the headset mic. Fraps does this to.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 23 Feb 2009, 02:15

@eZ,
What problems exactly are you having with VDub? Can you even load the clip into it? Is it playing extremely slowly and/or skipping in the viewer? What is the total file size of clip/clips you are loading into it?

VDub is a very minimalist tool, it WILL bog down with extremely large file sizes. Also, make sure you have the latest version.

@Dopefish,
IMO, the one doing the capture should make sure what goes into the capture app is good in the first place, that includes screen tear. Often times the capping Fraps does lowers the FPS more than a game's built in VSync option. There's also many games that don't exhibit screen tear problems at all. In those games Fraps is lowering FPS for no reason.

Bottom line, I'd rather have the choice of using VSync or not, and have a capture tool capable of allowing you to play at frame rates well above what it's recording at.

That being said, after more thorough testing last night with PlayClaw, I found there's some good and bad about it. I ran repeated tests on the Hawker Burning Route in Burnout Paradise. I decided to go with their recommendations on how to set FPS, lowing it until the first number is pretty much equal to your setting, and the second leveling out at or near zero.

I wound up with a scant 20 FPS, vs the 25 FPS I was using even in several races I recorded with Fraps. Now granted I had higher FPS whilst playing recording with PlayClaw, but even with lots of takedowns going on, the lower FPS using Fraps was not as noticeable as one might think, because it was smooth.

I really only recall one race recording with Fraps going from the hills in the NW to the naval yard in the south that was hard to drive due to lag. It was mainly on the section of road that has a divider where there was lots of traffic and race carnage.

The 20 FPS video I shot not only plays less smoothly due to less frames, it had one big skip in it where I was heading toward a tunnel on a dirt shortcut. There was numerous identical frames recorded about 50 meters before the tunnel, then the next frame I was right at the tunnel entrance. I would guess that it was due to erratic frame rates whilst entering an area that had to suddenly draw lots of new structure into view. The drop in FPS must have resulted in the number of skipped frames approaching the number of captured frames and choked the app.

I have yet to finish up the test by running the same Burning Route with Fraps. I'm going to try a 25 FPS setting and 20 FPS, just to see how they compare. Despite the races having more action in them as well as of course AI to battle speed wise, the Hawker Burning Route with the challenges I included is actually harder to drive. It will likely be a good test of how Fraps feels compared to PlayClaw where the gameplay you are engaged in requires smoothness AND adequate FPS.

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 23 Feb 2009, 02:32

@Frag
Have you taken a look at my VDub recording guide? (link in sig) One of the reasons I like it so much is that games are not locked to the capture framerate. Check out the sample footage to see that some games/levels allow 60, 80, or 100+ fps while capturing 30fps. The more powerful your computer, the higher fps you get for playing and recording. :)

I just discovered another benefit with VDub. Since I can customize the capture area, I can play in Triplehead resolutions but record the center of my screens in a 16:10 resolution, saving me a substantial amount of CPU usage (nearly 50% vs recording all 3 screens).

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 23 Feb 2009, 08:22

Hmmm, I must have missed what was said earlier, because I thought you meant compressing with VDub, which is what I use it for. I always thought the capture feature was only usable with external devices, such as camcorders. Does it capture via software now too, like Fraps, but without the cap?

Anyway, I have finished my Burnout Paradise test shootout between PlayClaw and Fraps. I only tested at 25 FPS each, as that was the best frame rate I could get on that game while recording and any lower is not enough to fairly judge the smoothness of the playback.

Interestingly enough, the Fraps clips were all significantly smaller in file size, just under half that of the PlayClaw clips. The gameplay felt pretty much identically smooth with either app while recording, which was surprising too because PlayClaw is supposed to allow higher gameplay FPS.

My only guess as to why this was is that PlayClaw seems to fluctuate somewhat more in frame rate, perhaps an actual tradeoff of NOT capping to avoid screen tear like Fraps does. It may only apply to mediocre spec like I have though. I'm sure there are many systems that would have had very high frame rates while recording with PlayClaw.

Besides the huge file size difference, the single most significant factor for me was that the playback on the PlayClaw clips is always less smooth than that of the Fraps clips. I see noticeable hitching in many areas, despite the gameplay while recording being relatively smooth. I can't help but think there is something causing this that needs to be fixed, and I really don't see why this app creates such huge file sizes when the image quality on playback is the same as Fraps.

I will post links of the test result videos forthcoming, maybe tomorrow. Even if I wanted to show you the raw capture results though, the PlayClaw ones would be too big for the hosting site I use. I will probably compress them identically at about 5000Kbps, which will still give you a pretty good idea of how they compare.

(EITED)
I read through your VDub guide, seems like a lot to go through just to get a few options I may not even be able to make use of with my current spec. I have a P4 3Ghz CPU, X1950Pro 512MB AGP GPU, and 2GB DDR 400 RAM. Seems to me if I try to compress while capturing, it will bog down the CPU too much. Also, I am fairly limited to the res I capture to, any bigger would likely do the same. I'm also doubting my gameplay FPS will be much higher than the capture FPS with my spec.

I looked at a few of the smaller clips too, the BF 2 one, the TF2 one, and the HL2 one. Of those the HL2 one was the only one that had what looked like acceptable image quality to me, though it's playback was not smooth. I also noticed a thin whitish-gray line at the left and bottom of the screen and the audio ends well before the video.

Your guide is excellent and I'm sure it's useful to many with fairly robust spec, but I'm doubting it will be of use to me until I build a new rig, maybe by year's end.

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