How To Capture Video On Your PC Part 3

This is part 3 of my hub series tutorial on how to capture video from your PC. In part 1, I went over how to locate, verify, and install the latest updated graphics drivers onto your PC. In part 2, I explained how to choose, download, install, and configure video capture software- specifically Fraps. In part 3, I'm going to wrap up the tutorial by showing you how to create the optimal capturing conditions as well as how to conduct a test run before undergoing any meaningful recordings. These two tasks comprise steps 4 and 5 of this tutorial:

Step 4: Create optimal capturing conditions by freeing up excess processing power and ram.

Step 5: Conduct a test run and observe the results.

How To Capture Video On Your PC Part 1

How To Capture Video On Your PC Part 2

Run The System Configuration Utility

The easiest way to do this is by using the windows utility Msconfig. To open Msconfig, simply navigate to your start menu and enter "Msconfig" into the search bar at the bottom and hit enter. With this tool, you can go through all of the programs that are opened when you start up your computer.  Many of these program are extraneous and can be disable to free up more processing power and ram. Of course you'll want to avoid closing any programs that are related to video and sound processing.

Double Check What Each Process Before You Choose To Disable It

When you want to disable a program, you need to make sure that it's a non-essential program. To check the origin and function of each process, you can visit this site: www.processlibrary.com. ProcessLibrary.com is a great site that offers an index of almost all of the programs you could ever run on your computer. 99.9% of all programs are listed in the process library. In the rare case that the program in question isn't found in the process library, you could discover its function through a google search.

Disable Non-Essential Programs

Once you've identified all of the non-essential programs running on your computer, go through and disable each of them one by one. You can do this by unchecking them in the startup tab of the msconfig menu.

Apply The Above Steps To Disable Non-Essential Services

You should also use Msconfig to disable the non-essential services running on your computer. To do this, go through all of the entries on the services tab of your Msconfig menu. Choose the entries you'd like to disable and look them up on www.processlibrary.com. Once you've identified the non-essential ones, disable them by unchecking them on the services tab of the Msconfig menu.

Once you've freed up excess memory and processing power, you're going to want to conduct a test recording to make sure everything is working correctly.

Open Fraps

The first thing you want to do is open up Fraps. Once you've done this, make sure that all of your settings are optimized and that your save location is where you want it to be.

Open The Game You Want To Record

Open up the game you want to record and make sure that all of your video settings are set to provide a smooth gaming experience. You don't want to turn all of your video settings up all the way unless you know that your computer can handle the extra load. When you're recording, you might want to set your video settings 1 notch below where you would normally have them. This will help compensate for the extra processing load which will be applied during the recording process. Don't worry too much about your video settings since you will likely be compressing the final recording if you want to upload it to youtube or any other video site. The most important thing is to create a smooth recording that doesn't skip or stutter.

Start Playing The Game And Press The Video Capture Hotkey

The last step is an easy one. Simply press the video capture hotkey to begin recording. Remember, we set the video hotkey earlier when we were setting up Fraps. When you're finished recording, simply press the video hotkey again to end your recording. When you open your game, you will see a yellow box with numbers in the upper left hand corner. This box will turn red to signal that recording is taking place. It will turn yellow again when you press the video hotkey a second time to end the recording.

Watch Your Recording To Evaluate The Quality

When you're done recording, navigate to the directory you saved your videos to. You will likely see several movie clips which are each 2-4 minutes in length. Open any of these clips and judge the quality of your recording. If you're satisfied, then you can proceed in conducting your actual recording.

Conduct Your Actual Recording

To conduct your actual recording, go through all of the above steps again. When you're finished, evaluate the quality of your recording once more. With the conclusion of this step, the recording process is complete. The next thing you'll likely want to do is to encode your movie so that it is one long clip rather than several shorter ones. I will explain how to do this in my next hub series: How To Encode Your Videos For YouTube. Stay Tuned!