GridStream Productions

Heyas folks!

I know some of you out there capture videos from games and stuff and have probably looked through the market of such tools.

So my question is fairly simple, what good applications are there out there? And are they free/commercial.

Some requirements I have:
* Be able to caputure DirectX (Direct 3D) source.

Preferably abilities:
* Capture both directx and the surrounding interface.

Hypercam works great for me. Yoy can use it for free, but you get a small icon in the corner

http://www.hyperionics.com/

I here good things about fraps...but I really have no clue personally.

I always hear that fraps is one of the best, yeah, but I don't think it's free. More like barely-working shareware.

Fraps has two versions, actually. The free one will give you, of course, less capabilities than the paid version. The paid version will let you record for as long as you want (or until you run out of diskspace), there's no watermarks, and you can capture screenshots directly to jpg, png and tga-formats. Fraps also supports all DX-variants including DX10.

That being said, I know that at least earlier versions of Fraps has been one MOTHER of an app when capturing, especially in higher resolutions and such. This probably isn't an issue now, but I'd still try out the free before forking out the $37 that the full version costs. Can also mention that in the circles I travel in most of the time (flightsim-community), Fraps is the app to use when making vids.

Only suggestion I have is that you pogo over to www.fraps.com and give it a shot

X, for a smart guy you tend to be um, daft at times. (gets beaten up)
I know you got at least 1 computer, so here's what you do:

Hook the VideoIn of your secondary rig to the VideoOut on your primary rig. Set your primary rig to Clone mode (so that the TvOut is the same as what's on the screen)

This is the best solution if you have more than 1 computer, and you avoid frame issues and system load issues, minimum or no overheard. And you can use your favorite video tool to grab the video.

Or if you'd like to use capture software then go with something like FRAPS or Hypercam, make sure to check if they hook the DirectX calls or not as that is the only way to grab DX graphics properly. There is most likely other solutions out there so look around.

Alternatively, find some how to guide on hooking DirectX calls and code a tool yourself

I'm told that fraps definitely grabs both d3d and opengl very well.

i use game cam its pretty good and simple to use

Thanx for the input guys

I have from your suggestions compiled a working solution for myself.
Fraps is indeed awesome when it comes to ripping of a d3d / opengl stream, but it lacks the ability to capture anything else.

Hypercam solved that issue, and bundled that with a free lossless codec I found on free-codecs.com I managed to get a solution that worked for my purpose. I managed to screencapture 1024x768 @ 30FPS without any issues.... well, all but on. The file that was 1m 20s turned out to be 1.2 GB But it seemed my raptor 10k HD didn't have any issues shuffling the data atleast.

In the future I am looking at implementing the limited user interface the app directly as directx objects, at which point fraps will kick ass

So again! Thanks for all your ideas and suggestions!

You know, if it's a app that you made yourself you should have no issues grabbing the window bitmap from the hdc using API calls and saving it to disk yourself using HUFFYUV or similar.