My laptop can't record flops

posted on February 15th, 2011, 12:27 am

WAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

So yeah, I've had fraps set up for a while, I sometimes record Mechwarrior 4 and Eve Online, nothing serious.  When I do, I usually get this weird behavior where it runs perfectly but then it "hiccups" and freezes up for a second.  Very annoying, but when I'm making a composite of cool moments, I really don't care if I get a constant recording.

Well, I wanted to do Fleet Ops commentaries, so I hopped on tunngle and got to observe a game.  It didn't work.  Immediately it said everybody but me was unresponsive (everybody else saw that I was unresponsive) and continued to do so every 5 seconds.  Even after I turned off the fraps it kept doing this!!!  What part of my computer is the problem?

My rig is as follows:

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8400/P7350 : 2.26 GHz
4 GB SDRAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GS External 512MB GDDR3 VRAM
320GB, 7200rpm hard drive
Wireless n

Game resolution 1366x768, full detail but no anti-aliasing.

For the other guys who do replays, what are your rigs?  Do you use lower resolutions, etc?  I'm considering ReadyBoost and plugging into an ethernet cable instead of the wireless, but I'm afraid the limiting factor might be my CPU speed.

I could try overclocking it, but for a laptop it runs hot already...

Somebody help meeeeeee!

posted on February 15th, 2011, 1:56 pm

lol your rig should be fine. Your resolution is of the WXGA family like mine i think.

I run:
core duo @ 1.86ghz
2gb ram
i945gm intrgrated graphics (gma 950) which steals 224 mb of ram as vram.

I run at hd 720 which is slightly smaller than my native 1280x800 which is roughly as big as your's.

I run at full detail with no aa.

I use a completely ordinary 802.11g wireless connection.

i doubt its your comp. And i doubt its your cpu as core 2 duo is easily good enough for flops.

Does this random dc happen when u run flops without fraps?

maybe your cpu is on power saving mode? Win vista/7 can slow cpu down to please al gore.

Maybe u have weird fraps options like lossless rgb which may slow stuff down.

Try playclaw trial, it works well on multicores i heard. Fo should be able to run on 1 of your cores lol.

posted on February 15th, 2011, 4:17 pm

If I recall correctly, could this perhaps have something to do with the asynchronous cursor (I believe you have to turn it off to run Fraps properly in FO)? 

posted on February 15th, 2011, 7:35 pm

Huh.  Now I'm really confused.

Asynchronous cursor is off, lossless rgb is off, I can run fraps in instant action and it works fine.  I can play 8-player online games without lagging.  What on earth could it be?

Wait, do you use windowed mode?  I remember Ray saying something about that.

posted on February 15th, 2011, 7:45 pm

Yes, windowed mode and asynch I believe 

posted on February 15th, 2011, 8:29 pm

You only need to turn off the asynchronous cursor if you want it to show up in recordings. It doesn't matter if you are fullscreen or not, it shouldn't be a problem.

posted on February 15th, 2011, 8:39 pm

Are you sure? I seem to remember that some of the recorders here had trouble when those settings weren't engaged - I'm probably mistaken though 

posted on February 15th, 2011, 9:00 pm

i run in full screen with fraps and i have no problems. but try running it windowed. maybe it will work lol.

posted on February 15th, 2011, 9:15 pm

I run at HD 720.  Which is 1280x720 if I remember right.  I've forgotten sometimes.   I do run in windowed mode.  I've had problems with the Asynchronous cursor, so I turned it off.  For some reason I could never move the mouse very far when it was on.  AA off, detail Full.  You can try lowering the res and see if that works, but you're not far off from where my settings are. 

posted on February 15th, 2011, 9:27 pm

hd 720 is indeed 1280x720.

my laptops native resolution is one of the WXGA family, it is 1280x800, so i sacrifice 80 rows of pixels to get a perfect match with youtube's resolution. no need for windowed mode.

posted on February 16th, 2011, 5:41 pm

I think I found it!

I installed Nvidia drivers to help connect my laptop to the TV when I wanted to watch stuff, and at the same time it installed Nvidia audio drivers.  I tried to uninstall the original drivers but they kept coming back.

A friend was helping me set up voice and he said I kept "jerking" the same way I do when I'm recording.  I went to the device manager and disabled Nvidia audio and it stopped.  It seems I had 2 audio drivers trying to run simultaneously.

And now hopefully my problem will be gone!