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View Full Version : Fraps vs Action! - A fresh solution



ATAG_Lolsav
Feb-28-2013, 10:28
For many years there was for film makers a only true solution. That was "Fraps". It allows to record video and sound. But it has a big downside, it slows down the pc while recording. Anyone who has try it knows about this.

The years have pass without finding a better program than FRAPS. Maybe that has change now.

A new software who takes advantage of the I5 and I7 processors (using QuickSynch) with a integrated graphic cards or with "Cuda" from Nividia has showed up with a very promising solution. Personnaly i have tryed it and i didnt found the "Lag" of recording that i used to get on FRAPS. Basically takes advantage of the second graphic card to do all the recording while the main card (for ATI in "Discrete" mode) renders the graphics.

The program name is Action! (http://mirillis.com/en/index.html)

Check these features i have wrote about in:

http://mirillis.com/en/products/tutorials/action_tutorials_hardware_and_settings.html#top

I have tryed that one and i think this time i will say "bubye" to FRAPS.

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Feb-28-2013, 10:55
Ooooohhhh. wow.
I'll try a trail version this week!

thanks Lolsav!

ChiefRedCloud
Feb-28-2013, 11:47
Yea I downloaded it too. However Norton gave me a YELLOW Alert on it. Soooo I'll wait for the green light from one of you first. Sorry too much tied up in this machine to reformat at this time because of an intrusion.

ATAG_Lolsav
Feb-28-2013, 11:52
I didnt had any problem whatsoever .. and i run AVira antivirus on evrything i download from internet.

About the program itself, i am really pleased with this solution, hence sharing my findings.

Sidenote: I heard of this program from one of the russian guys. They told me to look for it, and so i did. Dont know if the software is russian, but now i have some use for the integrated graphic on my I7 :)

Injerin
Feb-28-2013, 22:17
Thanks mate going to try this as well. kudos :)

Mysticpuma
Feb-28-2013, 22:21
Sadly after downloading and installing I can't get it to work with Clod.
100% of the time when Action is running the Launcher.exe stops working, before I even get to the Ubi logo screen. :(

Fraps still works solidly ;)

ATAG_Lolsav
Feb-28-2013, 22:56
I also had to fiddle with settings to get it to work with CLOD. But when i did get it to work it was amazing fast recording. I was getting my fps steady on 60 (with vsynch on) while recording. Im sure if you give it another try you will get it to work.

Follow the instructions on their site on how to enable quicksynch recording. Its a + for me. If you get on TS (ATAG) maybe i can tell you what are my settings and get you to make that thing work.

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 03:28
Sadly after downloading and installing I can't get it to work with Clod.
100% of the time when Action is running the Launcher.exe stops working, before I even get to the Ubi logo screen. :(
Fraps still works solidly ;)

try deleting the intro video?

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 03:34
Hi all,

I downloaded Action! last night and used the trail version for a wee while;

The GOOD:
- very smooth initially when you start recording
- has much more detailed customization options than Frapps or Afterburner when it comes to recording
- has a much nicer GUI than anything I've used before
- overlay is non-distracting

The BAD:
- I cannot turn off some of the recording functions -which means I need to set keys for them which do not conflict with other controls, not so good for a game like CLoD which uses so many keyboard keys
- I cannot set a keyboard combination (i.e. shift+r) for any controls.. Action! will only accept a single button.
- Action! does not pick up my post-processing graphics injector - inject_fx. This is a major issue for me because the vanilla game looks so bland.

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 12:21
More feedback on Action!

It always records videos at double speed!
I cannot find a setting to change this back to 1:1.

ATAG_Lolsav
Mar-01-2013, 12:34
weird, i have mine set 1:1.. and it works. You sure you didnt set 2x on playing track?

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 12:58
weird, i have mine set 1:1.. and it works. You sure you didnt set 2x on playing track?

nope. I also plays back at 2:1 on windows media player...

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 13:10
weird, i have mine set 1:1..

where is this setting?
Is it a "recording" setting, or only playback?

ATAG_Lolsav
Mar-01-2013, 13:21
insted of these posts, come over TS and we work it out :)

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 13:24
insted of these posts, come over TS and we work it out :)

I'm on ATAG coms now ;)

Alice
Mar-01-2013, 14:19
Hi all,

I downloaded Action! last night and used the trail version for a wee while;

The GOOD:
- very smooth initially when you start recording
- has much more detailed customization options than Frapps or Afterburner when it comes to recording
- has a much nicer GUI than anything I've used before
- overlay is non-distracting

The BAD:
- I cannot turn off some of the recording functions -which means I need to set keys for them which do not conflict with other controls, not so good for a game like CLoD which uses so many keyboard keys
- I cannot set a keyboard combination (i.e. shift+r) for any controls.. Action! will only accept a single button.
- Action! does not pick up my post-processing graphics injector - inject_fx. This is a major issue for me because the vanilla game looks so bland.


More feedback on Action!

It always records videos at double speed!
I cannot find a setting to change this back to 1:1.

My only experience before this was FRAPS and a combination of VirtualDub and Audacity, so grain of salt I guess.

Agreed on "Good"

From the "Bad"
- On the upside, while some of the recording controls are locked, and the keys conflict with ones already in use, I was able to change them *sometimes to combinations. *Some keys would not take. I did remap "F9" to "shift F9", for example, to record/stop recording but I had to remap the key that was using it, and then uncheck the box. I couldn't figure a way to blank the control entirely.
- I don't know about post-processing but I hope you fix that - your videos have a good look.

My "Good"
- No noticeable hit on performance during recording

My "Neutral"
- I think it looks good, but maybe not as good as it does ingame, so-to-speak. Might be that I have more time to look around when not flying.

My "Bad"... maybe
- Under Audio, "system" and "microphone" trade off levels. My playback levels were very low compared to what I was hearing while playing, and I had to turn my volume up a lot when watching the recording. Might be my audio settings ignorance showing rather than a problem with the app, though.

I did record at 30 frames and 60 frames. I did the first because that used to be the standard in FRAPS and in VDub, and I don't think I ever drop below that; I did the second because that's my monitor's rate, and hey, it's double! Neither gave me any trouble, and I didn't have the double speed that you noted. Over Calais, low, in a furball with flak, tracer, and all manner of harm, I don't know how well that would record with frame output lower than 60.

Seems to be easy enough to use and adjust - quirks noted - and a good alternative to FRAPS for ingame recording, imo.

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-01-2013, 15:53
reverted to pre-update windows and now Action! crashes the game.

I think I'm going to un-install it and go back to Fraps.

ATAG_Snapper
Mar-04-2013, 17:27
Action looks promising.

1) Easy to download/install Trial Version.
2) Lots more control over settings than FRAPS.
3) Was able to use key combinations (ie. START/STOP was programmed as ALT + 0)
4) Did not cause any appreciable slowdown in frame rate when toggled on. This is a major plus over FRAPS
5) Sound quality good overall
6) No problem recording my own voice incorporating my Teamspeak Push-to-Talk keyboard assignment (also programmed on my joystick)
7) Recorded at 60 fps, found that recording at 30 fps caused a slight but perceptible choppiness. 60 fps was very smooth during play and viewing recorded footage afterward
8) Cannot record to external USB hard drives; only to SATA hard drives.
9) As others noted, Action records the pre-SweetFX video output, unlike FRAPS.

Here's a very short offline video I made with Action. I post-processed this footage in Adobe's Premiere Pro CS6 to give it SweetFX-like saturation, antialiasing, contrast, etc. It is NOT SweetFX though. I've clearly indicated in the video where the processing was applied ("Processed"), and where it was not ("Raw Action"). Actually, it's not "raw" at all. I used Action's built-in export function to transcode the raw .avi footage over to .mp4 footage, which is a tenth the file size. This is a nice feature to Action, and the mp4 files don't look too bad on Vimeo.

I'll work some more with Action after the patch is released. Although I created an Effect Preset for the footage I did today, it's a little "blue" for my liking and needs a bit of tweaking. The patch no doubt will change the overall look of the footage compared to the present version, anyway.

Enjoy:


https://vimeo.com/61048118
https://vimeo.com/61048118

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-04-2013, 18:51
Cheers Snapper.

I've got mine working again now.
I uninstalled Action, then I re-installed the win7 update, carried out the fixes suggested on these forums.
Reinstalled Action! and now it works again.

Mine is actually recording my post-inject_fx output now which is great.
It seems to help if I load Action! after having loaded the game. not sure if that will help for you.

I'm starting to prefer it to Fraps now....:thumbsup:

ATAG_Snapper
Mar-04-2013, 19:30
Good tip, Phil! I'll try loading Action after starting the game and see if SweetFX is carried over. FRAPS seems so clunky now, and Lolsav is right -- Action doesn't seem to affect frame rates while I'm recording. I'm going to try it on some trk files I made recently; I also want to do some external shots.

ATAG_Lolsav
Mar-23-2013, 09:23
Just a update to this program. A new version is out.


22/03/2013 Action! 1.13.3

Video quality improved for real-time MP4 recording with Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration
High quality preset added for real-time MP4 recording with Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration (1080p@60fps recording)
Video quality improved for video recordings exporting to MP4 format
GUI improvements

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-23-2013, 09:44
Cheers lolsav.

I cannot run action no more,. It crashes my Launcher. :(
Might see if this new version helps....