I have quite a few games on my PC that I would like to make some videos for, the only problem is that the frame rates I’m getting when recording are really bad. I’m using fraps, and when I start recording the frame rate usually goes down by two thirds at least.

I have tried lowering the recording settings, I’ve put the frame rate down to 30 and used half size and it has given me a little improvement, but I’m still not getting much over 20FPS. I have heard that having a secondary hard drive to store the video helps as using your primary drive can be the reason for the drop in frame rate. My HD is nothing fancy, just a standard 7200rpm 1TB, would having another, completely empty drive to store video on help at all?

Thanks.

that would help somewhat , but you should address your processor and video card and ram before hard drive speed is brougth into account .. but yes .. a second hard drive would help with some framerate issues .. but if you cant get playable fps from half size you're already considerably bottlenecked ..

locking the fps will at least let your recording look a bit less choppy but will still be hard to play while recording

Yes, a secondary HDD is almost a must-have to record anything of any sort of quality with Fraps.

A separate HDD is most definitely a must with Fraps.

However, be sure to also lower your resolution when recording. If your video is not going to be published at anything over 720p, then run the game at 1280x720 or whatever resolution the video is going to be encoded at. This will help immensely in maintaining framerates while recording, and wouldn't be nearly as stressing as trying to record in 1080p (plus lower uncompressed video size, etc...).

@SlasherMan said:

However, be sure to also lower your resolution when recording. If your video is not going to be published at anything over 720p, then run the game at 1280x720 or whatever resolution the video is going to be encoded at.

Aside from the seperate HDD stuff, this is the best piece of advice anyone could give you. Hell, before he recently built his new rig, even totalbiscuit played games at 720p while recording.

Might help if you could list your full system specs including OS, reslolution you game at, and what kind of games your recording to give us a better idea how to help you

It also depends on your GPU. Which is what?