Been using fraps for absolutely years and i know about slowdowns, what kind of FPS hit you are likely to get when recording in full mode and all that, but im at a total loss with this at the moment. Im using the wifes machine which has the LED 42" TV hooked upto the PC via a VGA port, playing games at 1920x1080, while playing the game with fraps on "not recording" im getting an average of 170-204FPS with absolutely everything maxed out, but the very second i turn FRAPS to record, my frame rates often drop to 27FPS which is absolutely insane and have no idea why its dropping at such a dramatic rate. Usually when you want to record you'll select the preset you want and then deduct the FPS your recording at from what you normally get in-game, so 30FPS "should" leave me able to play the game around 120FPS and recording at 60FPS should leave me hanging around 60-80FPS while playing and recording, so when i select to record at 30, im only getting 27FPS and sometimes less, even when i record at 60FPS its still dropping into the 20s. I've turned off antivirus/anything that would normally be a system hog, turned off windows effects like AERO, shut down almost every program i have running in the system like keyboard and mouse stuff, and im STILL getting absolutely MASSIVE slow downs the second i turn on record...

Now, the really weird thing, is my other PC which has WAAAAAAAAAAAAY lower specs then this system im trying to record on, records at a MUCH high FPS without any lag/slowdowns of any kind what so ever at the same resolution but connected to a proper LED monitor. I've even tried on my laptop and FRAPS records at exactly how it should do, "FASTER" then the high end PC, ANY help would be muchly apreciated because im at a total loss, i've tried re-installing different gfx drivers without any difference at all, reinstalling the game, its almost like the second i hit record, its recording twice or something because thats the feel of the performance loss its about double what i should loose, or something else is accessing the harddrive the second i hit record, i even tried associateing a different hot-key for the record in case something was loading in the background with the F-keys, and that didn't even make a difference.

FRAPS Version tried : 3.5.5 / 3.4.6 / 3.2.2

High-End PC Specs (more middle-range but high end in my household)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

CPU : AMD PhenomII X6 @ 3.2ghz

RAM : G-Skill Ripjaws 8GB DRR3 1600

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : 2x EVGA Nvidia GTX 560ti in SLi Mode

HDD : Regular Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD

VGA connected LED 42" TV

1920x1080 Res

2nd lower end PC (where i can record @ 50-60FPS with no slowdowns)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

CPU : AMD PhenomII X3 710 @ 3.01ghz

RAM : G-Skill 4GB DRR2 800

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : EVGA Nvidia GTX 260 216 core

HDD : Regular Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD

DVI connected 22" LG LED Monitor

1920x1080 Res

Alienware MX17X10 Laptop (can record with FRAPS with no slowdowns aswell)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Home Edition

CPU : Intel Core i7 Q740 2.1ghz (turbo 3.1ghz)

RAM : G-Skill Ripjaws 6GB DRR3 1600

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : 2x AMD ATI 5870s in Xfire mode

HDD : Regular 500gB 5900RPM HDD

HDMI connection to the 42" LED TV or 17" laptop screen

1920x1080 Res for HDMI and 1440x900 Laptop Screen

Now the reason why I'm using the VGA instead of an HDMI, is if anyone owns an Nvidia card, they will know that nvidia doesn't ship with a full hdmi port on the cards, their mini-hdmi, and i currently do not have an mini-hdmi to hdmi cable. I just do not understand why my single card machine of 2 generations of gfx cards ago is able to fraps so much faster then dual modern cards, it just doesn't make sense, the cpu definitely has the power i checked on that as well but a if my old tripple core can do it, then a 6 core should be no sweat... Im thinking its either because of the VGA port, the harddrive (might be something wrong with it) or i may need to re-install windows thats all i can think of why im getting such a massive FPS loss compared to my hold heap of crap lol... YES im recording on the same harddrive, not using 2 harddrive to record on, and before you guys think its that, THAT is the same setup on my old machine also, both read/write on the same drive, only difference is as i've mentioned several times, one machine is high end, the other isn't...

PLS HELP!!!! and thank you all for absolutely anything you can advise me... PS: BF3 recording absolutely perfectly on my high end machine.

Unreal Tournament 3 is at Max Settings on all machines, and I've tried with V-Sync and Frame Smoothing on and off, makes no difference.

FOUND THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the culprit was the VGA!!!!! went out and bought a mini-full HDMI cable and BANG!!!!!! recording FRAPS at a steady 60-90FPS @ full and 1920 res.... absolutely incredible, i never would have thought that the VGA cable would affected that in the slightest what so ever, amazing..... and totally weird, i know HDMI is all performance, but for this sorta thing i never would have thought that was it even though i had my suspicions it could be that....

DONT FRAPS with a VGA port/cable, lesson learned here.... its a good thing to know for those that do, or plan on FRAPSing games and what not, that have a VGA cable, if you fraps with a vga, you are loosing so much performance its rediculas...

Why the fuck were you using VGA? Jesus. lol, you deserve to get burned if you use VGA in this day and age.

I was gonna ask if you're recording to the same HDD as you're running windows/the game from, as before I started recording to my second drive it'd run like shit, now it doesn't. But you fixed it anyway.

Indeed Mord, but ya know, i was REALLY supprised how fucking good VGA looked, visually the quality is bar none exactly the same as an HDMI cable, but of course the HD'ness isn't there and i guess FRAPS really fucking hated it haha... EITHER WAY its fixed now, and yeah i mentioned in my Original Post that i use just 1 haddrive, and to tell you the truth, i've never noticed a single bit of performance increase in using a seperate harddrive, I think its just down to how everyones system is, and what kind of hardware is in each system, but recording to a second drive has never given me any performance increase in the 6-7 years i've been using fraps. HERE are the videos anyway, and you can clearly see in my DM-Deimos video, the fraps issue i was having, and in the BF3 videos, no issue what so ever, it was a weird one but im glad i figured it out anyway... if you go see the videos, hope you enjoy em at least...