Shadowplay /Fraps / Dixtory?

[PK]

Which one is better, in your opinion?

[waNEr]

Stick to shadowplay if you have a high-tier GPU, if you don't but you have a SSD use Dixtory, if you have neither, keep suffering with Fraps

[.Dakar]

I use OBS studio, but don't use fraps,  use Dixtory.

[Rusch69]

Lossless capturing:

For classic GTAS videos, using 25/30 FPS replays, you'll be fine with either Fraps or Dxtory. In terms of quality they're exactly the same.


Fraps:
+ lossless quality
+ simple GUI
+ decent performance in post-production
- high CPU load

Dxtory:
+ lossless quality
+ lower CPU load than Fraps
+ allows different codecs (=higher compression -> smaller files)
+/- okay'ish GUI
- possibly worse performance in post-production than Fraps (due to heavier decoding)


Lossy capturing:

If you're making a live video, I strongly recommend OBS, since it's simply superior to Shadowplay in all aspects. With an APU or iGPU available, OBS is pure gold. Almost lossless quality witho no performance hit at all.


Shadowplay:
+ low GPU load
+ simple GUI
+/- okay'ish performance in post-production
- lossy quality
- very restricted settings
- NVIDIA only

OBS:
+ no CPU/GPU load at best (capturing on APU or iGPU)
+ allows different codecs (=higher compression / smaller files)
+ basically unrestricted settings (I didn't run into any FPS or bitrate boundaries yet)
+/- lossy quality, but bitrates can be set so high that it's basically lossless already
+/- okay'ish performance in post-production
- difficult GUI & settings if you're not much into encoding


tl;dr: Fraps or Dxtory for regular videos and OBS for live videos.




Edit: Oh look waNKEr having no clue

[Max_]

I only use Fraps and it works flawlessly

[waNEr]

Lossless capturing:

For classic GTAS videos, using 25/30 FPS replays, you'll be fine with either Fraps or Dxtory. In terms of quality they're exactly the same.


Fraps:
+ lossless quality
+ simple GUI
+ decent performance in post-production
- high CPU load

Dxtory:
+ lossless quality
+ lower CPU load than Fraps
+ allows different codecs (=higher compression -> smaller files)
+/- okay'ish GUI
- possibly worse performance in post-production than Fraps (due to heavier decoding)


Lossy capturing:

If you're making a live video, I strongly recommend OBS, since it's simply superior to Shadowplay in all aspects. With an APU or iGPU available, OBS is pure gold. Almost lossless quality witho no performance hit at all.


Shadowplay:
+ low GPU load
+ simple GUI
+/- okay'ish performance in post-production
- lossy quality
- very restricted settings
- NVIDIA only

OBS:
+ no CPU/GPU load at best (capturing on APU or iGPU)
+ allows different codecs (=higher compression / smaller files)
+ basically unrestricted settings (I didn't run into any FPS or bitrate boundaries yet)
+/- lossy quality, but bitrates can be set so high that it's basically lossless already
+/- okay'ish performance in post-production
- difficult GUI & settings if you're not much into encoding


tl;dr: Fraps or Dxtory for regular videos and OBS for live videos.




Edit: Oh look waNKEr having no clue

Never had any issue with Shadowplay in post-prod, i use a 980 GTX. Never used OBS before.

[Rusch69]

Never had any issue with Shadowplay in post-prod, i use a 980 GTX. Never used OBS before.

So you're using Shadowplay alongside your glorious GTX 980 for post-production?
I'm just bullshitting you, I know you mean it's footage.

Currently Shadowplay allows h.264 encoding only. Therefore the user gets decent filesizes due to it's standard compression.
There's no problems with either compressed or uncompressed footage in post-production, completely regardless of what GPU is in use.

When decoding uncompressed footage the hardware simply has to readout data mostly. On the other hand compressed footage has to be unpacked and calculated additionally.
That puts more workload on the decoder and slows it down. Now add some effects within your desired cutting/compositing software on top and performance will suffer in comparison.


And you don't need a strong GPU to make use of Shadowplay at all. Even the old GTX 600 series are capable of proper capturing since the performance hit isn't that big of a deal.
Also, why would you need an SSD for Dxtory in particular?

I know you're just sharing your experience, but that doesn't seem to make much sense.

[waNEr]

Never had any issue with Shadowplay in post-prod, i use a 980 GTX. Never used OBS before.

So you're using Shadowplay alongside your glorious GTX 980 for post-production?
I'm just bullshitting you, I know you mean it's footage.

Currently Shadowplay allows h.264 encoding only. Therefore the user gets decent filesizes due to it's standard compression.
There's no problems with either compressed or uncompressed footage in post-production, completely regardless of what GPU is in use.

When decoding uncompressed footage the hardware simply has to readout data mostly. On the other hand compressed footage has to be unpacked and calculated additionally.
That puts more workload on the decoder and slows it down. Now add some effects within your desired cutting/compositing software on top and performance will suffer in comparison.


And you don't need a strong GPU to make use of Shadowplay at all. Even the old GTX 600 series are capable of proper capturing since the performance hit isn't that big of a deal.
Also, why would you need an SSD for Dxtory in particular?

I know you're just sharing your experience, but that doesn't seem to make much sense.

I couldn't use Dxtory because my pc and the game lagged so much while doing so, at that time i had a HDD, months later i bought an SSD and set Dxtory to boot up in there and see how it went (since SSD process data way faster) and surprisingly there were no lag, no fps drops nor crashes. I asumed it was the HDD so i asked a friend who makes youtube videos using Dxtory and he told me that yes, that Dxtory requires an SSD to process the data properly.

Also i didn't say the 980 was required to use Shadowplay, just wanted to point that out because i thought it had influence over the recording process, now i see it doesn't

[torekk]

There's no need for an SSD to record footage. The only thing that matters is that you record your footage to a DIFFERENT harddrive than the one you have your system and/or game installed.

[Rusch69]

Then your buddy doesn't know shit either waNEr. HDDs have a mechanical read-and-write head that tends to have performance decreases when reading & writing bigger amounts of data at the same time. SSDs are based on flash chips and don't have such a head that moves around. You can evade that issue by doing what torekk said, if it's existent to you.
Bandwidth and disk speed on desktop machines don't really matter when capturing. Even shitty external 5400 rpm HDDs are fast enough for uncompressed capturing.

The best is gather some money and buy a capture card. No fps drops = no problem.

Nope, they add extra cost and are most likely restricted by their software. They pretty much make sense for console capturing only. Having an APU or iGPU makes them irrelevant for PCs. Combined with OBS, they're close to uncompressed quality without ever having any FPS drops at all.
If you badly want a dedicated capture card, you could pick up a used GTX 650 or above instead. That's still cheaper than most capture cards and can be used for dedicated PhysX calculations at times. Not recommending this at all tho.

[PM]

The Fraps AVIs have always been causing problems in Vegas (for me), while Dxtory is much more compatible. Shadowplay is ok for live clips (i.e. the 'last ... seconds' capture option). That's how I see it as an amateur.

[J.Mario]

The Fraps AVIs have always been causing problems in Vegas (for me)

Same here, probably it's a specific matter.. :/

[torekk]

It's because Fraps uses it's own codec(FPS1).

If you have any codec pack installed, uninstall it, then reinstall Fraps. Should fix the problem, atleast that usually worked for me back in the day with Sony Vegas 9.


If you didn't buy Fraps, it could also be that. In that case, just get the demo version from their site and install that one.

[waNEr]

Then your buddy doesn't know shit either waNEr. HDDs have a mechanical read-and-write head that tends to have performance decreases when reading & writing bigger amounts of data at the same time. SSDs are based on flash chips and don't have such a head that moves around. You can evade that issue by doing what torekk said, if it's existent to you.
Bandwidth and disk speed on desktop machines don't really matter when capturing. Even shitty external 5400 rpm HDDs are fast enough for uncompressed capturing.

The best is gather some money and buy a capture card. No fps drops = no problem.

Nope, they add extra cost and are most likely restricted by their software. They pretty much make sense for console capturing only. Having an APU or iGPU makes them irrelevant for PCs. Combined with OBS, they're close to uncompressed quality without ever having any FPS drops at all.
If you badly want a dedicated capture card, you could pick up a used GTX 650 or above instead. That's still cheaper than most capture cards and can be used for dedicated PhysX calculations at times. Not recommending this at all tho.

I notice now, i didn't do any further investigation because i didn't really care about it, just wanted a quick answer to the issue i had

[VaNilla]

Rusch is on the money. I would just add that there's no reason to use Fraps over Dxtory anymore, given Dxtory's greater flexibility and performance. There's a few compatibility issues with Dxtory and older games, but this can be fixed by utilising delayed hooks and other advanced options.

The only time I've found an SSD necessary is during 4K lossless capture, especially at high framerates. I've found this to be the case regardless of codec, whether that be Lagarith, MagicYUV, or Ut Video. Lagarith tends to have the best compression of the bunch, but MagicYUV and Ut Video perform much better on the CPU. Ut Video is my preferred codec for lossless capture in terms of performance, and the compression isn't too shabby either. Lagarith is my preferred codec for intermediary/master encoding; I often use it to transfer from Premiere/AME to MeGUI for advanced work (CS5 can't render H.264 in L5.2 for 4K60fps), and keeping master backups when necessary.