Optimizing FRAPS for Skyrim

[gigantibyte]

Forgive me if this has been posted already, but I just wanted to share some tips for using FRAPS I found on other forums. I recently tried recording some Skyrim videos, and noticed I wasn't getting nearly the same frame rate as I got when I played the game back in Nov-Dec. Here's what I gathered so far, and hopefully others will know more.

 

#1) Change the hotkeys for recording and screenshots. I had mine set to F12 & F11, and changed it to Num Lock and PrtSc. This had the greatest effect for me, and now the frame rate mostly stays at 30 fps, with severe but short dips when loading new areas.

 

#2) Record videos to a hard drive where skyrim, steam, and fraps are not installed. A drive exclusively dedicated for recordings is preferable. 7200 rpm is preferable over the cheaper 5400s. For bang-for-the-buck, I've always been a fan of the Seagate Barracuda.

 

#3) Ensure your video drivers are up-to-date.

 

#4) Keep you system clean with programs like CCleaner.

 

#5) Keep you system free of unnecessary background programs, Some of these may be seen the system tray, but others are hidden.

 

Pertaining to #5, I've tried using GameBooster to do this automatically. While the game seems to benefit, recordings with FRAPS do not record nicely at times. I surmise GameBooster is turning off a service that Fraps is relying on, but have no clue what it could be. Any help here is appreciated. Suggestions welcome on what can be temporarily disabled, like antivirus programs and itunes,

[Rooker75]

There's also an audio glitch that can make the sound go out of sync with the action by a second or two. To fix that, go to Sound Properties > Playback Devices > [choose the appropriate sound device] > Advanced and then step down the audio quality setting until the out-of-sync problem goes away.

 

Personally I think it's caused by sound cards that are integrated into the motherboard being dependent on the CPU and fighting for processor cycles with Gamebryo, which depends on the CPU for things it really ought to use the GPU to handle.