Processor/mobo/vidcard/hard-drive help! :D

[ruuBEN]

Sup! You guys may remember me from a few weeks/months ago. Time came, I got paid, and it's time to possibly upgrade my thingies! I'm just having some issues deciding things, and I'd love some help/input.

Sadly, I did all my research in processors in the recent time besides doing my video editing: I know I want a 3570k.
I'm just having issues deciding on a vidcard/hard-drive/mobo.

What I'm looking for is being able to record raids (while raiding) at a solid 60 FPS (if at all possibles). Obviously, I'd have to look into what programs/tools to use, but that's what I'd like to make available from this build.

-Would having an SSD be work it? Would it make recording a lot easier than a, say, 7200 RPM dedicated hard-drive? Even if the SSD is small, if a record was a fail attempt, I would delete it asap.
-What about motherboards, what kind of motherboard is good? I'm trying to shop for combo deals with the 3570k (on newegg), I'm just not sure if I should what mobo would be the best fit. My wallet says go cheap, my brain says "maybe not"
-What about video cards, I was wanting a 7950 after more research, but what would be a good runner-up video card that wouldn't really notice too much of a difference in WoW while recording?

And yes, I plan on recording in CS:GO and stuff, not just wow. The thing is: CS:GO is a totally different process for recording. We record demos frame by frame in a picture format with sampling, then use vdub to turn into an uncompressed .avi. To my knowledge, you can't do that in WoW. So yeah.

ANY HALP? D: Any sort of info you guys can shed on me?

[vesseblah]

What I'm looking for is being able to record raids (while raiding) at a solid 60 FPS (if at all possibles).

Video capture slows your computer down a bit. For example WoW runs at about 45-55 fps with mixed high/ultra settings on my i5-2500k/gtx560ti at 1080p but when frapsing it drops by about 10fps. I usually record at 30fps which is also the maximum youtube supports atm.

-Would having an SSD be work it? Would it make recording a lot easier than a, say, 7200 RPM dedicated hard-drive? Even if the SSD is small, if a record was a fail attempt, I would delete it asap.

Good 7200rpm discs (WD Caviar Black, Samsung Spinpoint F3) can record video just fine, SSD is not really needed for it. But if you can afford one, it certainly won't hurt either and makes editing significantly faster. For normal sane setup I'd recommend putting OS and games on SSD and keeping dedicated fast 7200rpm HDD for capture. HDD should be formatted into two parts and use only first half for capture because it's much faster than the end of the disc.

-What about motherboards, what kind of motherboard is good?

Doesn't really matter for video editing. All of the usual gaming boards work just fine.

-What about video cards, I was wanting a 7950 after more research, but what would be a good runner-up video card that wouldn't really notice too much of a difference in WoW while recording?

WoW will be already vsync capped with a card costing half of that so it's way overkill. Other games might benefit from one. Video card does absolutely nothing for the capture, but it does limit what your computer can render in the first place to show on the screen (and capture later).

We record demos frame by frame in a picture format with sampling, then use vdub to turn into an uncompressed .avi. To my knowledge, you can't do that in WoW. So yeah.

Fraps has "lossless RGB" checkbox in the video tab which actually will force it to record pure lossless avi on all games, using that on 1080p material with 30fps or more might require saving to SSD or RAID0 at least. By default Fraps has very light lossy compression which gives better visual quality than commercial BluRay movies or even digital cinema. I really wouldn't be worried about recording separate frames in any game unless you're looking for perfect still pictures

[ruuBEN]

HOW TO RESPOND TO ALL OF THIS

Video capture slows your computer down a bit. For example WoW runs at about 45-55 fps with mixed high/ultra settings on my i5-2500k/gtx560ti at 1080p but when frapsing it drops by about 10fps. I usually record at 30fps which is also the maximum youtube supports atm.

Can you recommend a video card, preferably a AMD/ATI/Radeon? I don't mind nvidia's, they're good cards, but in my experience and with my track records, I end up hating them and having small nit picks about them. Would a 6870 suffice, or is the 560 better?

Good 7200rpm discs (WD Caviar Black, Samsung Spinpoint F3) can record video just fine, SSD is not really needed for it. But if you can afford one, it certainly won't hurt either and makes editing significantly faster. For normal sane setup I'd recommend putting OS and games on SSD and keeping dedicated fast 7200rpm HDD for capture. HDD should be formatted into two parts and use only first half for capture because it's much faster than the end of the disc.

Hm. I may just get a SSD then, because I can afford it, but even then will I notice any sort of recording performance? I doubt it, seeing as we said dedicate one partition of a harddrive to recording, right? So regardless of SSD or not...

Doesn't really matter for video editing. All of the usual gaming boards work just fine.

That's what I mean, though. What we talking about when it comes to 'gaming boards'? Generally, I'd look for a board that's the same socket, dual channel, is sata 3/6.0gbs, and has a PCI-E slot, etcetc. Any specifics I need to know?

WoW will be already vsync capped with a card costing half of that so it's way overkill. Other games might benefit from one. Video card does absolutely nothing for the capture, but it does limit what your computer can render in the first place to show on the screen (and capture later).

Surprisingly, it doesn't vsync cap for me. I can boost it upwards to over 200, unless I'm confused and not understanding what you're trying to say. Like, I understand my eye won't really tell a difference beyond a certain FPS, but...

Fraps has "lossless RGB" checkbox in the video tab which actually will force it to record pure lossless avi on all games, using that on 1080p material with 30fps or more might require saving to SSD or RAID0 at least. By default Fraps has very light lossy compression which gives better visual quality than commercial BluRay movies or even digital cinema. I really wouldn't be worried about recording separate frames in any game unless you're looking for perfect still pictures

I didn't tell a difference in the 'lossless RGB"
See, when I was pure, lossless AVI's it's not like I want them exactly like that. Like, arg. Let me try to explain,

in CS, there's a way to record your demos frame-by-frame and turn them into an AVI. Here's the thing though: It enables sampling. Here's the difference:
With sampling, frame by frame, pictures are taken like this:
http://puu.sh/VXrk

but without sampling, it doesn't give a 'motion blur' and looks like this:
http://puu.sh/WGno

So yeah. I know there is a program that will record what you have with sampling, which is mainly what I'm worried about- but I can't find it! :<

Anyway, yeah. I know I'm confusing.

At this point, I'm just asking what motherboard would work, should I just do what I nromally do and stare at the reviews/rating and see if it's trusting in that sense?

[glo]

That's because Counter Strike's movie capture is something unique. The demos record your position and actions, etc etc into a 20MB or so file, then the engine plays them back.

When you go to render the demo into a movie, it assumes your target FPS and renders say 30 JPEGS (i forget the image format) per second for the entire demo, then it combines them all together for the movie and samples over the sound.

[ruuBEN]

That's because Counter Strike's movie capture is something unique. The demos record your position and actions, etc etc into a 20MB or so file, then the engine plays them back.

When you go to render the demo into a movie, it assumes your target FPS and renders say 30 JPEGS (i forget the image format) per second for the entire demo, then it combines them all together for the movie and samples over the sound.

The only reason I don't think it's unique is because I've seen them in games/videos before that doesn't have that unique feature, somehow having a sampling effect while recording. bah. I don't know. Maybe google will help :X

[vesseblah]

Can you recommend a video card, preferably a AMD/ATI/Radeon? I don't mind nvidia's, they're good cards, but in my experience and with my track records, I end up hating them and having small nit picks about them. Would a 6870 suffice, or is the 560 better?

Both are about equal. But if you can afford better, I wouldn't stick with either of those as they are "last year's models" and will gimp you down in new games even if WoW works perfectly.

Hm. I may just get a SSD then, because I can afford it, but even then will I notice any sort of recording performance? I doubt it, seeing as we said dedicate one partition of a harddrive to recording, right? So regardless of SSD or not...

No performance difference if you record plain 30fps but to get to 60fps or higher you might need an SSD to capture to.

That's what I mean, though. What we talking about when it comes to 'gaming boards'? Generally, I'd look for a board that's the same socket, dual channel, is sata 3/6.0gbs, and has a PCI-E slot, etcetc. Any specifics I need to know?

That's about it really. Major differences after that comes from the quality of integrated sound chips, network chips, support for tri or quad sli/crossfire and higher power output capacity for extreme overclocking. Most recommended/generic gaming board at the moment would be ASRock Z77 Extreme4. It supports decent OC, both Crossfire and SLI out of the box, has good sound quality and no common problems or whines in google.

Surprisingly, it doesn't vsync cap for me. I can boost it upwards to over 200, unless I'm confused and not understanding what you're trying to say. Like, I understand my eye won't really tell a difference beyond a certain FPS, but...

I mean, monitors have a vsync cap at some point. For example regular cheap LCDs have a maximum fps of 60. Game can run faster, but you can never see more than 60fps on it. Better and more expensive 120Hz monitors (as well as 3D monitors) cap at 120fps. Old CRT tube monitors could do over 200Hz but those are based on totally different technology.

but without sampling, it doesn't give a 'motion blur' and looks like this:
So yeah. I know there is a program that will record what you have with sampling, which is mainly what I'm worried about- but I can't find it! :<

Games don't do motion blur because those are meant to be run at fps so high that the blur is not needed. TV programs and movies have blur because those are recorded at low 24-30fps. Apparently CS can do simulated motion blur for a low fps movie later based on your explanation (never played it so I don't know) which will make the captured video look better and more movie-like to the human eye.

You can simulate the same effect with fraps or some other screen capture program by running the video capture at double speed (60fps) and then do the final render at 30fps interlaced (down from 60 to 30 fps) or using some temporal blur effects which works best if the video was originally captured at much higher speed, even 100-200fps. Capturing at very high speed like 100-200fps is also required if you want to make high quality time stretches like a slow motion kills or whatever. Doing these without in-game tool to record the gameplay instead of frames like CS does is rather hard. Because capturing 100-200fps in Fraps at 1080p will most certainly require that SSD, and it will get full insanely fast.

The only reason I don't think it's unique is because I've seen them in games/videos before that doesn't have that unique feature, somehow having a sampling effect while recording. bah. I don't know. Maybe google will help :X

Only games that have built-in recording of the actual gameplay (not video) and then render it out motion blurred or high quality slow motion etc will allow you to do this. No external fraps-like program can do the same

[Nireyo]

Can you recommend a video card, preferably a AMD/ATI/Radeon? I don't mind nvidia's, they're good cards, but in my experience and with my track records, I end up hating them and having small nit picks about them. Would a 6870 suffice, or is the 560 better?

I can't comment on nVidia, but i ran a 6870 with 3570k for awhile, you won't have issues in wow but it struggles in games like BF 3.. I just recently got a 7870 to replace it, good runner up to the 7950, they not that far a part on benchmarks.