Wanting advice on a new computer.

[~Doom~]

I am thinking of getting a new computer to run wow. I really want it to fraps and not have to play at 25fps (laggy). If anyone has any suggestions as to what CPU and what video card you need and what is really needed most for wow. So really i want to be able to fraps and play at 60+ fps. At the moment i have a core2duo E7500 @2.93GHz and a Nvidia geforce GTS 460. I think the graphics card i might get away with maybe its just the CPU i don't really know, i was thinking of even getting a whole new computer, anyway any help is appreciated. Thanks

[vesseblah]

Slow speed in 25-man raids is caused by CPU, i5-2500K CPU based computers give best bang for buck right now by wide margin. GTX460 is good enough graphics card for anything WoW related as long as you're playing on one monitor only.

Harddisc speed can also be an issue with video capture, and without going to extrmes you can expect about 40fps capture speed at FullHD resolution on a fast 7200rpm HDD. To get anywhere near 60 you need faster than normal discs.

[nwo]

First of all, do you even have the full FRAPS version that lets you record at 60 fps? Because if not, then there is your problem right there.
If you do have the full version, then your CPU might very well be the problem since it is only an old generation dual core. From what I have heard, FRAPS likes to use a bit of CPU power while recording. Last thing to do to get the smoothest gameplay while recording is to record onto a separate hard drive which is at least a non budget 7200 rpm.

[lyxxx060]

Vesseblah hit it on the money. The new i5-2500k is amazing for the price and typically has a MOBO bundle with it at your local computer store. I recently purchased it with a mediocre video card and it runs amazing.

[~Doom~]

well i got a 7200rpm and i fraps at half resolution. So maybe i just need a new CPU, which i think means i need a new mobo as i currently have Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

[Kewi]

My tips, especially with recording:
1) Don't skimp on the processor, WOW cap's CPU's faster then it does video cards
2) I've been happy with an EVGA GTX 570, runs cool(ish), rarely over 60% GPU Usage even at max settings... your GTX 460 should be fine.
3) For (above) 1080p/30fps resolution recording you will likely need a 6-core processor and a HDD RAID array if you plan to use decent graphics settings.

On a 4core/2.4ghz intel processor I'm saw FRAPS eat a good 2 full cores, and WOW fighting to maintain "good/high" graphics on the remaining 2 cores, as it typically likes 3 for itself.

Setting wow's affinity mask to use only 0-2, and Fraps on 2/3, worked well, but my limit is obviously my CPU, as this is 100% capping all of them

HDD Write speeds.. are hard to say. My FRAPS recordings show ~40MB/sec is what ends up in the file, however most of the time I see 1080p/24fps quoted as needing ~90-100 MBps sustained write speeds.. if you want to double the frame rate you're going to significantly increase the write requirements...

Quick math: 1920x1080x32bit = 66355200 bits = 8294400 bytes = ~8.1MB/frame uncompressed
x24 fps = 194 MB/sec
x30 fps = 243 MB/sec
x60 fps = 486 MB/sec

Generally FRAPS can compress fairly well on the fly, which is why you can record 1080p/24fps on a typical (newer) HDD, or an old RAID. My own files I have yet to process show ~40-45MB/sec for no-sound 1080p/24fps, so a decent compression rate (safe to say ~60%, as it is a variable)

Even if you compress the 486 MB/sec value for 60 fps, you're looking at 291 MB/sec sustained write speeds. which is a RAID-0 array across 3-5 HDD's, or across 2-3 SSD's

Basically what I'm saying is it's not technically feasible (for a budget comp) and showing you large mathy numbers so when you look at HDD Sustained write speeds you see the problem with recording at 60 fps

[~Doom~]

ok thanks. i just see alot of wow movies where it shows there fps as they are recording and sometimes they are like 100fps constant. I wonder if they set it to fairly low settings to record then use vegas or something to make it look good later?

[Kewi]

I take some of that back.

They recently improved (decreased) CPU Usage since December when I last updated... at least as far as I can tell in a non-raid scenario.

a quad core *might* be feasible, but you'll likely still need a separate HDD for recording... and the jury's still out on exactly how much

[vesseblah]

ok thanks. i just see alot of wow movies where it shows there fps as they are recording and sometimes they are like 100fps constant. I wonder if they set it to fairly low settings to record then use vegas or something to make it look good later?

If you record at 1280x720 instead, you can almost double the framerate because it's half of the pixels. Also different video capture programs such as PlayClaw might give better results at very high framerates if you're willing to accept lossy compression in the capture.

[Kewi]

most videos on youtube and what not are 24fps/30fps

While WOW may appear to visually lag while you play, once you process the video it comes out smooth. Simply running the file through VirtualDub will do that for you.

Don't assume your playback of the RAW AVI file you record with FRAPS is "accurate".. your computer is struggling trying to read 4GB of movie very quickly.. and if you jump around it re-struggles... it's just a large, large file, and most video players are not well designed to handle that...

But I assure you, 30 FPS is plenty for videos... Once that clip goes through VirtualDub, or otherwise gets compressed to something else, it gets a lot better

[~Doom~]

also what are the best fraps settings for recording wow and editing with decent quality?

---------- Post added 2011-03-09 at 10:20 AM ----------

most videos on youtube and what not are 24fps/30fps

While WOW may appear to visually lag while you play, once you process the video it comes out smooth. Simply running the file through VirtualDub will do that for you.

Don't assume your playback of the RAW AVI file you record with FRAPS is "accurate".. your computer is struggling trying to read 4GB of movie very quickly.. and if you jump around it re-struggles... it's just a large, large file, and most video players are not well designed to handle that...

But I assure you, 30 FPS is plenty for videos... Once that clip goes through VirtualDub, or otherwise gets compressed to something else, it gets a lot better

yeah mine does look good after i do that, just annoying to record at 25fps (its for arena). but i see people with 100fps ingame fps and still good quality is what i ment.

[Kewi]

FRAPS doesn't really have settings....

I mean:
Full/Half resolution -- self explanatory
FPS -- Minimum 24 fps, recommend 30 fps, maximum ~100 fps (just keep in mind it takes about 3MB/frame/sec for 1920x1080)
Sound or no sound -- self explanatory. Most videos sub in music, or do voice overs instead. Does help record performance to simply record without sound.
Lock Framerate doesn't work in WOW

WOW specific:
- Make sure vsync in wow is disabled
- I wouldn't record with WOW on "ultra"

Already mentioned, really this is just pointing the record location of Fraps:
- Record to a separate physical drive (Not a separate partition, a separate, physical, internal, drive)

[~Doom~]

ok thanks alot for your help i have been testing it a bit and been running 30fps on full screen cause i like that quality, although it does sometimes go below. I think a new cpu would fix it, i think i will get a new mobo and cpu as mine are fairly old and see how it goes from there. Thanks again.