Could anyone recommend a fine capture card?

[travelersfMember]

Hi

I’m currently looking for a capture card for my pc (to record game footage obviously), and I was wondering if anybody would have any recommendations, some products that have been working for you? The problem I’ve been running into is the fact that I’d like to record from my PC and get the picture to my monitor. Now, most capture cards and devices don’t support this, since they’ve been designed to record primary console footage. Also, there is the issue of lag when recording from pc. So I’ve been trying to figure out this stuff, but if anyone has anything in mind, it’d be deeply appreciated.

[dehietyiMember]

If you are trying to capture PC footage you really don’t need a capture card UNLESS you have a lot of bandwidth issues trying to record on the same computer. At that point what you really need is either a beefier Graphics Card (sometimes this will solve the problem) or a secondary PC to offload the work to (which would have a capture card and the like).

For a card that I’d look at is this. If your Graphics Card already has a HDMI out than this card can loop that HDMI signal back into the PC and offload all of the capturing work onto the card. This would solve all of your other problems like laggy gameplay and having a second PC. Hauppauge has been around for awhile and they make good products.

[travelersfMember]

Many thanks!

I think I’ll look into that. I guess programs like FRAPS could be used to record the PC footage. But I’ve heard some complains about it being laggy and since I have some plans to try some streaming some day, a capture card is an inevitable purchase anyway.

[nightmareirisMember]

FRAPS is a good method to record footage.

But, Dxtory is better as it runs on Multiple cores (where FRAPS does not) and can output different types of movie files. It also lets you record at any resolution without any issue and does not lower your framerate of your game. And also it makes video files not take up as much space as FRAPS typically does.

Camtasia is even good to use as well.

But, if you’re gonna stream/record Console footage use what @dehietyi suggested.

[weckarMember]

Not to hijack the topic, but FRAPS can only record from the graphics card, right? What would be suggested for older games that play through primary processor only?

[nightmareirisMember]

@weckar

FRAPS can only run on one core, which will be your Primary.

[weckarMember]

I think you misunderstand. If a game does not use Direct3D or some other form of graphics card control, FRAPS doesn’t ‘see’ it.

[nightmareirisMember]

I misread your question, yes. And you’re right. FRAPS cannot pick up on things running on Flash and such.
Neither can Dxtory, the only thing I know that can record that is Camtasia.

[Author]

Posts