Just a quick post to tell you a little about my experience with both FRAPS and MSI Afterburner for video capture.

A couple of days ago, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could actually show you what I do to farm Sunsong ranch as fast as possible, and my convenient fast spot for farming windwool cloth?” Thus began my attempt to capture video and commentary of my gameplay.

Short story, I wasted 3 hours of my precious time before I got it mostly solved.

I’m the proud owner of a MSI GEFORCE GTX 650 video card. Not the best, I know, but it was a huge upgrade from my old one earlier this year. Having this card, somehow I found out about MSI Afterburner, which is free software with the capability to capture as video, whatever is on your screen in real time.

Cool! I thought. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. I installed it, and couldn’t figure out how to get it to work. So I googled, read some articles, and tried again. Nope. Found another article with clear instructions, followed it. Got it to record two videos, but no sound. Then it mysteriously stopped working. It wouldn’t recognize the hotkey to start. Tried something else. Watched video tutorials, read articles. Reinstalled. Multiple times.

Finally, I gave up. I had heard of FRAPS by beepa. Found the website, and thought “Looks kind of amateur.” With a little hesitation, I downloaded the free trial. Installed it.

I was immediately able to record gameplay. With sound. From both the game itself, and my headset. AWESOME. 30 seconds later I went back and paid $37.00 for the full version.

I haven’t used it much yet. But I certainly have plans now. You’ll be seeing video from me soon. Just as soon as I learn how to edit it…