Fraps and the slowing down of my computer

[Cream Soda]

I was trying to record some in game footage the other day and fraps was making me lag hard core. I was wondering if maybe there's something on my PC slowing it down that I may need to get rid of? What types of things would eat at my processing power? I used to be able to record a 40 man dyna lord w/o any issues while recording, but now I'm having trouble recording me and my friend duo'ing.

Anyone know some possible sources of the problems and potential answers?

[happydude]

everything is the same as it was before? u didnt reformat/reinstall/change reso or other graphic settings?

[Omniyoji]

Maybe the set process affinity to another core that FFXI isn't using changed?

[Killgannon]

what else are you running on your computer now that you werent then? random stuff could be eating resources/writing to whatever disk youre saving too...

also fraps just released a new version probably wont help much though

[Cream Soda]

what else are you running on your computer now that you werent then? random stuff could be eating resources/writing to whatever disk youre saving too...

also fraps just released a new version probably wont help much though

I had firefox and google chrome up up when i started the recording and when I noticed how laggy it was, I stopped the recording, closed firefox and chrome, went to record again and no improvement.

Other than that, foobar music player was up and AVG was up but not scanning or anything. (Which is my usual condition)

everything is the same as it was before? u didnt reformat/reinstall/change reso or other graphic settings?

Nothing of the sort. This is my usual res (1440x900) though, when I got my 2nd monitor, I ran it for it's max res of 1920x1080 and was albe to record a kirin fight in that res w/o any problems.

Maybe the set process affinity to another core that FFXI isn't using changed?

How would I go about doing something like this?

[Omniyoji]

CTRL+SHIFT+ESC for Task Manager > in the processes tab right click your desired process and choose "Set Affinity" > select the core for your process

[Cream Soda]

k, so I have a dual core, all processes are set to cpu 0 and cpu1. What would I change to make improvement?

[Reality]

i doubt it's the cpu causing your problem, it's most likely related to the harddrive(s) you're saving the video to as you're recording it

the best option is to have it record to a drive that isn't the same that FF11 is installed to

just finished recording an ultima run, i have FF11 installed on a simple 500GB 7200rpm sata2 drive, but I have fraps record to a raid0 2TB array, and i have absolutely no lag because the drive thrashing is on another set of drives than what FF11 is installed on

if you can set it up so your page file, ff11, and the fraps recording are all on different drives then you're golden

[Cream Soda]

Only way I'd be able to do that is w/ a USB enclosure for my that I use to attach my previous HDD to my laptop. Wouldn't that be slow, too though being that it's usb?

[Reality]

are you running everything on your PC from one harddrive?

[Cream Soda]

It's a partitioned drive, but yes, 1 drive.

[Omniyoji]

Select Pol.exe from the process list and set that to CPU 0
Select Fraps.exe? from the process list and set that to CPU 1

Also, Reality makes a good point about running/recording on 1 HDD


EDIT*

oh man that suxs lol, use the external USB hdd it'll be better than 1 but not as fast as running 2

[Killgannon]

defragment your HDD if you havent lately.......

make sure your fraps isnt recording at some silly settings too, i know it slows my computer down if i record at full res vs half res in fraps

[Cream Soda]

Defragment? I'm not too good outside of very basic stuff. What's that mean and how would i go about doing it?

[Reality]

you also might want to consider lowering the visual settings of the game and/or the settings in fraps so you're not putting as much strain on the system while recording

[Cream Soda]

you also might want to consider lowering the visual settings of the game and/or the settings in fraps so you're not putting as much strain on the system while recording

hmm well like I said, I have recorded in higher settings before which is why i'm curious as to why this would change now. I like the quality in my videos

[Cream Soda]

everything is the same as it was before? u didnt reformat/reinstall/change reso or other graphic settings?

Actually, now that I think of it, FFXI was initially on my C drive along w/ windows, everything else being on my D drive, but when enough updates hit, was no longer any room, so I was forced to move FFXI over to my D drive (which is where fraps has always been)

[Cream Soda]

Between the affinity thing and using my USB drive, seems to work just fine, though idk why it still doesn't work for me as it has before. This will do for now though, thanks all.