How-To Record Gameplay in UT2K4
Here lately there have seen several questions as to how to record
during game play as this is something I was curios about a while back
and learned how to do. I felt now was as good as time as any to share
what I now know.
First off there are a couple of options to recording your game play. There is the command line option, and 3rd party recorders.
Command line
How to record:
- Access console mode while in game with ~
- Type demorec filename
- To stop type stopdemo
The video's that you get from recording in command line record in a
file called .demo4. These are small files that render out while it
plays basically.
How to Create AVI:
- Go to Community in the main menu
- Access the demos tab
- Select the demo you want to convert
- Click "Create AVI"
- Choose Filename, Size, and quality
This
built in function allows for easy conversions to .avi's. There are 2
draw backs of doing this those are high the speed at which it plays
back and the fact there is no sound. 2 Good things about it are easy to
use and it is already compressed for you so you don’t have to
compress it. While it converts to .avi. I must warn you it requires a
lot of system resources so it takes a while depending the length and
size of file.
Another approach to recording is 3rd party software. One that is mentioned here is a lot is FRAPS which is at www.fraps.com. It has several nice features including onscreen recording, FPS, and screenshots. All these features can be accessed through hotkeys you can set.
First visit the fraps site www.fraps.com
and download and install version 2.0. I feel I must warn you that 2.0
is a demo so it only records in 15 second increments with 15 second
pause in between. So to get the full version you must purchase it or
download an older version. The older versions however I am not sure
support sound I might be wrong. The version I am using is Version 2.0
which can be purchased for $29.95 usd. They do accept pay pal for those
of you who prefer pay pal.
Fraps
How to set Fraps up:
- Download Fraps on website
- once installed open and leave open while playing game
- Go to movies tab.
- Choose a folder to save to other than default
- set hot key I use the demo default of F9
- Select the FPS
- Make sure "Detect best sound input" is selected
On selecting a folder to save to other than the default I would suggest
just making a subdirectory called video in the main fraps folder and
save it there. That way it helps you to organize better.
Recording:
- Open the game with fraps open
- Join a game and when ready hit the hot key to start recording.
- To stop recording hit the hotkey again.
WARNING:
Using fraps requires tweaking of the system to run good otherwise it
sucks resources to do it. Game play might be choppy. I went from 17 fps
in onslaught without the record down to 7 with recording without
tweaking. I would highly suggest you use Ross J’s guide to getting more
performance out of
UT2K4 which you can get here:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=64960
I
would recommend fraps to use for recording game play. Fraps will record
in many if not all games that you play I have only tested it on three
games and those were UT2K4, Unreal II, and Quake 3. It records to AVI
with sound. It also records uncompressed so you can use video editing
software to edit the videos, and do commercials or advertisements (not
to make money off of, of course) basically to just play with. To
compress you it you need to do a divx compression or xvid compression
or something similar. Visit http://www.demondo.net/#2.08 for possibly more alternatives it will at least point you in the right direction.
Here
you go just a little how-to for you. I have never written a
how-to/tutorial before hope I did a good job of it if you would like to
add to what I have said please post it and I will add it to the main
how-to with credits to you
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