Software for recording games

There is a neat open-source alternative to Fraps named Taksi. You can tag the application you want to focus and record with a hotkeys. You also get an indicator in games when you're recording. It is quite flexible and you can use any available encoders installed, which allows for quite efficient and compact files. MPEG4 for instance worked fine on my dual-core 2.5GHz while recording a game at 1024x768.

You can find the latest version here. Also required is the latest beta release of ffdshow (svn builds dont work).

Once the installation is done you can follow this tutorial on worldoftanks.com to complete the configuration.

Some additional notes:

On Windows 7 you need to enable the Stereo-Mixer for recording devices in audio panel

• Hint: right-click and enable 'Show Disabled Devices'
• Caveat: might not be supported by your soundcard

For the MPEG4 encoder I recommend the following adjustments for the Input category:

• Force input colorspace = all RGB
• Enable image processing:
  • Shapen = xsharpen with strength (35)
  • Picture properties = Saturation (+4), Gamma correction (-0.05)

Feel free to recommend better codecs or configuration settings!

Interesting. Thanks for posting!

It would've been perfect if it hadn't been for Windows 7 and my old USB-based audiocard. You need a fairly recent card and driver support for that. Microsoft seems to disable stereo-mix in official drivers too, in a half-assed attempt to enforce copyright protection of audio, most likely mandated by its HDCP support.