Insane Frame rate drops with FRAPS

**Blom89** · April 16, 2011, 01:59 AM

I get unexplainable frame rate drops with FRAPS and it only happens in Medieval 2 total war. now before im told fraps is a system killer etc, allow me to explain:

When FRAPS wants to work correctly, I average 60FPS while recording in Medieval 2, which is the FPS I set FRAPS to record at and I record at "full size".

Earlier today I recorded about 20 minutes worth of footage in Medieval 2. The footage was of the campaign map and a battle and not once did my frame rate dip below 60 while recording, even during the battle.

Yet just now, on the campaign map when I pushed the hot key to start recording with fraps, my fps is literally 1fps.

I restarted medieval 2 and fraps and it worked fine again for about a minute, then my frame rate went from 60 to 1fps again and stayed there until i would stop recording, then shot back up to around 140fps, which is my normal frame rate on the campaign map when im not recording.

why was able to record for 20 minutes at a consistent 60fps a couple hours ago, then suddenly now it hits 1fps and locks itself there until I stop recording.

I have a feeling its a compatibility issue with medieval 2.

here are some other average FPS in other games when I record:

Bad Company 2: 45-55FPS while recording.
Bioshock: 60FPS while recording
Shogun 2: 35FPS while recording
GTA 4: 40FPS while recording

but only medieval 2 will record at 60fps, then out of the clear blue sky, rain down an ungodly fire storm of 1fps and stay there until I stop the recording.

**Blom89** · April 16, 2011, 02:16 AM

Im doing a video diary of my russian campaign and this is seriously cramping my style!

**Jaketh** · April 16, 2011, 06:05 AM

Always record at 30 fps,it gives leverage for FPS drops which happens in medieval 2 constantly in battles

**NikolaTesla** · April 16, 2011, 10:00 AM

I get this problem with RTW sometimes. How much space do you have on your harddrive? This was my problem with RTW. My space would get down to only a few gigabytes while fraps was still recording, causing a severe drop in FPS.

**Blom89** · April 16, 2011, 02:17 PM

I dont think your understanding.

when fraps works properly, i get no frame rate drops at all.

then suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, the frame rate will drop to literally 1fps and will stay there regardless of whats on the screen until I stop the recording.

i defragged my hdd last night, but it didnt fix it.

I have about 115GB of free hdd space.

**Jaketh** · April 16, 2011, 08:59 PM

which version of fraps is it?

**Blom89** · April 16, 2011, 09:57 PM

Its working again for some reason. This seems so random. anyway its version 3.2.3

**Ishan** · April 17, 2011, 03:15 PM

Merged similar threads

**Crazyeyesreaper** · April 19, 2011, 07:34 PM

if your running only a single HDD, that could be the issue

you have to remember the game has to load info from the HDD to ram, fraps needs to use the HDD as well along with ram and page file, in general it can bog down during long recording sessions, dosent happen often but i record at 1920x1200 60fps as well and im fine when running fraps but its installed to its own hdd and i use the 3rd hdd as a page file on its own, which keeps things playing nice together. try setting recording to half size 30fps, after uploading to you tube full screen 60fps will be utterly worthless anyway. not to mention fraps codec is pretty crap in terms of compression and proper use of space,2hrs recording using a compressed codec = 600mb fraps codec i hit 11gigs + depending on game so it can add up quickly depending on settings.