Okay with the growing number of people wondering why Fraps is lagging Or why they can't run it im going to make a guide for everyone to look at and post into so we can sort it all out in one post instead of answering the same question in many post.
Will also explain how fraps works and how to use it
if you are new to fraps as well as movie makeing check out this lovely guide made by Unska!
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/articleview.php?id=25Ill tell you the simple questions.
Problems with Fraps.
UPDATE:
What's Better FRAPS or Gamecam?
Fraps is definatly the best. There are way more options then gamecam. Yes i have tried them both.
Results(In testing which is better thanks goes to Valamir) Fraps has better quality, gamecam used 50% more CPU power. Fraps could record at 30 FPS, Gamecam recorded at 2.
FRAPS requires a really good computer to run it very smoothly if you don't have a good computer upgrade it a good thing to get is RAM get some of that to improve performance
"Im geting lag while recording FRAPS" commonly asked question this is some steps to try and not get lag
If you want know lag While recording try Improveing your computer.. Anything is good 50$ investment could get your Computer smooth with fraps.
If you can't do this "REMOVE UI" if you have it..it can Lag your computer up.
Sometimes especially in windows movie maker the footage itself can be abit laggy after you render it the lag will get better. (To render in windows movie maker use "save movie file" under the file tab save it to your computer and put .wmv after your movie) (that's for windows movie viewer codec)
if this doesnt work try puting Fraps in "Half Screen" that will be less quality but improves smoothness by a ton.
You can set Fraps to record at "Half size" which would result in an output recording of 576x432, giving you a nice final video, providing you encode it with decent quality settings
OR
Leave Fraps set to "Full size" and set your ingame resolution to something lower, like 800x600.
Still laggy and can't figure it out? Change your resolution read below.
The maximum resolution size for "Half Size" recording is 2560x1600.
For "Full size" recording the maximum resolution size is 1152x864
1280x800 (widescreen) For "WIDESCREEN" computers.
If you record with more resolution then fraps can handle it will lag you up.
UPDATE: If fraps isn't coming up letting you record ect....There "might" be somthing wrong in the installation process i would try Uninstalling it completely that means going into the fraps file and geting rid of ALL files and go back to Fraps
www.fraps.com and get it again
Restart your computer as well it could help.
If all this doesn't work and your still haveing lag it could be your computer invest in geting some new hardware to get FRAPS working properly.
Achieving good quality
One thing that is good to get to improve performance and quality is to get a second hardrive it doesn't have to be somthing real big but it will put less stress on the computer therefor helping in both quality of the movie and performance.
Guide to Video Capture and misc with FRAPS.
So people don't get confused with the title I will make a guide on how to use fraps for all those new people and for the ones who are confused with some features.
First Go to FPS tab. and there will be a button called "Overlay Display Hotkey" that lets you assign a button that will toggle the frame rate counter between the four corners and off i just have it set to F12 that button won't be used much atleast i don't.
Then below it there is somthing called "Benchmarking Hotkey" that lets you assign a button that can be used to determine the average frame rate between any two points in a game. To change the Hotkey, click in the box and type a new key to be assigned this function. Clicking Disable will stop the Hotkey from having any effect.
In the right hand corner if Fraps ( We are still in the FPS Tab) there is a black box that has "Overlay Corner" with that click which ever corner you want it to display your framrate If you don't want that to show up when recording click disable which is on the bottom of the box.
After that there is a box that says "Only Update overlay once a second" That's pretty much self Explanatory it updates your framerate
The "Stop benchmarking every 60 seconds" it should already be default as 60seconds but with a open box(not checked) beside it if you check the box it will only record whatever you have it set to imagine like the trial. another words it will stop recording after 60 seconds( Or whatever you have it set for)
And the last part is 'Save detailed Benchmark statistics" There basically diffrent files you can save them in.
You can choose these
FPS - Contains the frame rate value for each second of the benchmark
frametimes - Contains the time (in milliseconds) of every frame that was rendered in the benchmark
minmaxavg - Contains the total frame count, benchmark duration, minimum, maximum, and average frame rate values.
I just stick with default FPS it's what i like.
Recording your movie and saveing it.
Now we are on to the Movies part head over to the "Movies" Tab first thing you need to change is "Video capture hotkey" you can either keep it default or change it to whatever hotkey you want that enables you to start recording your movie mine is set to F9.
Now on the bottom of the Video capture hotkey option is a option called "Record sound" it's a box
If you want to record sound click it on then keep it on "Detect best sound input"
But if you want to have music in the background i suggest you keep it unchecked.
After that there is one of the most valuble tools the FPS! it looks like this....
25fps
30fps
50fps
60fps
After that there is a blank box where you can "CHOOSE" what FPS you want Max is 100.
Fps is basically your framrate and it will be displayed on whatever corner you have set if you have it on the "fps" tab
I would Recommend Not going any higher then 30 fps (if your comp can hand it) beacause the file will be huge if it's to high.
Useing higher FPS DOES NOT increase the quality it just makes the file bigger.
If it's still laggy at 100 there is a option on the side of that, That says..."Half size" "Full-size" if it's stil laggy click half-size once again the quality will be worse but it helps with the lag that people get
The last part is in the lower right corner and it has "No Cursor" "No sync"
I would recommend Checking No cursor that way when your movie is done you don't see a cursor running around in your movie.
and Sync i would recommend checking that as well.
Okay actually the last thing is this. When your done recording your file is going to be in the FRAPS file. to get to the movies directly go to your taskbar and right click on Fraps and click on "View Movies" from there you can go into your Video editing program and put it in! and to get back into FRAPS just right click on "Settings" it will take you right back into fraps.
UPDATE: How you check if your computer is lagging is if you have FPS enabled in the corner check it if it's 30 FPS and below you might want to fix some options
If it is 40 fps and up you should be fine with video capture..
And that is it if anyone else is formilliar with fraps and would like to post any other info that might help somone get FRAPS working post here and I will update my post
Goodluck!
