Qazra
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:15 pm
PC Specification: Win7, 2500k, Xfire 6870, 8Gb DDR3@1033

Frame hangs in various games. (INVESTIGATING)

Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:36 pm

I love this software, the performance hit is almost unnoticable. However...
At viewing, and even after export, the footage has very short frame hangs. It seems like the video is going to race ahead of the audio and so the video is halted. This has happened in various games.

Eg. I played BF3 today and recorded everything. I can run the game in 1920x1080 with High settings with no problems; FPS stays at around 60 all the time. I also record at 60 FPS. During gameplay, there were no stuttering or anything, just smooth gameplay.
After I got to view the recorded footage, it frame-hanged for a very short time at some points, with around a second between each hang. Often in a heavily performance demanding scene.

What I noticed during viewing, was that the Bitrate keeps jumping up and down during a demanding scene, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of difference between the past seconds. I think the frame hangs are somehow related to this. The bitrate at recording/viewing is insane; around two hundred thousand. (Press the "i" when viewing from bottom left, it shows the bitrate and other info.)
Lowering the graphics to the lowest possible makes the hangs go away, though not completely. They become even shorter and don't come up as often, but the difference is clear. You could say this is the fix for the problem, lower your settings, but you don't want the game to look bad.

Other games include DiRT 3, Mass Effect 3, Batman Arkham City and Total War Shogun 2. All these performed during gameplay smoothly with no stuttering or lag, but they all also suffered from the frame hangs during playback.

I hope this gets addressed, since this is by far the best recording software I've used during the past ten year of gaming.

User avatar
Ghost
Mirillis Team
Posts: 1057
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 2:32 pm
PC Specification: dozens...

Re: Frame hangs in various games.

Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:57 pm

Welcome to our forum and thank you very much for your detailed feedback.

We will investigate this, as i remember I have not experienced any problem with Dirt 3 on few PCs.

Do you set Vsync on or off in games?
Can you please try to record with and without Vsync to see if problem reproduces for both options?
Mirillis Team Member

Follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/MirillisTeam
Find us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/Mirillis
Mirillis News Feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/mirillisfeed

Qazra
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:15 pm
PC Specification: Win7, 2500k, Xfire 6870, 8Gb DDR3@1033

Re: Frame hangs in various games. (INVESTIGATING)

Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:57 pm

Update:
Tested with V-Synch, no difference. The slight performance hit actually makes the hangs worse.
Upon further investigating of my own, I tested recording with 30 FPS and 50FPS.
At 50 FPS, the problem is just so slightly less worse than with 60 FPS. However, with the 30 FPS setting the problem is basically gone.
I also confirmed the above with my friend, who also uses Action!. He has the same hangs with 60 FPS but not as bad as I do. His CPU is slightly better.

I think the problem is that at 60 FPS, even though the computer can run the game at that rate and keep it up that way with the recording on; the CPU's resources are already poured on the game and thus the recording gets left behind; resulting in frame hangs.
With the lowest graphics; the 60 FPS recordings are smooth, just like the 30 FPS ones with no hangs.

So, I think these two solutions are adequate to fix this:
1. Record at 30FPS.
2. Record at 60FPS, but with lowered graphical settings.

All in all, it comes to what game are you recording, at what settings and at ? FPS rate.

lostprophet
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:36 am
PC Specification: Acer Aspire 5750G

Re: Frame hangs in various games. (INVESTIGATING)

Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:45 am

Just asking, are you talking about small hiccups in the video from time to time?

I tried and recorded a small gameplay from Kingdoms of Amalur and Jagged Alliance and during recording it has almost no impact on the FPS and that's a good thing.
BUT:
When I watch the videos back (both the FIC and converted video), there seems to be small hiccups in the video from time to time. As I said, I don't notice any of this during recording. So the recorded video is perfectly clear and not lagging, just these small hiccups (where it hangs for like half a second) are annoying.
I'm recording on an Acer Aspire 5750G (Core i5, 750 GB HDD, 8 GB RAM, GT540M) and for instance Fraps deals quite a work on my HDD, but the video recorded with it doesn't have any of these hiccups.

Return to “Action! Screen and Game Recorder”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests